Hey all,
I need to get your opinions on an elusive network printer problem which has been driving me nuts for months now. I can’t seem to track down the cause of this behavior.
Situation:
This particular office has 4 computers running WinXP Pro Sp2 and an external snap server set up in a workgroup configuration along with an HP color Laserjet 2550 network printer in use as the group printer, all cabled into the router and out from there to the DSL modem for internet access. The “network” works fine as far as file sharing and 3 users have no problem printing to the printer.
One user in this group is having [b]occasional[/b] difficulties printing to the printer. Normally, it prints fine. But, when he tries to print one specific type of PDF file from our company web site which is being viewed in his browser (IE7 or Firefox, doesn’t matter), the file won’t always print immediately. Sometimes it takes hours to print. Sometimes longer. Sometimes, it prints immediately. The other day though, it printed one copy of a file for him, out of the blue, which he had tried to print numerous times [b]TWO WEEKS[/b] prior. Where the other print attempts went to, nobody knows. His computer had been rebooted a couple of times since then too.
When this happens, there is no document waiting to be printed showing in his print que. And, I can run a test print AFTER his print request which goes through to the printer almost immediately. The printer is shut off nightly, so its memory should have been cleared numerous times.
Now, this particular kind of PDF that is having problems is one which is fillable online by our customers. We run Adobe server at HQ (not sure of the version). The customer fills out an online PDF form and submits it to our servers. A plain PDF is generated and stored at HQ, then my user is notified that it is available for viewing/printing. The document he views through his browser is a “dumb” PDF (not fillable, just printable).
HQ insists that no other users have reported having print problems with this particular kind of PDF. So, I’m coming to you to ask what else can I look for to cause this problem? I’m stumped. 🙁