USB to serial printer will only print a fraction of self-initiated jobs

  • Thread starter Thread starter John
  • Start date Start date
J

John

I've got a point of sale printer connected to a pc where my bartender
gets the tickets the waitresses need for her to make. The pc has no
serial ports, thus I had to buy a USB to serial adapter so my printer
will print network jobs as this is how the point of sale vendor has
created the ability to print.

Every print command that is SENT to that printer works without fail.

When the bartender orders for a drink, it prints to the printer every
time.

When the bartender opens a pre-existing order and then asks to print
the receipt to her local printer, she is only able to fully print
about 10% of the time. The other 90% of the time, the printer will
only print locally stored information, but nothing that is stored on
the remote server (which is where all orders are kept...on the
workgroup file server).

It's almost like the connection between the local pc and the server is
closed and then it will not print until it is re-opened. Is there any
way to keep this connection permanently open?

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.
 
John said:
I've got a point of sale printer connected to a pc where my bartender
gets the tickets the waitresses need for her to make. The pc has no
serial ports, thus I had to buy a USB to serial adapter so my printer
will print network jobs as this is how the point of sale vendor has
created the ability to print.

Every print command that is SENT to that printer works without fail.

When the bartender orders for a drink, it prints to the printer every
time.

When the bartender opens a pre-existing order and then asks to print
the receipt to her local printer, she is only able to fully print
about 10% of the time. The other 90% of the time, the printer will
only print locally stored information, but nothing that is stored on
the remote server (which is where all orders are kept...on the
workgroup file server).

It's almost like the connection between the local pc and the server is
closed and then it will not print until it is re-opened. Is there any
way to keep this connection permanently open?

Any ideas?
Click to expand...

UH, what kind of printer? What OS is the file server, what OS is the
local PC.

Have you checked event logs?

Shouldn't your Point of Sale Vendor be doing the support. I realize that
they are expensive for support calls, but if the system never actually
worked right to begin with, then I would be complaining about that.
 
UH, what kind of printer? What OS is the file server, what OS is the
local PC.

Have you checked event logs?

Shouldn't your Point of Sale Vendor be doing the support. I realize that
they are expensive for support calls, but if the system never actually
worked right to begin with, then I would be complaining about that.
Click to expand...

It's an Epson TM88-III thermal printer with cutter. The OS on file
server is Win2k SP3...local pc is Win2K sp2. The trouble is that I
bought this new pc and installed everything myself because the older
pc had taken a surge and I wanted to prevent a crash leaving me
without a pc. I don't have a service agreement with them and they
have no answers, but can research it for $250/hour with no guarantees
as to how long it will take to get an answer.
 
John said:
It's an Epson TM88-III thermal printer with cutter. The OS on file
server is Win2k SP3...local pc is Win2K sp2. The trouble is that I
bought this new pc and installed everything myself because the older
pc had taken a surge and I wanted to prevent a crash leaving me
without a pc. I don't have a service agreement with them and they
have no answers, but can research it for $250/hour with no guarantees
as to how long it will take to get an answer.
Click to expand...

I see the dilemma.

Theoretically as a file server, the connection should always be open.
Is the application trying to print from \\Fileserver\folder\file or from
a mapped network drive? A mapped drive should always be accessible.

Is your old pc accessible?

There may may be ODBC settings in control panel that are unique to the
application.

I would also check the registry settings on the old PC for that printer.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Printers
 
closed and then it will not print until it is re-opened.  Is there any
way to keep this connection permanently open?

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

John

Perhaps there is a serial card available. Or maybe a serial connection
on the MB that you can use.

Bob AZ
 
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