Laser Jet printers! Argh...

[stu]

I have no idea where to class this fault any more, I have 3 laser jet printers refusing to accept printouts. There all based off the same cabinet (containing 2 switches), the printers themselves have been configured identically to other working printers on the networks (except names).

I have replaced the jet direct cards , Configured the IP manually rather than using DHCP, i have also used DHCP. I have swapped 2 of the printers, Ric_ has reconfigured the switch ports speed.

Cables running to the cabinet have been tested, and all show links from start to finish.

The printers are 2 4100s and a 4050

Solutions would be amazing but any other tests you can recommend would be much appreciated

[User3204]

What do you mean by:

...refusing to accept printouts....

 

Does the print job get to the server, and then just sit there, or does the printer complain about anything ?

 

 

What's the routing like between printers and clients ? I found that the clients need to be able to see a route to the printer, when I expected the jobs to route through the print server.

 

If you swap a working printer with a non-working printer (yeah, i realise this is a pain for 4100.4050, I have them too), does the problem follow the printer hardware / network card / cable?

 

And the more obvious stuff:

Print Driver versions ?

Anything in the Servers event viewer ?

Anything in the clients event viewer ?

 

Basically, where's it failing ?

[localzuk]

Can you ping the printers?

[dtakias]

If ping is possible, can you get to the printer's web interface by just using the ip address on the the browser?

[stu]

What do you mean by:

 

 

Does the print job get to the server, and then just sit there, or does the printer complain about anything ?

Sits on the server

 

What's the routing like between printers and clients ? I found that the clients need to be able to see a route to the printer, when I expected the jobs to route through the print server.

The printers are on the same subnet and V LAN

If you swap a working printer with a non-working printer (yeah, i realise this is a pain for 4100.4050, I have them too), does the problem follow the printer hardware / network card / cable?

I have done the opposite and put a working printer in a none working room and the working printer stopped working, performed cable test from printer to switch because it had me doubting myself and tests all come back fine

And the more obvious stuff:

Print Driver versions ?

Anything in the Servers event viewer ?

Anything in the clients event viewer ?

 

Basically, where's it failing ?

Server event viewer doesn't exist as its a not a windows server.

Client event viewer doesn't report any faults

 

 

And pinging I can ping and access the web interface on one of the 3 and nothing on the other 2 !

Edited October 22, 2008 by stu
Typos

[contink]

I have done the opposite and put a working printer in a none working room and the working printer stopped working, performed cable test from printer to switch because it had me doubting myself and tests all come back fine

I'd say your problem had something to do with those switches or possibly DHCP if that's where they're getting their info.

 

For a working printer to just stop because of a move is odd in the extreme.

[Ric_]

We just nailed one problem... Stu's case of blindness meant we were looking at the wrong switch port! (clickity click... now we're back in the correct VLAN).

 

Still two to go!

[stu]

3 to go, the print server received the file then it vanished but no printout was made! So 2 are the same fault as each other now i recon unless i read more ports wrong

[stu]

Ok after a very irritating day we have narrowed it down to the PPD file

[contink]

Really daft question but are the "faulty" printers set to just dump work that doesn't fit their paper sizes and are the defaults for the printers set incorrectly to Letter or something similar?

[Ric_]

Really daft question but are the "faulty" printers set to just dump work that doesn't fit their paper sizes and are the defaults for the printers set incorrectly to Letter or something similar?

 

They shouldn't just dump wrongly sized jobs but I definately made sure that the paper size was correct.

 

The problem clearly lies with the print server though now because we can test print directly from a Windwos client, bypassing the CUPs server.