Bartender Labels Printing Out Of Order And Dropping Some Labels
I am currently working with Bartender designer and Commander Enterprise Automation version 9.4 on Windows Server 2008 SP2. We are having issues with labels printing out of sequence and missing labels. I have checked the Bartender log for the particular label we are printing and all of the data is present as well as being in the correct order. We send several trigger files from a single E1 transaction and expect the output to be a sequential continuous job to be printed as and the Commander picks them up in the correct order, Bartender is sending the data to the spooler in the correct order per the log file entries we are seeing. During the print job I notice that they are out of sequence and some just don't print at all.
I have checked all corresponding Bartender and Commander logs and the timestamps are in the correct sequential order. Something seems to happen to the data after the spooler picks up the print job. The printers we are using are Zebra 140Xi III Plus. We have run out troubleshooting ideas, please help.
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- What printer driver (and version) is in use?
- How is the printer connected?
- How has the printer driver been installed on the PC where Commander is running? Is this a local install?
- What build of BarTender v9.4 is in use?
- Do you have the same issues when you switch to run Commander as an application for testing purposes?
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1. What printer driver (and version) is in use?
Driver: Zebra ZPL-II Driver
Version: 7.1.9
Build Target: Win32
Build Date: 12/11/2009, 7:22 PM
2. How is the printer connected? - Direct Ethernet connection
3. How has the printer driver been installed on the PC where Commander is running? Is this a local install? - Yes, the driver is installed on the same server Commander is installed..
4. What build of BarTender v9.4 is in use? - 2781
5. Do you have the same issues when you switch to run Commander as an application for testing purposes? - We didn't think to try that.
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Apart from running Commander as an application for some days, please update all Seagull printer drivers on this computer to the latest 7.3.3. version and report to us if the same problems still exist.
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I have "skipping labels" issue too, on Windows 8, printing via ethernet to a Zebra GK420T
Using Zebra EPL DriverVersion 7.3.5Build Target Win32Build Date 4/15/2014, 4:10 PMbartender 10.1 SR3 (and other application software shows same issues)printing same jobs to PDF results in no dropped labels - so I think we can rule out the application software...0 -
Hello Rockandroller,
When you say that you've got "dropped" labels do you mean that some labels from a single print job are not being printed (for instance you send a print job with X number of serialized labels, and some of them don't print)? Or are you missing whole print jobs (note that a trigger will send at least one print job)?
1. In any case, if you try to run Commander as an application, are you able to reproduce the same issue?
2. If you activate the messages text file log in both BarTender and Commander (in both cases from the "Administer>Log Setup..." option under the "Text file log" tab) and you reproduce your issue; do you see any message that could be related with the dropped labels?
Regards
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I have this same problem, label jobs printed out of order or completely dropped.
I have a customer with a 5 licesne version of Enterprise Automation Edition. Each workstation has a local copy of BarTender installed, which is automated via command line parameters. In other words, every workstation that prints, prints via its local BarTender installation.
All the printers are Zebra. All the printers are on the network, though while each workstation has the ability to print to any printer, each workstation typically only prints to the Zebra at the workstation. 4 of the 5 workstation don't have a problem. The 5th, label jobs are sometimes printed out of order or completely dropped.
I have logging enabled on this workstation to diagnose the problem, but what I'm seeing in the log files makes no sense. Printing is done as follows:
- Execute command line parameters to launch BarTender, print box label, leave BarTender running
- Pause my application thread for 2 seconds
- Execute command line parameters to print pallet label and terminate BarTender when done
I should see pairs of logs 2 seconds apart, with the first entry being a box or container label and the second entry being a pallet label. But this doesn't always occur. Notes and log info below. Not sure how jobs can be done less than 2 seconds apart, done out of order, or completely lost. The pair of jobs is always done with a single BarTender instance. This being the case, shouldn't the first job (box label) always be performed and completed prior to the second job (pallet label) being started? Doesn't BarTender use or enforce a first-in, first-out model? Or does a single instance of BarTender multi-thread the submitted jobs, meaning BarTender ignores submission order and just processes things as quickly as possible, and first to complete wins? From the notes and log info below, it appears this latter scenario is the case. Multi-threading command line job submissions and ignoring submission order would explain jobs being out of order, jobs being less than 2 seconds apart, and missing jobs. A slow box label job: somewhat slow, less than 2 seconds apart; even more slow but completing prior to the pallet label job terminating BarTender, out of order; so slow that the pallet job completes and terminates BarTender prior to completion, missing box label job.Please advise.
