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Nothing is Printing: Troubleshooting Guide

David Oberstadt
Updated

Overview

This article will provide different tips and tricks to try when troubleshooting your printer issues. Try the below steps and reach out to our Support team if further assistance is needed. 

Symptoms

Unable to print. 

Possible Causes

  1. Network issue
    1. Verify your network is working
    2. DNS misconfigurations
    3. Multiple devices with the same IP address
  2. Printer issues
    1. Verify printer is online
    2. Failed printer network card
    3. Pooler service or printer spooler might be full
  3. Software configuration issue
    1. Device misconfigured in eFORMz

 

Troubleshooting Steps

Many conditions can result in no printer output.

  1. Do not run the Windows Troubleshooter.
    1. The Troubleshooter frequently gives recommendations that are incompatible with eFORMz configuration.
    2. Accepting recommendations from the Troubleshooter, such as changing the driver, can give unpredictable results.

  2. Is your printer ready to print?
    1. Does Windows show that the printer is online and ready to print?
    2. If the printer is offline, you can put it back online by opening Devices and Printers, double clicking the printer, and click Printer > Use Printer Offline.
    3. A check next to Use Printer Offline indicates that the printer is offline.

      A check next to Pause Printing indicates that the printer is paused. Click Pause Printing to unpause the printer.

  3. Can you print to the printer from Notepad?
    1. Is the problem on a single printer or multiple printers?
    2. If you can print to other printers, a network or hardware problem might exist, such as a faulty or disconnected network cable, or a problem with the printer’s configuration.

  4. Are data resources available?
    1. If eFORMz cannot connect to a database or another network resource because it is unavailable, the results might be incomplete and not printed, or they might print with incomplete data.

  5. Did you reload the printer configuration?
    1. If you added the printer or changed the printer in any way after it was configured in eFORMz, you must either restart the Director or click Reload Printers Configuration on the Director Toolkit’s Director tab.

  6. Do you need to add the printer to eFORMz? 
    1. Have you printed to the printer from eFORMz before? Open your project in the eFORMz Composer and click Run > Print.
    2. Can you print this way?
      1. The printer must be added to eFORMz’s list of available printers. eFORMz should print to a generic print driver and not a PCL or other driver type.
      2. Details are in Adding a New Printer and Adding a Network Printer for eFORMz.

  7. Verify that eFORMz is printing to a generic/text only driver.
    1. If eFORMz is printing to a printer with a PCL or other driver type commonly used by other applications, it might result in no output.
    2. You can see what driver type your printer uses in the Model field of the Printer Properties.

      If other applications use the same printer, do not change the printer’s existing driver. Instead, create a new printer to the same port and use a generic/text only driver.

  8. Is the Print Spooler stuck?
    1. Are there spooled files that are stuck?
      1. You can see the list of spooled documents by right clicking the printer in Devices and Printers > See What’s Printing.
      2. Restarting the Print Spooler service often fixes a stuck spooler.

        If spooled files are still stuck after restarting the Print Spooler service, check the Status column for a file with an error. If you find a file with an error, delete it, and printing should resume normally for the remaining files.

  9. Are you using PaceJet’s Bartender print connector?
    1. The PaceJet Bartender print connector can hang while writing files under some circumstances.
    2. The print connector might run as a Windows service named PaceJet Print Connector.
    3. The solution is to restart the service.

  10. Are you printing through the eFORMz Director?

    1. Is the Director running?

    2. Is it processing files?

      1. Check the Director log to determine whether it is processing files and when it last sent data to the printer.

      2. The default location for log files is C:\Minisoft\eFORMz_6\log.

      3. Changing the log’s message fence to zero (0) might give you more information.

      4. You can find details in Logging.

  11. Do you have a PCL6 printer?
    1. eFORMz does not yet include PCL6 support.
    2. Usually PCL6 printers will recognize PDF or PostScript, which you can set as the device output in Director Toolkit > Printers > Device Configuration.
    3. Sending Color PCL (PCL5) is not handled the same on all PCL6 printers, but some will delete the job if it does not recognize the input. 

 

Assistance

If any further assistance is needed, please contact our Support team.

 

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