Printers printing random blank pages?

[Cache]

Can anyone help me as this has got me puzzled and I don't know where to begin!

 

Some of our printers have started printing a random additional blank sheet of paper. It's not always but it is bloody annoying! At first I thought it must just be people having a blank page at the end of a document or something like that, however it's happened several times to me today where I have sent a Marksheet to be printed from SIMS which is only 2 pages and in the middle it produced a blank page.

 

Even more puzzling is the fact when I go and look at the papercut print log, it shows that the print job was 3 pages even though it should only have been 2!!!!!

 

Where is this mysterious blank page coming from, can anyone help?!?

[NokiX]

I've seen this happen for a number of reasons which for us are either:

 

1. Printer is pulling more than 1 piece of paper through incorrectly.

2. Printer driver is causing the extra page to print.

 

In the first instance it was due to the printer needing a clean since it was an old HP laserjet but in the second case we use the HP universal driver and this seemed to be causing the issue but once we updated it the problem seemed to resolve itself! Although no changes may have been made to the driver it may be worth checking if there is an updated version just to see if that helps but those are the only two reasons I have experienced myself.

 

Edit: Also to add that the driver also started randomly malfunctioning for us as well but we aren't sure why exactly since it only affected a small number of clients around the target printer although the driver was pretty old so that's why we updated it. I suppose a corrupt driver could cause this also.

Edited June 13, 2016 by NokiX

[Cache]

Well I can rule out number 1 because papercut recognises that the print job consists of 3 pages for whatever reason, so it could be the driver I suppose. The driver has been working fine for 4 years ago since I commisioned this print server which is very annoying!

 

No newer drivers because of the age of the printers (HP Laserjet 4250, P2015 and CP3505n and it happens on all of them!)

[6Foot2]

I am sure that I have seen this here. I can't remember how we fixed it. What I do recall is that it was Pre Windows 7 [XP/98?] and pre Server 2012 [server 2003/2008?]

 

If I can find what we did I will post again.

[Cache]

If you could that'd be great. It's only started happening recently. (People have said the last couple of month, but it's only happened to me in the last week or so, but then again I rarely print things)

[kearton]

......

[6Foot2]

Having had a think on it overnight I can't remember the cause yet but I do recall something around the same time about making sure that our printer drivers were of the same generation of control language. There was something about having a mix of PCL5 and PCL6 on the same server as being a bad idea. I can't recall the details right now but this might be worth checking at your end?

[gds64]

My guess would be that the document is formatted for Letter size, and the print driver is reformatting the job for A4 - the overflow could be generating a 3rd page. It could also be the printer hardware reformatting the job, but PaperCut would only know that 3 pages had been generated if you have the "Validate page counts after printing" option ticked.

[Cache]

I've taken a look at the print drivers and I do have a mixture of PCL5 and PCL 6, however again all of these have been in that state since I setup the server 4 years ago.

 

The paper isn't set to letter (I've checked that more than once on both the printer and the client) and it is purely a blank sheet of paper. My SIMS Marksheet I printed out this morning, produced a blank sheet after the first page, the page numbering goes Page 1 of 2, blank sheet, Page 2 of 2 and papercut reports 3 pages being printed.

 

I've also just checked the papercut settings and the Validate Page Counts box is unticked so the printer is being instructed to print 3 pages somewhere along the line!

 

Edit: From the Print Server event log for that marksheet print job:

 

 

Document 121, tmpD7D.xml owned by (ME) on (MY Machine) was printed on (Printer) through port (IP Address). Size in bytes: 131708. Pages printed: 3. No user action is required.

Edited June 14, 2016 by Cache

[Cache]

I hate computers sometimes.

 

Printing a single page document from Microsoft Word now allows all other documents to print without an extra blank page.....

 

Now to print off the Dilbert comic and pin it up next to all the printers!

Edited June 14, 2016 by Cache

[6Foot2]

I hate computers sometimes.

 

Printing a single page document from Microsoft Word now allows all other documents to print without an extra blank page.....

 

Now to print off the Dilbert comic and pin it up next to all the printers!

 

Oh well you have found the answer (at least that's when you tell your customer base)

 

When it comes back, IF it comes back, it's a brand new problem.

 

[ben_mayo]

We had this problem with a few of our printers.

 

The issue was that there was too much paper in the tray for feeder that had been hammered and lost its "stickiness" to pull more than one sheet at a time causing blank pages to come out.

 

Good to see you found the solution though and the Dilbert comics are hilarious

[Cache]

Oh well you have found the answer (at least that's when you tell your customer base)

 

When it comes back, IF it comes back, it's a brand new problem.

 

 

Haha, I'll test it again on Friday when I'm back there.... stupid printers!