Printer prints many pages of garbage

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mike Winstead
  • Start date Start date
M

Mike Winstead

I have a network printer that will spit out many pages of
wingding like garbage. It usually happens first thing in
the morning, but can happen at other times. It is usually
only this one printer, but other printers on the network
are sometimes affected. I have scanned the server and all
work stations for the bugbear virus and have found no
infections. I have uninstalled and reinstalled, and
updated drivers, and nothing seems to help. Does anyone
know what might be causing this, and if so what can be
done about it.

Thanks
 
On Thu, 16 Oct 2003 05:09:37 -0700, Mike Winstead wrote:

=>I have a network printer that will spit out many pages of
=>wingding like garbage. It usually happens first thing in
=>the morning, but can happen at other times. It is usually
=>only this one printer, but other printers on the network
=>are sometimes affected. I have scanned the server and all
=>work stations for the bugbear virus and have found no
=>infections. I have uninstalled and reinstalled, and
=>updated drivers, and nothing seems to help. Does anyone
=>know what might be causing this, and if so what can be
=>done about it.
=>
=>Thanks

FWIW, I've had the same problem on a stand-alone machine
when the printer was turned off before the app was loaded,
and turned on while the app was running. Printing a
document resulted in the kind of garbage you describe. Fix
was to unload the app, and reload it. It seems to me that
the app must initialise or handshake with the printer when
it loads. Since this is with a different OS but a Windows
application, I suspect it's application-based. Maybe you
have a short intermittent power outage - just enough to
turn the printer off and on again? A few microseconds of
outage could be enough.
 
Hi

as it is occuring from time to time and you say, it is a network
printer, I would like you to do following. Looks like you are getting
postscript dumps printed cause the printer (which switches
automatically between PS and PCL) did not recognize the job as PS job
and prints the PS code which will give you the garbage print. Often
you can read some PS operators within the garbage. What to do to avoid
this: I switch all printers to PS for the port I use to print. I.e. if
I print over TCP/IP LPR, I go into the printers menu (at the panel or
via web browser) and set the Emulation Sensing or PDL switching or
wahtever it is called from Automatic to Postscript. Now, the printer
will never print such pages, if it fails to get a Byte, this will
mostly return into a Postscript error, which will be printed and
documented or just flush the rest of the job or just prints nothing.
So you should also enable Print Postscript Error Information at the
printer, to be shure to be informed if something goes wrong.

Regards

Josef
 
Back
Top