Vince
- 1st pair, correct order and 2 seconds apart
- 2nd pair, pallet labels before box labels (out of order) and the same timestamp
- 3rd pair, correct order and 1 second apart
- 4th pair, out of order and same timestamp
- 5th to 7th pairs, correct order and 1 second apart
- 8th Part-1 at 15:32:53, the pallet labels printed, the box label job was completely lost (nothing printed, no log entry)
- 9th pair, correct order and 2 seconds apart
- 8th Part-2 at 15:35:28, operator discovered box labels didn't print, open production log data, reprinted the box labels
- 10th pair, correct order and 2 seconds apart
- 11th pair, out of order and 1 second apart
- 12th and 13th, correct order and 1 and 2 seconds apart respectively
- 14th pair, the pallet labels printed, the box label job was completely lost; operator immediately noticed missing box labels, opened production log data and reprinted the box labels
- 15th pair, out of order and same timestamp
- 16th pair, correct order and 2 seconds apart
8/27/2014 14:37:12 BarTender successfully sent the
print job to the spooler. Job Name:
RGCitric.btw Document:
RGCitric.btw Printer: \\ggp-dc1\Zebra
ZM400 (203 dpi) - ZPL 8/27/2014 14:37:14 BarTender successfully sent the print job to the spooler. Job Name: CitricPallet.btw Document: CitricPallet.btw Printer: \\ggp-dc1\Zebra ZM400 (203 dpi) -
ZPL 8/27/2014 14:44:13 BarTender successfully sent the print job to the spooler. Job Name: CitricPallet.btw Document: CitricPallet.btw Printer: \\ggp-dc1\Zebra ZM400 (203 dpi) -
ZPL 8/27/2014 14:44:13 BarTender successfully sent the print job to the spooler. Job Name: RGCitric.btw Document: RGCitric.btw Printer: \\ggp-dc1\Zebra ZM400 (203 dpi) -
ZPL 8/27/2014 14:51:03 BarTender successfully sent the print job to the spooler. Job Name: RGCitric.btw Document: RGCitric.btw Printer: \\ggp-dc1\Zebra ZM400 (203 dpi) -
ZPL 8/27/2014 14:51:04 BarTender successfully sent the print job to the spooler. Job Name: CitricPallet.btw Document: CitricPallet.btw Printer: \\ggp-dc1\Zebra ZM400 (203 dpi) -
ZPL 8/27/2014 14:52:04 BarTender successfully sent the print job to the spooler. Job Name: CitricPallet.btw Document: CitricPallet.btw Printer: \\ggp-dc1\Zebra ZM400 (203 dpi) -
ZPL 8/27/2014 14:52:04 BarTender successfully sent the print job to the spooler. Job Name: RGCitric.btw Document: RGCitric.btw Printer: \\ggp-dc1\Zebra ZM400 (203 dpi) -
ZPL 8/27/2014 15:03:48 BarTender successfully sent the print job to the spooler. Job Name: RGCitric.btw Document: RGCitric.btw Printer: \\ggp-dc1\Zebra ZM400 (203 dpi) -
ZPL 8/27/2014 15:03:49 BarTender successfully sent the print job to the spooler. Job Name: CitricPallet.btw Document: CitricPallet.btw Printer: \\ggp-dc1\Zebra ZM400 (203 dpi) -
ZPL 8/27/2014 15:06:09 BarTender successfully sent the print job to the spooler. Job Name: RGCitric.btw Document: RGCitric.btw Printer: \\ggp-dc1\Zebra ZM400 (203 dpi) -
ZPL 8/27/2014 15:06:10 BarTender successfully sent the print job to the spooler. Job Name: CitricPallet.btw Document: CitricPallet.btw Printer: \\ggp-dc1\Zebra ZM400 (203 dpi) -
ZPL 8/27/2014 15:11:00 BarTender successfully sent the print job to the spooler. Job Name: RGCitric.btw Document: RGCitric.btw Printer: \\ggp-dc1\Zebra ZM400 (203 dpi) -
ZPL 8/27/2014 15:11:01 BarTender successfully sent the print job to the spooler. Job Name: CitricPallet.btw Document: CitricPallet.btw Printer: \\ggp-dc1\Zebra ZM400 (203 dpi) -
