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Archived Printers

A printer you've retired — sold, decommissioned, swapped out for a newer model — doesn't have to be deleted. Archiving soft-retires it: the printer disappears from the whole app and drops its MQTT connection, but its full print history stays intact so you never lose the archive of what it produced.

What It Is

Archiving is a one-click "put this machine away" action. An archived printer:

  • vanishes from the Printers page, every printer picker, and the print-queue view;
  • is excluded from dispatch — the scheduler, Auto-Queue Routing, model-based assignment, and the virtual printer never route to it;
  • is dropped from metrics and sensor-history recording;
  • is left out of PA-profile assignment — the spool form's K-profile picker (and the count on its PA Profile tab) only offers non-archived printers, so a retired machine's old calibrations don't clutter new spools;
  • disconnects from MQTT and stays disconnected until you restore it;
  • keeps every one of its print archives — the history is preserved, not deleted.

It's the graceful alternative to Delete Printer, which throws the machine (and, by default, its archives) away for good.

Permission

Archiving, restoring, and permanently deleting a printer all require printers:delete — an admin-grade permission held by the Administrators group. Operators and Viewers can't archive a printer.

Archive vs. Maintenance Mode

Archiving and Maintenance Mode are two independent axes — a printer can be in either, both, or neither. They solve different problems:

Maintenance Mode Archive
Intent Temporarily park a working printer (nozzle swap, belt job, flaky machine) Retire a printer you're done with (sold, decommissioned)
Card on Printers page Stays visible with an amber Maintenance pill Hidden entirely
Underlying field is_active flag separate archived / archived_at columns
Permission printers:update printers:delete
How you exit Exit button on the card Restore under Settings → Printing

Because they're separate flags, a printer archived while it was also in Maintenance Mode stays parked (is_active=False) when restored — it won't silently reconnect just because you unarchived it.

What Happens When You Archive

Triggering an archive (POST /api/v1/printers/{id}/archive) runs, in one transaction:

  1. Blocked while printing. If the printer is running a job, the request is refused with 409 — Stop the active print before archiving this printer. Stop the print first, then archive.
  2. Pending queue items are cancelled. Every pending item on that printer's queue(s) flips to cancelled, and the response reports how many were cancelled (cancelled_items). Nothing is left orphaned in a queue that's about to disappear.
  3. archived is set (with archived_at stamped to the current time).
  4. MQTT is disconnected. The printer drops off the wire and won't reconnect until restored.

From that moment the printer is invisible to every availability query in the app.

Can't re-add the same serial

An archived printer keeps its serial number. If you try to add a new printer with a serial that belongs to an archived one, BamDude refuses with 409 — This serial belongs to an archived printer — unarchive it instead of re-adding. Restore it instead.

Restore or Delete

Archived printers resurface in exactly one place: Settings → Printing → Archived printers. Each row shows the printer's name, model, and when it was archived, with two actions:

Action Icon What it does
Restore Unarchive the printer (POST /api/v1/printers/{id}/unarchive). It reappears everywhere and reconnects to MQTT — unless it's also in Maintenance Mode (is_active=False), in which case it stays parked.
Delete forever Permanently delete the printer (DELETE /api/v1/printers/{id}). This is irreversible and, by default, also removes the printer's archives. Confirmation is required.

The panel only appears for users with printers:delete.

History Is Preserved

Archiving never touches print_archives. Everything the printer ever produced stays in the Print Archive, and the Archives page keeps archived printers in its printer filter — so you can still filter history by a retired machine long after it's gone from the dashboard. That's the whole point of archiving over deleting: the record outlives the hardware.

Wherever those past prints surface — the Statistics per-printer breakdowns and bar chart, the Archives list / grid / calendar, and that printer filter — a retired printer is labelled Printer N (Archived) instead of its old name, so it reads unmistakably and is never mixed up with an active machine. In those same lists archived printers also sort to the bottom, below the active ones.