Printers on printserver gone all funny :(

[dsk]

We have a server 2008 r2 server acting as a printserver.

 

We have an HP 4700 (well a few of them plus other HP printers) attached to the server along with PaperCut software.

 

For some bizarre reason our 4700s have decided to only print in black and white, no colour option. We've changed/updated the driver, reset the settings, reset the settings in papercut, deleted the printer and port, removed all drivers for the model, tried the universal driver but its just not playing ball. Also restarted the print spooler, no luck.

 

We have a similar thing happen on our staff network on server 2003 server, except this time the prints keep coming out A5 size on A4. Done pretty much all of the above and still no luck!

 

Any other things im missing we can try?

[Big_Ted]

As a test i would disable the papercut print provider service this will then help you see where the issue is (driver or papercut)

[dsk]

The other thing i should have probably mentioned is that on the client side, when they go to advanced properties when printing, the tab for colour seems to have disappeared. The annoying thing is we havent actually changed anything. Removing and re adding the printer doesnt seem to resolve this.

 

Disabled Papercut, no change sadly.

 

Seems like its driver related, but given what we have done, nothing seems to be working?

[skell]

Have you tried the HP Universal Postscript driver?

 

HP Color LaserJet 4700 Printer series- Download drivers and software - HP Business Support Center

[dsk]

Hello,

 

Yeah, we've tried that, but when we try and install 32bit drivers it refuses to do that saying unsupported architecture. Even downloaded the 32bit drivers for 4700 universal but it wont accept them...

 

Seems like you need the 32bit drivers for win 7 to compliment x64 universal drivers.

 

Sadly our server is 2008 r2 (64bit) and our clients are winxp 32bit. To be honest its been working well for some time, so not really sure why its just decided to play up.

Edited September 16, 2013 by dsk

[fiza]

Not a solution but just to say we have similar problems but we are 32bit 2003 server to win7 64bit clients (with some 32bit xp clients left). Since moving to 64bit Universal print drivers we have had no end of issues. We have both HP and Ricoh printers. Users cannot print to bypass trays on the Ricohs (when they could before). Printing landscape causes print to go over 2 pages when print preview shows as 1 page!