ZPL 8/27/2014 15:32:53 BarTender successfully sent the print job to the spooler. Job Name: CitricPallet.btw Document: CitricPallet.btw Printer: \\ggp-dc1\Zebra ZM400 (203 dpi) -
ZPL 8/27/2014 15:34:05 BarTender successfully sent the print job to the spooler. Job Name: RGCitric.btw Document: RGCitric.btw Printer: \\ggp-dc1\Zebra ZM400 (203 dpi) -
ZPL 8/27/2014 15:34:07 BarTender successfully sent the print job to the spooler. Job Name: CitricPallet.btw Document: CitricPallet.btw Printer: \\ggp-dc1\Zebra ZM400 (203 dpi) -
ZPL 8/27/2014 15:35:28 BarTender successfully sent the print job to the spooler. Job Name: RGCitric.btw Document: RGCitric.btw Printer: \\ggp-dc1\Zebra ZM400 (203 dpi) -
ZPL 8/27/2014 15:36:56 BarTender successfully sent the print job to the spooler. Job Name: RGCitric.btw Document: RGCitric.btw Printer: \\ggp-dc1\Zebra ZM400 (203 dpi) -
ZPL 8/27/2014 15:36:58 BarTender successfully sent the print job to the spooler. Job Name: CitricPallet.btw Document: CitricPallet.btw Printer: \\ggp-dc1\Zebra ZM400 (203 dpi) -
ZPL 8/27/2014 15:38:56 BarTender successfully sent the print job to the spooler. Job Name: CitricPallet.btw Document: CitricPallet.btw Printer: \\ggp-dc1\Zebra ZM400 (203 dpi) -
ZPL 8/27/2014 15:38:57 BarTender successfully sent the print job to the spooler. Job Name: RGCitric.btw Document: RGCitric.btw Printer: \\ggp-dc1\Zebra ZM400 (203 dpi) -
ZPL 8/27/2014 15:46:23 BarTender successfully sent the print job to the spooler. Job Name: RGCitric.btw Document: RGCitric.btw Printer: \\ggp-dc1\Zebra ZM400 (203 dpi) -
ZPL 8/27/2014 15:46:24 BarTender successfully sent the print job to the spooler. Job Name: CitricPallet.btw Document: CitricPallet.btw Printer: \\ggp-dc1\Zebra ZM400 (203 dpi) -
ZPL 8/27/2014 15:48:17 BarTender successfully sent the print job to the spooler. Job Name: RGCitric.btw Document: RGCitric.btw Printer: \\ggp-dc1\Zebra ZM400 (203 dpi) -
ZPL 8/27/2014 15:48:19 BarTender successfully sent the print job to the spooler. Job Name: CitricPallet.btw Document: CitricPallet.btw Printer: \\ggp-dc1\Zebra ZM400 (203 dpi) -
ZPL 8/27/2014 15:49:27 BarTender successfully sent the print job to the spooler. Job Name: CitricPallet.btw Document: CitricPallet.btw Printer: \\ggp-dc1\Zebra ZM400 (203 dpi) -
ZPL 8/27/2014 15:49:56 BarTender successfully sent the print job to the spooler. Job Name: RGCitric.btw Document: RGCitric.btw Printer: \\ggp-dc1\Zebra ZM400 (203 dpi) -
ZPL 8/27/2014 16:10:13 BarTender successfully sent the print job to the spooler. Job Name: CitricPallet.btw Document: CitricPallet.btw Printer: \\ggp-dc1\Zebra ZM400 (203 dpi) -
ZPL 8/27/2014 16:10:13 BarTender successfully sent the print job to the spooler. Job Name: RGCitric.btw Document: RGCitric.btw Printer: \\ggp-dc1\Zebra ZM400 (203 dpi) -
ZPL 8/27/2014 16:11:36 BarTender successfully sent the print job to the spooler. Job Name: RGCitric.btw Document: RGCitric.btw Printer: \\ggp-dc1\Zebra ZM400 (203 dpi) -
ZPL 8/27/2014 16:11:38 BarTender successfully sent the print job to the spooler. Job Name: CitricPallet.btw Document: CitricPallet.btw Printer: \\ggp-dc1\Zebra ZM400 (203 dpi) -
ZPL0 -
I am seeing the exact same type of issue. If the Zebra printer is paused for any reason (out of labels and such) we end up with labels missing.
Here is our setup
Windows Server 2008R2 Data Center running BarTender 10.0 SR3, Build 2867.
