Printer Loses C!F Config after Network Change

We changed our network resulting in the printer having a different IP address. One of systems guys changed the port, based on the new IP address, in the windows printer properties and now the printer does not show in either the createform server of createfrom server 3 windows. Before the change the same printer was configured in createform server 3. The only thing that was changed was the ip address based tcpip port. Changing the print processor back to winprint from cfprint does not work. The driver is Canon iR C2880/3380 PS3. If I change the driver to Canon iR C2880/3380 PCL it shows in the createform server 3 window and can be configured. But then the print jobs will not print - I think I may have to change something in JDE for it to work with PCL.

Can anyone provide any assistance please? I would like to use the PS3 driver.

Peter,

This is a known issue, relating specifically to printers using drivers with a date of 2007 or higher.

The Create!form 3.2.23.7430 patch will fix this but you have to be on 3.2.21 to apply it.

If you need the patch, let me know.

Mark

I've seen that happen before. There is a flaw in the CformServer software that causes it to loose track of printers and not show them at all. I don't remember exactly how I worked around it... maybe go to Windows Services and stop/start the Print Services (if you do this make sure TCP/IP print services get restarted also).

Check what version of CformServer3/6 you're running. If it's an older release Bottomline might have an update that fixes this. I'm thinking they do because I haven't had this problem for a couple years now.


Karen.

Mark, Karen,

Thanks very much for your responses.

I rang the Bottomline/Create!form repsonse line in Australia and after explaining the siutaion and being talked through a couple of tests, I was told I need to upgrade the software - probably the patches that Mark mentioned. They are sending me the software, wich should arrive early this week - probably today.

Update.

I have patched our Create!form software so that the current versions are as follows:

Server 3: 3.2.20.7225
Designer 3: 3.2.20.7225
Server (6): 6.4.20.9427
Director: 6.4.20.9427

I have 3 print queues all pointing to the same physical printer with the same print driver (Cannon iR C2880/C3380 PS3). All three are visiible in the Create!form Server (6) window, with a blue tick indicating they are configured for Server 3. However, only two are visible in the Create!form Server 3 window. This is a little confusing - but it gets more confusing when all three queues work with Server 3 as they should, including the one that is not in the Server 3 window. The two that show in the Server 3 window are actually test queues that we created, the queue that does not show is the production queue. We got the production queue to be visible in server 3 to be able to congigure it for server 3 by changing the name and then changing it back. It was then configured and then it disappeared from the window - but is working. I suspect that if I change the queue name and back again, then it will appear in the server 3 window and still work, but do not want to risk anything at this stage.

The Bottomline/Create!form support person has been most helpful in getting to this point. I spent 2 and 1/2 hours in web conference with him yesterday afternoon and again this morning for over an hour. He is conducting further testing and investigation and will get back to me with his findings.

At this point, even though things are working, we do not consider it stable.

The printer driver you referenced (Cannon iR C2880/C3380 PS3) indicates that the printer supports PostScript. In CformServer3 how what's the "Output Format" for the printers you’re having trouble with?

If the CformServer3 printer is configured with Output Format = PostScript then change the printer driver in the Windows Printer Properties to "Generic / Text Only". When the CformServer3 printer is configured with Output Format = PostScript the Windows printer driver is ignored so using the driver that’s specific to the printer model is irrelevant.

If your printers don’t support PostScript then I think you need to get upgraded to version Mark Horton referenced in his previous reply to this post.


Karen.

Karen,

Thanks for the clarification. I'll ask the CF support person about the two versions that Mark mentioned, and see what he says.

The printer is post script capable, so the generic/text driver will work, but we may need the ability to choose trays and to do this, I believe, we need the native printer driver.

Peter,

With CformServer3 tray selection is only supported with PostScript printers. You'll create & configure a tray mapping file that gets used with the CformServer3 printer.

You may use the Windows printer driver to create the tray mapping file but once you get everything in place CformServer3 is doing everything (generating the PS code with tray selection commands), the Windows printer driver is basically just defining what port the data stream gets sent to.

Are users printing to this network printer from other apps like Word, Excel, etc. or is it dedicated to processing JDE PDFs from E1?


Karen.

Karen,

Thanks for your reply.

To answer your question about the network printer use, you could say that the print queues in question are effectively dedicated to printing from JDE E1. When printing from apps like word and excel, the users use a different print server to print to the same physical printer.

There are basically 3 queues on the create!form server that point to the physical printer in question. One is used by a separate system (other than JDE), that uses the text based create!form processing. The other 2 queues are used by JDE, one from our production installation and the other from our test/development installation.

I think, from the information you have provided, we may be able to get away with using the generic/text driver.

Wow!

BT wasted 3.5 hours of your time on this??
(Way to go BT support . . . . typical)

So now your on 3.2.20, your almost there.

Apply the 3.2.21 service pack, then the 3.2.23 service pack.

Once again, I've seen this many times, 3.2.23 will fix it.

Need the sp's? Let me know.

Mark

Mark,

I have applied the patches provided by BT and now the versions are:

Server 3: 3.2.23.7430
Server (6): 6.4.20.9427
Designer 3: 3.2.21.7301
Director: 6.4.20.9427

I can see all the queues in the Create!form Server 3 window now.

Update:

We use the create!form forms processing software server (6) for processing text output from another system, apart from JDE E1. The upgrade to the Server (6) software broke the processing of the text output from that other system. This required a couple of more patches to Server (6), which did not change the version level. In addition Designer 6, which we do not use with JDE E1, needed to be upgraded to the same level as Server (6).

This is now complete and all output processing in Create!form is working normally.