Having a strange problem where a print occasionally is not being printed
The scenario is that we print barcode labels with a barcode printer (Zebra LP2844).
Printer is plugged into the TerminalPC and then shared.
Printer->TerminalPC -> Terminal Server.
Session on TerminalServer is using Printer as \TerminalPC\Printer
When logging print Events we see the following:
Print OK:
1) Print OK (Event 10, User myUser)
2) Print deleted (Event 13, User NT-AUTHORITY\SYSTEM)
Print not OK => only Event 2) appears in the event log
Anybody having a clue about what is happening here?
More information:
This problems occurs about 2 out of 10 times. Only difference is an increasing ID being printed as part af the barcode.
The barcode is the only object being printed. It saves to file (*.emf) every time - and looks fine on file.
The application is developed using Delphi 2010 and works fine in all other ways.
Print jobs are removed from the print spooler by the port monitor. The port monitor "EndDocPort" function calls "SetJob" with JOB_CONTROL_SENT_TO_PRINTER to indicate the the job has finished, and this removes it from the spooler.
If the printer uses a custom port monitor, the problem could be in the printer driver or custom port monitor. If it uses a standard port such as LPT or USB, it's more likely a problem with the application not calling "EndDoc" consistently, or not checking return codes from EndDoc.
Related
I am creating a label printing function in a program that needs to create labels for the given information. I have created a label in Crystal Reports 9 but I'm having trouble printing it.
I don't want to save the label, I just want it to print directly after the system has created it.
Dim ap9 As craxdrt.Application
Dim rpt9 As craxdrt.Report
Dim dbt As craxdrt.DatabaseTable
Set ap9 = New craxdrt.Application
On Error GoTo errError2
Set iniFile = New CIniFile
On Error GoTo errError3
Set rpt9 = ap9.OpenReport(iniFile.pathReports & REPORT_LABEL_IN)
On Error GoTo errError4
For Each dbt In rpt9.Database.Tables
dbt.Location = iniFile.pathDbCosmet
If dbt.ConnectionProperties.count <= 5 Then
dbt.ConnectionProperties.Add "Database Password", iniFile.passwordCosmet
End If
Next
rpt9.RecordSelectionFormula = sFormula
rpt9.PrintOut False, CInt(txtPacksReceived.Text)
The following code allows me to select a printer
and after clicking 'Print' at that point I am shown another dialog
However, the code executes fine, there are no errors, but the print queue doesn't show any documents and the report doesn't print.
Is there some reason why I'm not able to print my labels?
I've had problems with Zebra printers in the past that all turned out to be driver related. Have you uninstalled the printer driver and reinstalled it? Otherwise try unplugging and removing the device, plugging it into a different port and trying again?
Most likely your report doesn't contain any data - some logical error in selection/suppression formulas or similar.
If you print to any other printer, does something print out? Tracing SQL (assuming your report is bound to SQL server), can you see issued query? Does it look correct?
I am using GX430t Zebra printer.
My problem is that after printer restart, printer is no longer printing special characters for Slovenia.
(example file for printing is below).
Example:
Printer is restarted and then we print example file from our application (we have our own app for printing labels). Slovenian characters are not printed:
Next step is to send that same file into printer via printer settings:
File is printed correctly:
What is even more interesting is that every file printed from our application is OK, after that step is done.
My question is: where does printer stores info about that? What I would like to do is include (if possible) this information into every file that I am printing, so regardless if printer was restarted or not, Slovenian characters will be printed correctly. Otherwise, we must use printer settings and sending example file to printer each time printer is restarted.
Example file with zebra language:
^XA^LH300,10^FO10,10^A0,20,20^FD Šazoćeđa gostinstvo d.o.o.^FS^FO10,20 ^A0,20,20^FDIme polizdelka: ^FS^FO10,40 ^A0,35,35^FDŠABAN ŠAULIĆ^FS^FO10,80 ^A0,30,30^FDDatum predpriprave: 25.04.2018^FS^FO10,120 ^A0,30,30^FDUporabno najmanj do: 25.04.2018^FS^FO10,160 ^A0,20,20^FDOddelek predpriprave: Centralna predpriprava^FS^FO10,190 ^A0,30,30^FDOddelek finalizacije: HKJ_topla kuhinja^FS^FO10,230 ^A0,30,30^FDKoličina: 7 (nar.); 0 (dos.); 7 (ned.); kg^FS^FO10,265 ^FB650,12,, ^A0,20,20^FDSestavine: MOKA PSENICNA T500 1KG (aler.: Gluten; psenica;); SOL KAMENA ; JAJCNI MELANZ (aler.: Jajca;); MLEKO SVEZE 10L (aler.: Mleko;)^FS^FO10,560 ^A0,20,20^FDPripravil: Šaban Šaulić^FS^XZ
Thanks to #banno - solution was to put proper encoding into .ZPL file. In my case, taken from this it was enough to add ^CI28 after ^XA
I am communicating with CUPS using IPP protocol. I have all drivers for my printers installed in CUPS (using .ppd file) and printers got latest firmware.
When I query a job which a printer printing right now it says that the job's state is 'complete' before the printer even finish printing. It seems that the CUPS marks the job as 'complete' when it finish 'uploading' the file.
I would not expect this behaviour and I basically need to know when exactly the printer printed last paper for a job.
