Epson Status Monitor 3 Sloooooow

[Alan Smithee]

I'm not sure what the heck I did....I was getting an old photo ex back to
life and loaded Epson Status Monitor "2" to have control of the EX. All of a
sudden Status Monitor "3" began to crap out on me. Now, when I click on the
icon in the tray Status Montior 3 takes about a minute to do anything. When
it finally comes up it just displays "Searching..." in the status window
until it eventually gives me the dreaded "communication error". The really
bizarre thing is the printer still prints jobs normally. Epson Status
Monitor 3 also fails to show me what the ink levels are. I've tried deleting
and then reinstalling the drivers/monitor with no luck. Anyone have a
solution for this? BTW when I run the SSC utility it shows me the inks
levels properly. Thx.

 

[Woody]

What level of status monitor 3 are you using and what printer. For a long
time now the status monitor has been incorporated in the driver and not a
separate product. Check the current driver page for your printer and see if
there is a separate SM. You probably have multiple drivers conflicting with
each other.

 

[Alan Smithee]

You're right the driver and status monitor are one in the same. It's an R300
printer BTW. Epson support sent me some instructions to uninstall, reboot,
kill all non essential processes with taskmgr and then reinstall the driver
witht the printer off and unplugged. Of course these instructions DID NOT
work. I've removed all printer drivers and it still makes no difference. So
I'm back at square one. SSC still works which is puzzling. Is there a way to
permanently replace ESM 3 with SSC?

~m

 

[Colin Smith]

I would remove all Epson programs in Add/remove including SSC, disconnect
the printer from the mains and USB, reinstall from the Epson CD all the
programs you need. As you install it will stop and search for the printer at
this point first reconnect the mains and switch on the printer, your PC
should then see the printer and inform you it's loading the software, from
there the rest of the programs you have ticked will install. Removing all
the items in Task Manager will not remove all the software so you end up
writing over drivers that are already on your machine. If you then find ESM
3 works you can reintall SSC.

 

[Alan Smithee]

I've done all this. The printer exhibits the problem with or without the SSC
program running or installed. I normally don't run the SSC program and since
it's not a resident service it shouldn't be causing any issues that way
unless it's loaded an old dll somewhere. The problems all started when
loading the old printer software (Epson's) for the PhotoEX I was trying to
(and succeeded) unclog. Epson's latest offering was advising me to run
msconfig and do a minimal start up and try again. I did and still no luck.
It's pooched somewhere else. I don't want to reload one of my main
workstations so I guess I'll have to live with it or dig a little deeper.
Thanks for the try though.

 

[Shooter]

I agree with you that you have some of the old drivers on your system, If it
was my rig I would remove all my Epson software in add / remove then hack
the registry with regedit and remove all enteries for the Epson old and new,
being careful to back up the Registry before doing so, there could be a
cou[le of hundred enteries to remove, then reinstall the software for the
R300.

 

[Arthur Entlich]

You may need to ask Epson for a full list of the files it loads for both
status monitor 2 and 3, and then manually remove the extra files, and
then reinstall Monitor III. They do tend to conflict with one another
when certain drivers get together.

Art

 

[Arthur Entlich]

You may wish to remove SSC temporarily as well before reloading drivers.

Art

 

[Beemer]

| I'm not sure what the heck I did....I was getting an old photo ex back to
| life and loaded Epson Status Monitor "2" to have control of the EX. All of
a
| sudden Status Monitor "3" began to crap out on me. Now, when I click on
the
| icon in the tray Status Montior 3 takes about a minute to do anything.
When
| it finally comes up it just displays "Searching..." in the status window
| until it eventually gives me the dreaded "communication error". The really
| bizarre thing is the printer still prints jobs normally. Epson Status
| Monitor 3 also fails to show me what the ink levels are. I've tried
deleting
| and then reinstalling the drivers/monitor with no luck. Anyone have a
| solution for this? BTW when I run the SSC utility it shows me the inks
| levels properly. Thx.
|
|
I'm not sure about status monitor 3, but SM 2 and a motherboard with Via
chipset (if thats what you have ) did not get along if you had a USB printer
AND something on the LPT 1 port.

Beemer

 

[Alan Smithee]

That could very well be....the other thought that crossed my mind was that
the USB driver could somehow be hooped. I notice that the printer (R300)
refuses to read my 2GB memory card from my camera but maybe that's the
printer's limitation. Also when I try to plug my camera into the front of
the printer it doesn't work. I have to use a USB port on the back of my PC
to download photos. thx.

