Label Print Speed
I have a customer that is using Commander installed on a server with two remote workstations printing labels. We have recently seen an increase lag time from when the print button is clicked and the actual start of the label printing approaching 20 - 25 seconds...
Any ideas on what we can do to speed things up from a bartender/commander perspective. All ready looking into the network and server setups...
Thanks,
Michael Gray
MBSDEV, Inc.
Any ideas on what we can do to speed things up from a bartender/commander perspective. All ready looking into the network and server setups...
Thanks,
Michael Gray
MBSDEV, Inc.
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We will need the below information in order to help here beyond guessing:
1. What is the edition, version and build of BarTender in use?
2. What version of Windows is BarTender/Commander running on?
3. Which make and model of printers are you printing to? What version is the printer driver? And is the printer driver locally installed to the PC running BarTender/Commander or is it a network (client/server) printer driver installation?
4. What type of trigger are you using? What is the contents of the trigger (delimited data, script, etc) and how/where are you detecting the trigger?
5. What command is the task executing to print the label? Please give details.
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Check out the below web page to see if there is a service release for the particular version of BarTender you are running. Take care as some releases require you to upgrade the License Server to the same build also. Read the release notes.
http://www.seagullscientific.com/aspx/service-releases.aspx0 -
[quote name='MIchael Gray' timestamp='1307018203' post='32']
I have a customer that is using Commander installed on a server with two remote workstations printing labels. We have recently seen an increase lag time from when the print button is clicked and the actual start of the label printing approaching 20 - 25 seconds...
Any ideas on what we can do to speed things up from a bartender/commander perspective. All ready looking into the network and server setups...
Thanks,
Michael Gray
MBSDEV, Inc.
[/quote]0 -
[quote name='Ian C - Seagull Support' timestamp='1307018981' post='33']
We will need the below information in order to help here beyond guessing:
1. What is the edition, version and build of BarTender in use?
2. What version of Windows is BarTender/Commander running on?
3. Which make and model of printers are you printing to? What version is the printer driver? And is the printer driver locally installed to the PC running BarTender/Commander or is it a network (client/server) printer driver installation?
4. What type of trigger are you using? What is the contents of the trigger (delimited data, script, etc) and how/where are you detecting the trigger?
5. What command is the task executing to print the label? Please give details.
--------------
Check out the below web page to see if there is a service release for the particular version of BarTender you are running. Take care as some releases require you to upgrade the License Server to the same build also. Read the release notes.
http://www.seagullscientific.com/aspx/service-releases.aspx
[/quote]
Working on answers to first 3 the last two are below:
#4. Data set trigger text file, contains label data comma delimited with a header row. System writes file to a specific folder for each workstation, task setup to monitor directory and when file is present with specific name prints the contents.
#5. below is the command string.
/AF="C:\SaaS - Label Formats\TOC Shipping Label_V2.btw" /PRN="\\Ch2wpprn01\FSCPR2N2" /P /D="%Trigger File Name%" /DD0 -
Answers to Number 1 - 3:
#1. Edition: Enterprise Automation (3 Printers), Version 9.4, Build 2749
#2. Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition (x86), SP2
#3. Printer: Zebra Z4m, Driver: Zebra ZPL-II version 7.2. Printer is a network printer installed via standard TCP-IP port over ethernet.0 -
1. To begin with, I would strongly recommend they upgrade the installed BarTender Suite to the latest service release (SR1) which can be downloaded from the below link:
http://www.seagullscientific.com/aspx/fixes_94.aspx
2. From the command line I see that they are referencing a shared printer (on a print server?) with a UNC path. This is okay to do of course, however, on some networks the use of a printer driver that is not locally installed on the same computer as BarTender/Commander can be a cause of a delay in printing. I would recommend that they make a local installation of the Zebra printer, create a new local port for the driver and specify the UNC path of the printer in the new port address.0 -
Gene Henson
★ BarTender Hero ★
Usually, the best method for troubleshooting slow printing issues is to determine where the delay is happening. From your description it sounds like you have an application that generates a trigger, that trigger is then passed to Commander, and Commander instructs BarTender to print a label. So, to help determine where your slowdown is happening, you should check the following:
[list=1]
[*]How long does it to take to create the “trigger” being used by Commander. You will want to make sure that there is not a long delay between a user clicking Print and the trigger being created and subsequently picked up by Commander. If you do see a delay here it could indicate a problem with application generating your triggers.
[*]If that checks out, you should see how long it takes for your print job to show up in the Windows Print Spooler after the trigger has been picked up by Commander. This should give you a rough estimate of how long BarTender is taking to process the job. In ideal circumstances this should take no more than a couple of seconds.
[*]Lastly, you should see how long it takes the print job to leave the Windows Print Spooler and then for the job to come out of the printer. A delay in the Windows Print Spooler or on the printer itself could indicate any number of problems, and you should probably contact our technical support department for more information.
[/list]
If you are not able to locate the source of the problem by checking the items mentioned above, I would recommend that you contact the support department for your region for more specific troubleshooting steps. Our support is free and should be able to get you up and running much faster.
You can find our contact information at http://www.seagullscientific.com/aspx/technical-support.aspx0
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