A mis-fire that results in a cylinder shut-off WILL light the check engine light as soon as the the shut-off occurs. An intermittent mis-fire that is not calculated to be damaging to the cayalytic converter is simply stored as a DTC. If the same event should occur on two consecutive "trips" the CE light is turned on at the beginning of the next trip. When reading codes the difference is simply an "A" code or a "B" code. The "B" code is the one that results in cylinder shut-off, if it occurs at a frequent enough interval. Cycling the key will begin the next "trip". The cylinder that was previously shut off will operate normally until the fault re-occurs. Once a cylinder is shut off(via fuel injector interuption) it will not come back on until the key is cycled. I hope this clears things up.