 

[Beemer]

| That could very well be....the other thought that crossed my mind was that
| the USB driver could somehow be hooped. I notice that the printer (R300)
| refuses to read my 2GB memory card from my camera but maybe that's the
| printer's limitation. Also when I try to plug my camera into the front of
| the printer it doesn't work. I have to use a USB port on the back of my PC
| to download photos. thx.
|
|
| | >
| > | > | I'm not sure what the heck I did....I was getting an old photo ex back
| to
| > | life and loaded Epson Status Monitor "2" to have control of the EX.
All
| of
| > a
| > | sudden Status Monitor "3" began to crap out on me. Now, when I click
on
| > the
| > | icon in the tray Status Montior 3 takes about a minute to do
anything.
| > When
| > | it finally comes up it just displays "Searching..." in the status
window
| > | until it eventually gives me the dreaded "communication error". The
| really
| > | bizarre thing is the printer still prints jobs normally. Epson Status
| > | Monitor 3 also fails to show me what the ink levels are. I've tried
| > deleting
| > | and then reinstalling the drivers/monitor with no luck. Anyone have a
| > | solution for this? BTW when I run the SSC utility it shows me the inks
| > | levels properly. Thx.
| > |
| > |
| > I'm not sure about status monitor 3, but SM 2 and a motherboard with
Via
| > chipset (if thats what you have ) did not get along if you had a USB
| printer
| > AND something on the LPT 1 port.
| >
| > Beemer
| >
| >
|
Looks like its time for you to check the USB port power loading which you
can do in XP device manager/usb controller/usb hub properties/power. My
Epson 1290 is showing 2 m.a. on idle and when printing. My scanner however
is taking 48 m.a. Check you motherboard spec for USB load capability.
Also you never said if you have anything on your LPT1 port. As I had
experience of the SM2 USB conflict with LPT1 I have changed my LPT port even
although it is unused from LPT1 to LPT2. Regarding SSC I understand that
it has a setting to take control and not use SM2/SM3

Beemer

 

[Alan Smithee]

| That could very well be....the other thought that crossed my mind was that
| the USB driver could somehow be hooped. I notice that the printer (R300)
| refuses to read my 2GB memory card from my camera but maybe that's the
| printer's limitation. Also when I try to plug my camera into the front of
| the printer it doesn't work. I have to use a USB port on the back of my PC
| to download photos. thx.
|
|
| | >
| > | > | I'm not sure what the heck I did....I was getting an old photo ex back
| to
| > | life and loaded Epson Status Monitor "2" to have control of the EX.
All
| of
| > a
| > | sudden Status Monitor "3" began to crap out on me. Now, when I click
on
| > the
| > | icon in the tray Status Montior 3 takes about a minute to do
anything.
| > When
| > | it finally comes up it just displays "Searching..." in the status
window
| > | until it eventually gives me the dreaded "communication error". The
| really
| > | bizarre thing is the printer still prints jobs normally. Epson Status
| > | Monitor 3 also fails to show me what the ink levels are. I've tried
| > deleting
| > | and then reinstalling the drivers/monitor with no luck. Anyone have a
| > | solution for this? BTW when I run the SSC utility it shows me the inks
| > | levels properly. Thx.
| > |
| > |
| > I'm not sure about status monitor 3, but SM 2 and a motherboard with
Via
| > chipset (if thats what you have ) did not get along if you had a USB
| printer
| > AND something on the LPT 1 port.
| >
| > Beemer
| >
| >
|
Looks like its time for you to check the USB port power loading which you
can do in XP device manager/usb controller/usb hub properties/power. My
Epson 1290 is showing 2 m.a. on idle and when printing. My scanner however
is taking 48 m.a. Check you motherboard spec for USB load capability.
Also you never said if you have anything on your LPT1 port. As I had
experience of the SM2 USB conflict with LPT1 I have changed my LPT port even
although it is unused from LPT1 to LPT2. Regarding SSC I understand that
it has a setting to take control and not use SM2/SM3

Beemer

Here's the thing....I'm put up a brand new machine, XP pro. Move the printer
onto the new machine. It prints fine and ESM3 works fine on that machine. I
share the printer. I can print to it from the machine it was just on, but
ESM3 over the network still exhibits the exact same problems. So it's
definately a local problem on the machine with ESM3. I thought maybe it was
a USB issue but that's out of the equation now that the printer is somewhere
else on the network. Thanks everybody for the help.