Fw: Help on Printer problem

Mon Jul 23 10:53:53 PDT 2018

Might be some oddness with new versions of windows print drivers.
https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/LaserJet-Printing/Send-Raw-Print-Jobs-do-not-print/td-p/6569853
I think this essentially says that applications (in this case filepro) need
to change a little to send raw data to printers.

But that's just total guessing. They already said some things you have to
check:
* Does the printer support pcl5? (The specs for the model on HP's site
looks like it does, but it's hard to tell these days if that really means
it does or if there is just some sort of emulation in the printer driver,
which may let some applications work and not others.
* Are you sending a thorough init sequence? That link above also talks
about that, like the pjl universal escape (^[-12345X), etc. The old ^[E
isn't always good enough any more to be sure you've really cleared out all
settings left over from whatever was the last print job sent to the printer.
* Have you tried manually constructing a simple pcl file and sending it to
the printer with the COPY command?

There are 50 links in the chain from filepro to the paper. You need to
break the chain up into chunks and eliminate some to zero in on what's
wrong. Otherwise it could be anything. If you create a pcl file manually,
then you are testing the printers ability to understand pcl and temporarily
eliminating the possibility "is fp generating good pcl data?". If you sent
that file with the copy command, then you eliminated the path from fp to
the pc and through the pc's print spool and printer driver, and you're only
testing the path from the pc to the printer. Whether that prints or not
tells you where to look next, and elimitaes 50% of the posibilities, which
eliminates a lot of aimless guessing.

If it doesn't print, then make sure your hand-crafed pcl is good, and maybe
try using netcat to send the raw data to printer on port 9100 (if it's a
network printer.) Based on that thing in the link above, might want to try
changing the printer driver on one PC just as an experiment. Remove the
proper driver and install a plain old Laserjet II or Laserjet 4 or Laserjet
5 pcl5 driver. These are all old drivers that are built-in to windows and
all send pretty basic PCL that works on almost any pcl capable printer, at
least to do basic printing without any special features. Like, If the
printer has extra features like multiple paper hoppers or duplex printing
or color or very high resolution, fancy half-tone dithering algorithms etc,
you won't get any of that, but it will print a document. Then if that works
but the proper driver doesn't, I don't know. Try other drivers. Often with
current PCL6 printers, there is both a pcl6 and a pcl5 driver for the same
printer. You could try just uninstalling the pcl6 driver and installing the
pcl5 one. That *shouldn't* make a difference since it should just be
passing data raw from the application in the case of fp. The "pcl6" in the
driver name should just relate to what kind of data windows generates when
it takes GDI data from modern apps. Shouldn't apply to fp, but it's easy to
try. Maybe modern versions of fp, especially the windows versions, maybe
they work differently than they used to. (I don't use modern versions of fp
OR any windows versions.) There might also be some options about spooler
behavior in the printer driver properties in windows. Look for something
about "raw". I don't have a windows10 machine with this printers printer
driver installed, so you have to poke around and see what you can see
yourself.

-- 
bkw

On Mon, Jul 23, 2018 at 12:01 PM Richard Hane via Filepro-list <
filepro-list at lists.celestial.com> wrote:

> Anyone have a solution to the problem I posted last Friday? (below)
> Thank you in advance,Rick Hane
>
>      On Friday, July 20, 2018 11:00 AM, Richard Hane <
> yoresoft at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
>
>  OK this problem has me hitting my head on the desk.
> Printer model HP402DN.Here is the definition as it appears in
> filePro:maryhp, hp-2100, win:maryhp, Mary's deskI have verified that the
> share name is maryhp; which is the same with the old printer which the new
> printer replaces. I have also verified that in windows programs (ie. Word &
> Excel) the printer name is listed as maryhp.
> All programs print correctly except filePro which does nothing.
> Anyone have an idea what the problem is?
> Thanks, Rick Hane
> Below are the drivers that were installed.Basic drivers:HP LJ Pro
> M402-M403 n, m, dn, dne Printer PCL 6 v3 Print Driver SolutionHP LJ Pro
> M402-M403 n, m, dn, dne Printer v3 PCL 6 Print Driver (no installer)
>
>
>     On Thursday, July 19, 2018 11:27 AM, Richard Hane via Filepro-list <
> filepro-list at lists.celestial.com> wrote:
>
>
>  Hi Nancy,
> We do use the win:printername format.  You maybe correct.  I'll check to
> see what they named them in windows as.
> Thank you,Rick
>
>
>     On Thursday, July 19, 2018 10:40 AM, Nancy Palmquist via Filepro-list <
> filepro-list at lists.celestial.com> wrote:
>
>
>  Rick,
>
> All printers are not created equal.  Remember you need a printer that
> speaks PCL or you need software like PrintWizard that can translate PCL
> to a Graphic for the stupid Windows printers.
>
> If you know your printer speaks PCL directly, then as others suggested
> you might need to run appropriate installation steps to properly connect
> the printers to your network with the right drivers.
>
> Then renaming them on the computer to match your replaced printer names
> so that to filePro they look like the same printer would make the
> connection to filepro work.  Of course, that assumes you used the
> WIN:HPwhateverprinter as a way to connect to the printer.  If you used a
> network path name or LPT1 or something like that other things might need
> to happen.
>
> My preferred method is the WIN:[Windows Printer Name exactly] method
> because then the print job is sent to windows and windows is responsible
> for moving the job to the printer using the windows established
> location.  This has always seemed much easier to manage than the other
> methods.
>
> Nancy
>
>
> On 7/19/2018 9:53 AM, Richard Hane via Filepro-list wrote:
> > Good morning list,
> >
> > Although I have been retired for over 3 years, I still get calls on
> filePro issues. And now a new one.
> >
> > We have fpodbc 5.0.13, 16 user network version a Windows network.  We
> have about 9 printers on the system all HPs.  Most of these are
> HP-P1606dn.  We use fp printer definition HP-2100.  This has worked for
> over 15 years.
> >
> > For some reason they decided to replace 2 of those printers with
> HP402DN.  All they did was unplug the old printers and plug in the new
> ones.  Now they get no response on the new printers.  I don't believe they
> get any error messages from fp or windows either.
> >
> > Is there another printer type we should be using in filepro?  Anyone
> other suggestions welcome.
> >
> > Thank you in advance,
> > Rick Hane
> > _______________________________________________
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>
> --
> Nancy Palmquist        MOS & filePro Training Available
> Virtual Software Systems    Web Based Training and Consulting
> PHONE: (412) 835-9417          Web site:  http://www.vss3.com
>
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-- 
bkw
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