Best Practices For Wireless Printers
Hi there...
We have a client who is running Zebra QL320 WiFi printers in their warehouse. When they need to print a label, our application sends a file to Commander, which sends the label format to a Windows Share. This all works fine here as it has at other sites. We are using Bartender Automation V10.
The issue we have is that occasionally the job will become "stuck" in the queue. The print job message is "Error printing". We can't delete the print job and it prevents further printing to this printer until we manually restart the Print Spooler service. I have never seen this happen with a hard wired printer (we have used Zebra, Intermec and Datamax).
In more detail:
1. Printers are all configured on the WLAN and been given reserved DHCP addresses.
2. We have added multiple TCP/IP ports to Windows for each of the fixed printer IP addresses.
3. We have installed the printers as Windows printers, using the port above (e.g. PICKING_1 -> IP_192.168.0.30) and the Seagull Scientific Drivers v7.3.1
4. These printers are then shared.
5. Everything runs on one server (SQL Server, Bartender, Commander, Printer shares)
6. So we might send a job to \\192.168.0.4\PICKING_1 from Commander.
7. It is roughly once per day that this is occurring.
My questions are:
1. Is there a better way to configure the system to avoid printer spooler lockups?
2. Can we print directly from Bartender to printer (bypassing the Windows spooler)?
Thanks in advance.
Tim Muir
RFBS
We have a client who is running Zebra QL320 WiFi printers in their warehouse. When they need to print a label, our application sends a file to Commander, which sends the label format to a Windows Share. This all works fine here as it has at other sites. We are using Bartender Automation V10.
The issue we have is that occasionally the job will become "stuck" in the queue. The print job message is "Error printing". We can't delete the print job and it prevents further printing to this printer until we manually restart the Print Spooler service. I have never seen this happen with a hard wired printer (we have used Zebra, Intermec and Datamax).
In more detail:
1. Printers are all configured on the WLAN and been given reserved DHCP addresses.
2. We have added multiple TCP/IP ports to Windows for each of the fixed printer IP addresses.
3. We have installed the printers as Windows printers, using the port above (e.g. PICKING_1 -> IP_192.168.0.30) and the Seagull Scientific Drivers v7.3.1
4. These printers are then shared.
5. Everything runs on one server (SQL Server, Bartender, Commander, Printer shares)
6. So we might send a job to \\192.168.0.4\PICKING_1 from Commander.
7. It is roughly once per day that this is occurring.
My questions are:
1. Is there a better way to configure the system to avoid printer spooler lockups?
2. Can we print directly from Bartender to printer (bypassing the Windows spooler)?
Thanks in advance.
Tim Muir
RFBS
0
-
1. Could you tell me what Windows OS are you working with? Note that BarTender v10 is compatible with Windows XP SP3 (not SP2 or erlier). For more details on BarTender v10 compatiblitiy please visit the below webpage:
http://www.seagullscientific.com/aspx/bar-code-label-software-features.aspx#compat
2. What exact BarTender build are you working with (consult the "Help>About..." dialog)? If you are not running on 2845 please upgrde it by downloading and installing the latest release from the below webpage:
http://www.seagullscientific.com/aspx/fixes_100.aspx
3. How did you install your Seagull drivers? Did you use our Seagull Driver Wizard or the Windows default wizard? Make sure you install our drivers through our Seagull Driver Wizard.
4. Do you have any Seagull driver in the system from an older version? Note that our drivers use a number of shared resources and having an older driver might cause issues when working with the latest ones. Make sure that only v7.3.1 drivers are present (upgrade or remove older ones).
5. Is this issue occurring always with the same printer or with different ones? Is it occurring with the same BarTender document or it's not related with any document in particular?
6. Is there any event being generated in Windows when the driver spooler gets blocked?
7. I'm afraid that BarTender is a full Windows application and won't be able to send the print job without using the Windows spooler. In any case there must be a reason for this issue, we only need to find it.0
Please sign in to leave a comment.
Comments
1 comment