Printing Issues or "Why I am going to put my HP printers out the window"

[Stuart_C]

OK Currently I am having three printer issues and I was wondering if anyone could provide me with some advice.

First off, I'm using HP Laserjet 5200n and HP Laserjet 5550n win 2K3 Server with Software Shelf's Print Manager Plus (almost the latest version, there is a new update that I've yet to apply). XP computers with Office 2007.

I was getting a number of PCL XL errors randomly, google told me that this could be due to communicatin errors and that changing the driver from PCL6 to PCL5 could fix the problem. I tried this (downloaded the latest drivers from HP)and whilst it seems to have solved one problem it has generated a new one. 9 out of 10 times the dcuments print fine, then at random it will print one document off with all the characters swapped for rubbish. Normally formatted correctly but with the text as random characters and punctuation. I can't see a pattern or reason too yet it happens on both printers. Any ideas?

Second now I've changed driver for the HP Laserjet 5550n when someone tries to print multiple copies of a document it prints them and then occasionally prints an extra page saying "Unable to store job at printer, Printer does not support collation at printer, turn off Mopier Enabled in oyur printer driver". Fine except I have already turned off Mopier enabled and the hard disk in the printer driver.

Thirdly I have a problem with an HP Laserjet 1020 and 1022. The printers work fine if you print text only. If you print a picture with the text it prints a vertical black line on the end of every line in the right hand margin. Again I've already taken the latest drivers from HP and I've tried both the host based driver and the full feature install.

[powdarrmonkey]

Switch off the advanced printing features on the printer properties, we've been having the same trouble.

[Stuart_C]

For the last one or all of the above?

[markwilliamson2001]

Hi

We have a very large number of HP printers, and use to run Print Manager Plus, until upto a year ago. We again had issues with printers not printing properly, and random issues, until we eventually got rid of Print Manager Plus.

We are now using Papercut NG (Software for print quota and print control management. Your print accounting and monitoring solution - PaperCut) after it being recommended on here, and have experienced no issues at all since changing over to it. Even our ICT teachers are doing there own print quotas for students and they love it too! It also makes troubleshooting "I CANT PRINT" scenario's since most of the time its down to kids not having enough quota!

Give Papercut a try, its dead easy to setup, and we run the client program as an exe at logon.

The install instructions are really easy to follow as well.

HTH
Mark

[meastaugh1]

For the last one or all of the above?

For the garbled printing on 5550 at least, as we have also experienced this issue.

[markwilliamson2001]

I can pretty much guarantee that most issues are with Print Manager Plus!!

Try removing it, and seeing if the problems disappear!! We found that ours did!

If you need any advice for paper cut, let me know!

M.

[powdarrmonkey]

We don't use PMP. I would try it on them all, there isn't much that the advanced features give you - usually a smaller print size, because the driver optimises it more heavily. That's what sometimes causes the corruption.

[HodgeHi]

Hi

We have a very large number of HP printers, and use to run Print Manager Plus, until upto a year ago. We again had issues with printers not printing properly, and random issues, until we eventually got rid of Print Manager Plus.

We are now using Papercut NG (Software for print quota and print control management. Your print accounting and monitoring solution - PaperCut) after it being recommended on here, and have experienced no issues at all since changing over to it. Even our ICT teachers are doing there own print quotas for students and they love it too! It also makes troubleshooting "I CANT PRINT" scenario's since most of the time its down to kids not having enough quota!

Give Papercut a try, its dead easy to setup, and we run the client program as an exe at logon.

The install instructions are really easy to follow as well.

HTH
Mark

How did you deploy the Papercut Client for windows? I have tried and get errors each time i try to run the .exe? I know its me doing it wrong its just that i am unsure as to what the documentation is getting at. I have tried to share the folder with the client in but when i click on the .exe i get the error.

But it is an ace print manager though

[stl_support]

Hi HodgeHi,

as part of my job i dabble in some papercut support so will try and help

i assume you read the "README" located in the client folder?


The client folder is shared when papercut is installed.
What errors do you get?

you can email me / pm me error pics/logs if you like just do it through the edugeek profile

[markwilliamson2001]

I didn't deploy the MSI file, I just use our modlogin.scr logon script with the following line:

run "\\printserver\PCclient\pcclient.exe" (or something similiar) that is in the instructions. I would make sure Domain Computers have read access on the PCClient share on your printserver, as I think ours didnt run at first.

HTH
Mark

[techyphil]

We've just had alot of that today! Ever since sims updated, exams are struggling to print also havint PCL issues!

Btw, is PS better then PCL? Whats the difference?

[Stuart_C]

Back on topic slightly One of our students has just had this problem. Siezing on the opportunity I hijack their computer. I printed the document to both the big laser's I have, HPLJ 5200 and 5550, and on both it comes out as garabge. I then stop the Print Manager Plus Service (and I wait until windows has it listed and not running as opposed to "stopping") and then try printing.

Document is still garbage. So I printed it from my machine which prints direct to the printers using the PCL6 driver and it comes out fine.

[boomam]

One thing i always find helps with HP printers, is to ensure that LPD is on and set to auto in the web gui.

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