Canon ImageRunner 2230 Problems

[Dmitriy]

I'm not sure if someone here can help me... but here is my problem.

One of my clients has a Canon ImageRunner 2230 laser printer/copier/
scanner/fax... it's a big unit they lease from Canon. This machine is
connected to the network and receives print jobs via that.

The client also has a SCO OpenServer 5 server on their network running
custom accounting software. The server is setup to print to the
ImageRunner over the network using lpd.

For the most part - everything works perfectly well. The printing from
SCO and Windows works great...

Except for one report from SCO, which does not print correctly no
matter what we do. The report is composed of 3 different print jobs,
but only the first one prints... the rest just disappears somewhere.
This same report printed fine on their old Canon printer, and prints
fine on an HP 1320N they have.

I've played around with every option I could think of. The only reason
I can see for this happening is the fact that 3 jobs are sent in rapid
succession. I know SCO likes to reuse source ports frequently when
sending over TCP/IP (for example it will use a source port of 1223 for
the first one, then 1224 then 1225 and then 1223 again), which some
firewalls don't like... resulting in lost data. Does anyone know if
Canon's network hardware/software does the same thing?

Any other ideas?
I'm hesitant to call Canon because they will say something like "we
don't support SCO" and I've had bad experiences with their local tech
people previously.

 

[Tim S]

I'm not sure if someone here can help me... but here is my problem.

One of my clients has a Canon ImageRunner 2230 laser printer/copier/
scanner/fax... it's a big unit they lease from Canon. This machine is
connected to the network and receives print jobs via that.

The client also has a SCO OpenServer 5 server on their network running
custom accounting software. The server is setup to print to the
ImageRunner over the network using lpd.

For the most part - everything works perfectly well. The printing from
SCO and Windows works great...

Except for one report from SCO, which does not print correctly no
matter what we do. The report is composed of 3 different print jobs,
but only the first one prints... the rest just disappears somewhere.
This same report printed fine on their old Canon printer, and prints
fine on an HP 1320N they have.

I've played around with every option I could think of. The only reason
I can see for this happening is the fact that 3 jobs are sent in rapid
succession. I know SCO likes to reuse source ports frequently when
sending over TCP/IP (for example it will use a source port of 1223 for
the first one, then 1224 then 1225 and then 1223 again), which some
firewalls don't like... resulting in lost data. Does anyone know if
Canon's network hardware/software does the same thing?

Any other ideas?
I'm hesitant to call Canon because they will say something like "we
don't support SCO" and I've had bad experiences with their local tech
people previously.

I have experience of the Imagerunners, though not the 2230 (I had a 2200,
several 3300s and a few of the larger units - I believe the engine in the
2230 will be similar to the older 2200/3300 series.

I do not unfortunately have an answer to your problem, so I will go into
brain dump mode (verbosity ensues now and hope something may help...

How is the job control handled? Are the 3 jobs sent totally separately or
are they sent as a single stream using PS or PCL (or, heavens forbid
Canon's CPCA binary) job encapsulation?

What lpd system is used - is it SCO's own, or lprNG (not that I've tried
compiling anything on SCO, my last experience of their junk made me glad to
never see it again). In either case, is "ifhp" used?

If sent separately to the printer's lpd listener, I would be surprised if
the printer could not cope - I have experienced some oddities with the IR
printers, but not this. That printer is capable of spooling half a dozen
jobs into RAM alone no matter what it is doing.

How hard would it be for your to reconfigure the server to send to port 9100
on the printer - there is no lpr protocol used there, simply "pipe" the job
data in. Might be worth a try.

Failing that, my next move would be either:

a) Investigative - capture the job data and inspect it, then try sending to
the printer from another box (netcat to port 9100). See if there are any
weird PJL or PS pragmas in the data stream.

b) Fast cure(?) - put up a CUPS print server, equip it with the IR2230 PPDs
supplied for use on Mac OSX (they should be available), configure the
gateway CUPS lpd service on the CUPS server and have the SCO box talk to
that instead.

Other lines of attack - do the logs on the printer (on screen or on it's web
page) show any trace of the 2nd and 3rd parts of the job, either as page
counts (unlikely as the page counts do seem to accurately reflect actual
pages printed) or of phantom jobs with zero page counts.

If you want decent technical advice on the Canon IR units, ask your sales
rep to put you in touch with Stockley Park - that is Canon's engineering
support centre in the UK and they have a great deal of experience with the
IR's and access to many cookbook solutions not generally available.

There is also a business support web site that you should be able to get
free access to, again ask the rep. Do not take no for an answer.

I don't know if any of that helps, but it might give you some ideas. I
recommend you get the Stockley Park contact established - that will take
some time, but be ready with useful diagnostic data when you do get hold of
them - those guys are pretty good, but they won't know where to start
without something more solid to go on.

Cheers

Tim