[sims] Examinations Organiser Print Failure

[Spizzy01]

Hi All,

 

It is very VERY common that when we are using SIMS.Net Examinations Organiser it will sometimes simply stop printing to anything, whether it be PDF, Fax or an actual printer it will do nothing. Any other application will work fine and will continue to print, but Examinations Organiser will not.

 

This has been an ongoing issue ever since we got SIMS.Net 3 years ago, and I took the assumption that it was simply a bug that was going to be ironed out at some point which of course has not been the case.

 

We've tried several things to try and resolve the issue such as restarting the Print Spooler service, reinstalling the printer, restarting the PC (which sometimes fixes it and sometimes doesn't) and so on but there is no definitive fix for the issue. Sometimes removing the printer, reinstalling it and then setting the printer to default and reloading SIMS.Net/Exams will fix the issue but surely this should not be common practice for someone who wants to print a simple report from Exams Organiser.

 

Has anyone ever ran into this issue before themselves? And is there a fix for it?

 

We've recently been rendered unable to contact SIMS.Net through their Bedford helpdesk and now have to go through our new support unit instead which is just more hassle than it should be. Whenever I ring (which has only been a few occasions) they like to make you feel like you've done something wrong by ringing them, but that's another story altogether!

 

If anyone can help that would be great! Thanks.

[Steve21]

Not related to that in particular, but we find with all SIMs reports, there's a Word hotfix that fixes 99% of issues with printing, due to the way it uses Macros in SIMs to generate the documents etc.

 

word2010-kb2553912-fullfile-x86-glb.exe

Description of the Word 2010 hotfix package (Word-x-none.msp): June 28, 2011

 

Pretty much our standard fix now is try that patch first lol I know it sounds stupid, but might want to give it a shot if you get a minute

 

Steve