Printing job over and over

[uglog2]

We have several different branded networked dot matrix printers for invoicing, and account reports etc.

When the job is sent to printer, the job is held in queue, but doesn't appear to send entire job to printer, it will send approx half. After the printer has finished printing half the job a 'error - printing' message in displayed with in queue and the begining of the job starts printing again. The full job would never entirely print.

This only occurs with large print batches.

If only half the batch is sent, then the printer works fine.

We have a Windows 2003 server, with W2k clients, printing from both DOS and Win apps, using Netgear and Intel Print servers.

Can you help?

 

[BudTheGrey]

I'm presuming these printers are handled as shares on the Win2K3 server? On the client side, in the printer properties, advanced tab, set the printer for "send print jobs directly to the printer" (no spooling). On the server side, on the 'advanced' tab of the printer properties, set it for "start printing after the last page is spooled."

If the workstations are set up to talk directly to the print servers, on each workstation, set the "start printing after the last page" option.

You may also be having a timeout problem with your DOS apps. Becuase there's no definitive mechanism for a DOS program to tell Windows that it's done creating a job, Windows simply looks for pauses in output, and chops the job off after a certain amount of time elapses with not output. Novell servers have a timeout value that can be set; I don't know if there is a windows equivalent.

 

[uglog2]

Thanks for the reply.

All printers are handled as shares on W2k3 server.

Jobs from client pc are sent to w2k3 queue, from there is sent to print server.

I am unable to configure printer queue from client side, rights thing I guess. I have however configured the queue on the server to "start printing after the last page".

I think it related to timeout problem, as before we migrated from Novell server we never had this problem.

Couldn't find an option on server to configure timeout value.

 

[BudTheGrey]

I think I found your fix here:

http://www.resortdata.com/Customers/Knowledge/KB-DOS/K000036.htm

Basically, there's a registry entry that controls the time out.

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\WOW

Setting "LPT_Timeout"

Hope this helps

 

[uglog2]

Thanks.

I also found this software that has to be installed onto client PCs,

http://www.printfil.com/english.htm

Allows you select what network printer for dos apps and also the ability time out period. Problem is s/w is a bit buggy!