PCounter Problem - Disappearing printer jobs issue

[rich_tech]

Hello Edugeekers,

 

I have raised the issue with Altman and spoken with their tech support, but I had a good point raised by @garethedmondson today, in that I should ask on here as well especially as we seem to be having a strange intermittent issue at the moment with our pcounter system its happened since our rebuild and virtualisation.

 

At the school I work, we are having an odd issue that has only affected 5 users so far, with printer jobs not sitting in the queues longer than 15 seconds before simply disappearing after the person selects their departments client code, this typically lasts in excess of 5 minutes on the machine where anything they can print will simply disappear, but its very frustrating for the user as they can come right across the campus thinking their jobs are still there to find nothing waiting for them.

 

We have pcounter setup so that all staff will print to a mapped "Pull Queue" printer, they can then go along to any MFD on the network and select and print off their jobs, staff have unlimited credit on our system with departments being billed for their relevant staff usages. All MFD printers and the pull queue are setup in the same manner, though the config of the pull queue differs slightly in line with Altmans setup guides, we have eliminated it being the obvious settings like "Delete Duplicate Jobs" as that is turned off on the Queue and all MFD devices.

 

We have had all the relevant checks done by me having gone right through the system and double checked by Altman and we are still seeing the issue occasionally, even the event viewer and pcounter logs do not show the job, it simply disappears from sight on the windows printer queue, though everything seems absolutely fine and normal as regards putting the print job through to the printer.

 

At the moment, we are stumped, has anyone else experienced anything like this with their setups ?

 

Thanks,

 

Rich

[MatthewL]

What MFD's are you using with this?

 

Also what driver is on the pull queue and release queue? Is it PCL or PS?

[MatthewL]

What MFD's are you using with this?

 

Also what driver is on the pull queue and release queue? Is it PCL or PS?

[Marshall_IT]

If like to get a reply to this too. I have a slightly different issue.

 

Using pcounter and pull queue. Xerox mfds.

 

Staff print, go to collect their print, click print and it disappears and nothing comes out.

 

I keep getting passed from ait to xerox both blaming each other.

 

Tbh I hate pcounter! I wish I could move to papercut ASAP but I'm locked in a 5 year deal.

[MatthewL]

Marshall_IT drop me a PM, might be able to help.

[twin--turbo]

Look at the jobs and check they are in a paper format the printer can handle.

 

In my old role we would get jobs sent as A5 and the MFD would discard the job.

 

Check the device logs and see if the job has been logged and if there is any detail on that.

 

I did however see a number of instances where the job just dissapeared with no trace, the job left PCounter but the MFD ( Toshitba ) did not log any interaction at all!

 

Rob

[rich_tech]

They are konica minolta MFDs on our site with the managed setup we have, we also have some brother and hp printers that are being slowly phased out, though they are individual or area specific printers making quite a mixture.

 

The pull queue uses the PCL driver for the C652 we have and its set up the same as the C652 and finisher so that staff can print off stapled jobs if needs be using it, when we migrated the server, I mimiced all the old settings to the new server.

 

I have seen the problem happening live now multiple times, Altman would like me to capture it so they can see it for themselves though, what happens is basically they click print, they then get the client code selection screen appear, usually their main department it defaults to, I selected Maths which this user had access too and it seemed to be sitting there fine, I had the windows printer queue open on the computer and it basically just disappeared off the device about 4/5 seconds after selecting the client code.

 

It was an A4 PDF page which was fine for us, our printers are set and print - A4, A3 and can accommodate "Letter" when a program shoves them through in that size by mistake, usually on release of the job if its letter they just have to manually tell the printer its an A4.

 

The reject log for pcounter doesnt record anything, neither does the pcounter log on the server.

[twin--turbo]

Yep sounds familiar , no trace of the job.

[MatthewL]

Is there anything in the log on the MFD, not familiar with Konica so cannot point you in the direction, want to know where its getting lost.

 

If you print a windows test page from the release queue does that print out? In DACCS have you realigned the queues, i.e. the main print queue and the output one? I take it all MFD's have been rebooted?

[MatthewL]

Is there anything in the log on the MFD, not familiar with Konica so cannot point you in the direction, want to know where its getting lost.

 

If you print a windows test page from the release queue does that print out? In DACCS have you realigned the queues, i.e. the main print queue and the output one? I take it all MFD's have been rebooted?

[rich_tech]

Hello and thanks for your help all,

 

The job isnt getting as far as the MFDs looking at it, its just sitting on the pull queue for about 20 seconds total before disappearing, I have been right through the Event Viewer on the server which is where the pull queue printer is based and there is nothing at all in there relating to the jobs at all.

 

Its as though they havent ever printed at all.

 

EDIT: I have been through the event viewer on the machine I printed from, there are errors in the printservice bit, but I do not see how they would be related, the errors relate to the print processor for a different printer attached to their OU in the network a Brother 2700 printer that they have there.

 

I have changed its print processor now, hopefully that error will disappear, but it is definitely related to the Brother printers and not the KM Pull queue we have running.

Edited March 21, 2014 by rich_tech

[MatthewL]

Have you looked in the PCounter reject log file to see if its in there?

[rich_tech]

reject log was the first place I looked, its frustrating because it keeps happening intermittently, it may be fine for a week or two then wham again !

[twin--turbo]

Does the user accounting show anything?

[rich_tech]

User accounting shows nothing so far, from my POV here, I have stepped back and examined a lot of what was going on, it looks to me now to possibly be more to do with Windows Server 2008R2 and its print services than anything else,

 

What I have done today, is untick the "render jobs on client computers" box of the printer properties, to get the print server pumping away doing that work instead of possible permissions errors on the windows PC.

 

The only issue though I had today then, was that the print server appeared to have a bit of a funny turn around 12:45 where loads of jobs went through to the pull queue with the staff and it seemed to need rebooting as it said "ready" instead of "paused" and had no cost attached to them in the queue.

 

The next thing I will look at from my POV is driver isolation and getting that set on there.

 

Bit of a frustrating this stuff as it never ever happened before on our old server

[rich_tech]

I just wanted to close off this thread and thank all for their suggestions and support.

 

I think the issue was down to the print drivers and the print server, not pcounter as I initially thought, it appears that in beefing up the VM spec a bit in anticipation of the demand with isolation and turning on Driver Isolation on the print queue on the server, I have cured this problem, I have not had a job reported to me as disappearing within the last two weeks that its been active now. *touches wood*

 

I have isolation on for our MFDs now that people can print directly too as a further precaution, all is well so far.