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New Blog Posts: Merging Reports - Part 1 and Part 2

Print files getting stuck in the print queue

edited January 2008 in Devices
We have a client with the following problem:

Using XP workstation, print a document to a network printer. The document
is added to the Windows print queue, but sits there without printing until
the following document is sent to the queue.

Printing to the same printer from other applications works fine. e.g.
printing a word document will go the queue and immediately print.

The problem does not occur with other clients or other printers.

Any ideas?

Roger Vellacott
Passfield Data Systems Ltd

Comments

  • edited January 2008
    Hi Roger,

    We have not seen this issue before. Which version of ReportBuilder are you
    using? Are you able to recreate it with other network printers or just the
    one in question? Once the report finally prints, does it hang again if you
    print another?

    --
    Regards,

    Nico Cizik
    Digital Metaphors
    http://www.digital-metaphors.com

    Best Regards,

    Nico Cizik
    Digital Metaphors
    http://www.digital-metaphors.com
  • edited January 2008
    Hi Nico,

    ReportBuilder version is 10.07. We are using Firebird, with IBO, and the
    3rd party TIB_Datasource component modified by me to work with the current
    RB version. (but I can't see how data access components could affect this).

    The printer is connected to the network via its own print-server.

    This is the behaviour.

    Print RB Doc 1 - nothing happens.
    Print RB Doc 2 - Doc 1 starts printing.
    Print RB Doc 3 - Doc 2 starts printing.
    Print a Word document. Doc 3 prints, then Word document prints.

    Client always prints from Print Preview.

    I have tried destroying the RB form completely after each print, but this
    does not solve it.

    Is there any kind of "End print" method I can call?

    Roger Vellacott
    Passfield Data Systems Ltd




  • edited January 2008
    Hi Roger,

    We have not seen this behavior before and we use network printers
    exclusively. You're correct, the DB and connectivity probably does not have
    anything to do with this issue. Have you tried printing to a different
    network printer or a printer connected directly to the PC in question?

    --
    Regards,

    Nico Cizik
    Digital Metaphors
    http://www.digital-metaphors.com

    Best Regards,

    Nico Cizik
    Digital Metaphors
    http://www.digital-metaphors.com
  • edited January 2008

    Each time you print a report, a Windows print job is created - this is what
    you see on the Windows print queue. There is a separate Windows API call to
    start the job and another call to the end job.

    Try adding RBuilder\Source to your Delphi library path and then trace
    ppPrnDev.pas, the method TppPrinterDevice.EndJob. This method calls
    Printer.EndDoc, which then calls Windows.EndDoc.




    --
    Nard Moseley
    Digital Metaphors
    www.digital-metaphors.com

    Best regards,

    Nard Moseley
    Digital Metaphors
    www.digital-metaphors.com
  • edited January 2008
    I verified that EndJob is being called by all the documents which were
    involved - whether printing from the Preview, or printing direct. So this
    seems not to be the problem. (We deploy packages, so I had to recompile a
    number of RB bpls to get debugging to work).

    The client reports that the problem has gone away for the moment, so I
    intend to ignore the issue. The difference in behaviour between different
    apps does indicate some kind of obscure problem, but as it only applies to
    one client, and it is intermittent (it has happened twice in the past 6
    weeks), we'll just hope for the best and assume it is a network/printer
    driver problem.

    Thanks for your, as usual, immediate and informative responses.

    Roger Vellacott
    Passfield Data Systems Ltd



This discussion has been closed.