Patent ID: 8355145

Claim:
An image forming apparatus in which an image is formed by a plurality of image forming operations comprising: a plurality of modules each of which has a control section, assigned to perform part of the plurality of image forming operations; and a shared data storing device for storing at least operation condition information of each of the plurality of modules, wherein each of the control sections of the plurality of modules writes the operation condition information including an occurrence of abnormality into said shared data storing device, wherein each of the control sections of the plurality of modules reads the operation condition information of other modules among said plurality of modules from said shared data storing device, wherein each of the control sections of the plurality of modules performs the assigned image forming operation, and wherein in a case where each of the plurality of modules detects the occurrence of abnormality based on the operation condition information stored in the shared data storing device, each of the plurality of modules performs a particular operation corresponding to the occurrence of abnormality.