The code looks as follow. The self.printer().ippPrinter() is an instance of node-ipp and it points to a printer. To read the the state of the job I am using attribute 'job-state'.
var msg = {
"operation-attributes-tag": {
'job-id': id
}
};
self.printer().ippPrinter().execute("Get-Job-Attributes", msg, function(err, res){
var attributes = res['job-attributes-tag'];
self.setAttributes = attributes;
callback.call(self, attributes);
});
Does anyone know why I am having this issue or .. how to make it working?
Thank you!
CUPS can only forward job-states received from the printer. A lot of printer drivers and protocols work like 'fire and forget'.
Usually IPP printers allow CUPS and other clients to monitor the current job-state until it's finished/printed. Some manufacturers don't implement IPP properly and classify submitted jobs as printed - even if the printer has a paper jam!
Conclusion:
If your printer does not fully support IPP you probably won't be able to check for 'printed successfully'.
RFC 8011 5.3.7.1
If the implementation is a gateway to a printing system that never provides detailed status about the Print Job, the implementation MAY set the IPP Job’s state to ’completed’, provided that it also sets the ’queued-in-device’ value in the Job’s "job-state-reasons" attribute
#Jakub, you may well be communicating with CUPS using IPP... But are you sure that CUPS is communicating with the print device via IPP?
You can check this by running
lpstat -h cupsservername -v
This should return the device URI assigned to each print queue, which CUPS uses to address the actual printing device:
If that URI does contain ipp://, ipps://, http:// or https:// CUPS indeed talks IPP to the print device and you should be able to get actually correct status messages.
But if you see socket:// then CUPS is configured to use the AppSocket method (sometimes also called 'HP Jet Direct' or 'IP Direct Printing') to forward jobs. This is a "fire and forget" protocol. Basically it is the same as if you did run netcat print-device 9100 < myprintfile to shovel the printable data to port 9100 of the printer. The CUPS socket backend handling this spooling to the printer will not get any other acknoledgement from the printer than what TCP/IP provides confirming that the last packet was transfered. Hence it has to close down its process and report to the CUPS daemon successful-ok, even if the printer is still busy spitting out lots paper and will maybe never complete the full job because it runs into a paper jam...
If you see lpd:// the situation is similar (but uses port 515).
You may have success with a full status reporting by switching the CUPS-to-printdevice path from AppSocket or LPD to IPP like so:
sudo lpadmin -p printername ipp://ipaddress-of-printer
or
sudo lpadmin -p printername http://ipaddress-of-printer:631
As i read in some fingerprint manual we can send text file to the printer. Means we can write the program in the text editor and send the whole program as a text file to the printer using the communication program using some transfer commands.
for in my host there is a file called myfile.txt in D:/ with the fallowing data
10 PRPOS 200,200
20 DIR 3
30 ALIGN 5
40 PRIMAGE “GLOBE.1”
50 PRINTFEED
RUN
How can i send this file to printer and execute the instrucations to print the image.
Please give me some code reference.
There are several ways to do this from the command line. For example:
type foo.txt > lpt1:
Or
copy foo.txt lpt1:
Or
print foo.txt
Or
notepad /p foo.txt
If you need to do it programmatically, you can execute any of those commands using the system() function or CreateProcess().
If you're on an Intermec handheld and you're connected to a Bluetooth printer, you should be able to open a serial port to COM6 and send your file over. What programming language? There should be plenty of Serial Port communication code examples out there.
My experience with Intermec PM4i label printer was a roller coaster but know I have a working app.
I tried Windows printer pipeline through generictext driver. It does work from Notepad but with few corner cases.
Printing directly from Notepad works fine until I tried QRCODE image with a very long text line. Image did not print out. Made qrcode text a short few characters and same script worked fine.
INPUT OFF
NASC 1252
BF OFF
FT "Swiss 721 Bold BT",12,0,100
PP 50,500:PT "Text line goes here"
PP 400,400:AN 7:BARSET "QRCODE",1,1,7,2,4
PB "ABC123 aabbcc....very long text goes here...I mean about 200 chars or more"
PRINTFEED
It was like Notepad cut text to a right side border and command string was broken. I made a printing preferences A3-landscape and it accepted longer text but still was not enough for all use cases.
All printers have a physical max printing width but it should not be considered in a fingerprint/directprotocol script files. After all we are not printing this text as-is but submitting commands to the printer.
My solution was to create Java application which opens a raw TCP socket to 11.22.33.44:9100 address and writes text lines, lines terminated by NL(#10). Works fine. Another helper tool I did was Delphi app.exe to read IP address from Windows printer object. I can submit label printouts "directly" from Excel application.
End users edit Excel data rows and click PRINT LABELS button
vba macro parses a fingerprint template file with ${FIELD1} find-and-replace substitutes
file is written to %wintemp%/intermec_script.txt folder
call app.exe to read IP address of user chosen printer
call java app to submit intermec_script.txt to IP:PORT socket
I should create same socket submit app in Delphi to drop javavm dependency but this solution was faster for my use case. I am more familiar with Java than my Delphi skill level.
I have a software that prints out to a thermal printer connected to the comm port, the code below works well.
Open "COM3:" For Output Access Write As #1
Print #1, Space(8) & "FRAKAS LTD"
Print #1, Space(7) & "P.O. Box 7678 SHIMONI"
...
...
Close #1
Now I want to print on the same comm port but from a different computer on the network, is it possible?
You can redirect the serial port across the network by running software at each end. There is some info on Wikipedia here about some solutions - I haven't tried any.
We have used ethernet to serial converters from Moxa - these redirect a local COM port to a remote one without any PC at the remote end. One example is here
if the printer is availabe then you can use the following to prepare text to be printed :
printer.print "text"
to start the actual printing you use the following :
printer.enddoc