It has the Seagull Zebra ZPL-II Driver version 7.3.5 installed.
Network printer, Zebra ZM400
In our scenario, the application will send 100 labels to be printed. If I pause the printer queue on the server, I can see that all 100 labels are sitting in the queue. With the zebra printer paused, I un-pause the print queue on the server and about 8 labels will be sent to the buffer on the zebra printer. We wait about 5 minutes and then un-pause the zebra printer. When we check what printed out, we will be missing 1-2 labels. The labels that are missing will be the 8, 9 label in the sequence.
I have worked with Zebra on the issue as well as doing network captures of all of the network traffic that is hitting the printer. They point to the network reset of the connection between the server and printer as the cause of the missing labels. I have tested this same scenario using the latest driver from Zebra for the printer and everything will print correctly but the overall printing speed massively slows down.
Is there something in the Seagull driver that would impact the network communication?
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Hello Mschlicht,
I don't think that the problem is actually related with our drivers or even the code being sent (I understand that when the printer is not paused it's printing everything as expected).
Note that when using our drivers alongside BarTender many performance feature become available (which is probably why the print job performance is way better than with the manufacturer's driver) such as graphic catching, variable data optimization, template catching,... . I'm guessing that the Zebra firmware is not able to "maintain" these advanced performance features when the printer is paused.
As a fast test, could you try removing such performance features and test printing when the printer is paused? You can do so from BarTender's "File>Print..." dialog under the "Performance" tab (deactivate all optimizations). Does the print job behave as the manufacturers? Are there labels still missing in this case?
Regards.
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Hello, has this been resolved? I am having a similar issue but with printing PDFs to a ZEBRA printer directly through the Seagull Windows Print Driver.
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I know this is an older post but we have the same problem in 9.3 and I've tried using the API (.NET) as well as XMLScript via TCP/IP to Commander. Actually using the API, labels don't get out of order but labels do skip. Using XMLScript via TCP/IP both missing labels and out of order prints occur.
Any news on 2016 if this has been fixed?
More information:
When using the API problems most often occur when attempting to print 10 or more labels. This is a print of N different labels, same .btw file but data changes between each print, for example a serial number.
Problems don't occur every time. For example sometimes we can issue a print of 50 or 60 labels and all goes well.
Within the API I've tried various techniques such as 1) creating/destroying an Engine instance between prints, 2) keeping the engine instance alive until the internal queue is empty, and finally 3) printing so many labels with an engine instance before destroying and creating another. Method 3 gave me the best results - I print 5 labels, close the BT Engine and create another instance and go again.
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HI IM HAVING THE SAME ISSUE PRINT MORE OF FEW ITEMS AND OTHER DONT PRINT AT ALL WE ARE WAISTING A LOT OF MATERIAL WITH THIS ISSUE,
WE ARE PRINTING ON A TCP PRINTER WIH DOWNLOADED DRIVER FOR THIS WEBSITE.
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Add another company to the list of those having this issue.
We are using BarTender version 10.1 SR2 Build 2945 on a Windows Server 2008 R2, printing through Commander to Zebra105 printers using the drivers obtained from Seagull.
In the first print job, 29 labels were sent to the printer. A minute and 55 seconds later, 27 labels were sent. Several of the labels from the first job were never printed, and the last label printed was truncated partially printed.
Any ideas?
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I would recommend BarTender 2016 and the Integration Platform as it vastly improves our integration capabilities with more direct control on print order etc. I suggest you check it out if possible.
http://www.seagullscientific.com/media/101724/bartender-integration-builder-201511.pdf
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I'm experiencing the same problem with Integration Builder 2016 using Zebra 140Xi4 printers and a Windows 2012 R2 Server.
It seems like I can isolate the problem to occur when the printer is paused for any reason, jobs in the print queue will slowly disappear at the rate of one ever 4-5 minutes.
I'm told its because the drivers don't support bi-directional communication so Windows doesn't know the printer is paused.
I've tried both the ZDesigner driver and Bartender driver with the same result.
It seems like this is a fairly common use case (e.g. when the printer runs out of labels), so I'm surprised that no one else is addressing this issue - or am I missing something?
Thanks,
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Donna: This is not something that should happen. I suggest you remove the Zebra printer drivers, download the latest version, and then install using the DriverWizard application that comes with the driver, rather than using the standard Windows printer install wizard. I hope that helps.
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