Print spooler problem with Zebra Labelprinters

Waldo

We have an implementation where the NAS is printing to 10 different printers (Zebra Labelprinters of the type LP2844).

We got printspooler problems. There is quite a big load on the spooler of the server (all zebraprinters are configured on a seperate box where the NASses are installed as well). Once in a while, the printing just stops because of the print spooler. Restarting helps, but production is down for that time.. . It shouldn't crash (sometimes it even says the printer doesn't exists ), but we just don't seem to be able to fix it.

Any idea is highly appreciated...

Belias

first thing comin'in my mind...SLEEP?

garak

do you print with the windows driver or directly to the printer with the zebra nterface language. In Terminal (Citrix) Sessions or local systems :?:
is it possible, that the printers in sleep mode or offline :?:

We have alse Zebra (2824) and no probs

nunomaia

I don’t know this zebra printer model. Problem that I had related to Zebra was always related to printer server. Replacing printer server solved all problems.

kine

My friend (IT admin) told me recently, that Win have sometime problems that spooler crash... I will try to ask him for some details...

kine

Details: we had problem with printer spooler (printing partially, crashing etc.) on server where were 10 terminal sessions each with locally mapped printers.

Solution was scheduling the Spooler restarts... (SBS 2003 SP2)

Savatage

we use the lp2844 with eship - perhps you can see how eship does it's flawless printing?

Waldo

thanks, guys, for your answers (for some reason, I didn't get any notification in my mailbox - therefore the late response). I will pass this through to our developers and hope he'll manage to get it stable.

Waldo

Savatage wrote:

we use the lp2844 with eship - perhps you can see how eship does it's flawless printing?

Can you tell me more on "eship"?

Waldo

nunomaia wrote:

I don’t know this zebra printer model. Problem that I had related to Zebra was always related to printer server. Replacing printer server solved all problems.

We tried to print on a different server, which involved installing the NAS and printers on the new machine.
Same problem.

Is this what you mean as well?

Waldo

garak wrote:

do you print with the windows driver or directly to the printer with the zebra nterface language. In Terminal (Citrix) Sessions or local systems :?:
is it possible, that the printers in sleep mode or offline :?:

We have alse Zebra (2824) and no probs

We use the windows drivers at the moment. Wouldn't know how to do it directly with the zebra interface, but I'll try to find out.

nunomaia

Most Projects that I worked was interfacing directly with zebra printers.
I had to open a connection to Zebra TCP port 9100 and insert Zebra commands.

Zebra printers that supported the use XML simplified Zebra commands. Using that feature I could have heavy manufacturing shops working almost 7X24 without any problems.
I draw the label in ZebraDesigner and then sent label to printer. Then Navision sends XML to zebra to print label with data coming from XML.

Waldo

nunomaia wrote:

Most Projects that I worked was interfacing directly with zebra printers.
I had to open a connection to Zebra TCP port 9100 and insert Zebra commands.

Zebra printers that supported the use XML simplified Zebra commands. Using that feature I could have heavy manufacturing shops working almost 7X24 without any problems.
I draw the label in ZebraDesigner and then sent label to printer. Then Navision sends XML to zebra to print label with data coming from XML.

Ok, thanks nuno. I will try to figure this out (the SP2844 is a rather simple machine, so I doubt this is possible).

ajhvdb

This printer accepts ZPL Zebra language. So just install a "generic Text Printer" and call it "Zebra ZPL", remove the left margin of your report and send Zebra commands. It's fast.

You can use the Zebra designer to create your label (text, barcodes, etc.) and use the created ZPL commands in your report.