Print Job - Cancelling - Why so long?

[pmoore11]

Can anybody explain why it (sometimes - most generally) takes so long to
Cancel a Print Job (Control Panel/Printers & Faxes)?? I find a job in a
given printer's Print List - highlight it and click Cancel - and, XP tells
me that it is cancelling it... but, nothing happens for a long time. I
usually take a coffee break..) Is there a faster way to cancel a job??

(The reason I need to cancel so often is that I have two types of printers
on my computer (one for high volume b/w printing and the other for low
volume color) with a Centronixs A/B switch... Of course, every now and then
we "click" on one printer while we are "pointed" at the other... Of curse,
the "other" printer starts spitting out volumes of @#$%&(^%$#@# - with no
intention of ever stopping until all paper is gone... arg.... )

Thanks in advance,

Palmer

 

[MAP]

Can anybody explain why it (sometimes - most generally) takes so long
to Cancel a Print Job (Control Panel/Printers & Faxes)?? I find a
job in a given printer's Print List - highlight it and click Cancel -
and, XP tells me that it is cancelling it... but, nothing happens for
a long time. I usually take a coffee break..) Is there a faster way
to cancel a job??

(The reason I need to cancel so often is that I have two types of
printers on my computer (one for high volume b/w printing and the
other for low volume color) with a Centronixs A/B switch... Of
course, every now and then we "click" on one printer while we are
"pointed" at the other... Of curse, the "other" printer starts
spitting out volumes of @#$%&(^%$#@# - with no intention of ever
stopping until all paper is gone... arg.... )

Thanks in advance,

Palmer

It's just another bug in XP.
Some time ago one of the MVP's who frequents this group provided a batch
file to kill the print job faster I have used it a few times and it seems to
work.(most of the time).

Open notepad and copy and paste this to it.

@echo off
net stop "print spooler"
del /q "%SystemRoot%\system32\spool\PRINTERS\*.*"
net start "print spooler"
ping localhost -n 5 > nul

Save it and close notepad,next rename the file to.

Kill Print Job.bat

The next time your printer hangs at deleting a print job just double click
on this batch file.

 

[Doug Kanter]

Can anybody explain why it (sometimes - most generally) takes so long to
Cancel a Print Job (Control Panel/Printers & Faxes)?? I find a job in a
given printer's Print List - highlight it and click Cancel - and, XP tells
me that it is cancelling it... but, nothing happens for a long time. I
usually take a coffee break..) Is there a faster way to cancel a job??

(The reason I need to cancel so often is that I have two types of printers
on my computer (one for high volume b/w printing and the other for low
volume color) with a Centronixs A/B switch... Of course, every now and
then
we "click" on one printer while we are "pointed" at the other... Of
curse,
the "other" printer starts spitting out volumes of @#$%&(^%$#@# - with no
intention of ever stopping until all paper is gone... arg.... )

Thanks in advance,

Palmer

Two possible reasons:

- Some printers have quite a bit more memory than in (much) earlier years.
Therefore, more of the data is stuffed into the printer. And, although
cancelling a job may delete the data that's still in the computer, there's
still quite a bit at the printer. You'd think that printers should be able
to communicate well enough to obey the cancel command, but sadly, that's not
the case.

- The problem is sometimes compounded by switches, which slow down signal
transmission for reasons I don't understand.

 

[Vagabond Software]

Can anybody explain why it (sometimes - most generally) takes so long to
Cancel a Print Job (Control Panel/Printers & Faxes)?? I find a job in a
given printer's Print List - highlight it and click Cancel - and, XP tells
me that it is cancelling it... but, nothing happens for a long time. I
usually take a coffee break..) Is there a faster way to cancel a job??

(The reason I need to cancel so often is that I have two types of printers
on my computer (one for high volume b/w printing and the other for low
volume color) with a Centronixs A/B switch... Of course, every now and
then
we "click" on one printer while we are "pointed" at the other... Of
curse,
the "other" printer starts spitting out volumes of @#$%&(^%$#@# - with no
intention of ever stopping until all paper is gone... arg.... )

Thanks in advance,

Palmer

It's not a "bug" in XP. Dealing with printers has historically been a
problem. Prior to the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), doing
anything with a printer required an API call to the Win32 libraries. How
the response to those commands are dealt with depend more on the printer
driver and the embedded code in the printer than with Windows.

Higher-end printers are (not surprisingly) typically more responsive to API
and WMI calls. Also, laser printers tend to be more responsive than ink jet
or dot matrix printers. The "firmware" running inside the printer has to
stop all the mechanical parts in the process of printing, reset them to
their "home" position, clear the paper paths, clear the memory, then send a
status back to the operating system.

Thinking about all of that, remember that your printers are so cheap because
they use cheap processors and micro-controllers to run the firmware. Some
are using asic versions of the Z80 or Z80180... I was writing assembly code
for Z80 processors in the late 80s. Some printers don't even have
processors. They use your computer processor... Aha! "Good!" you say?
Nope. Doesn't really help much because the "virutal processor" on your
system now has to relay operating system calls to the pretty much brain dead
controllers on the printer and wait for them to get around to a response.

Yep, talking to printers should be easier than it is, but it is not.

carl

 

[antioch]

I've had an Epson printer connected to four different computers.
Despite the quality etc of each computer getting better, the cancel jobs
take just as long. Yep, time to make a cup of coffee.
Antioch
P.S. The local computer store owner has suggested a better quality one (more
expensive he means)but I'm not convinced. I'm quite happy making a cup of
coffee.

 

[pmoore11]

I used the .bat file MIke suggested and it worked just fine. Thanks, Mike.
(However, I think it leaves a "1" in print queue... but, that's ok... the
job is cancelled right away...)

As far as the other suggestions - I forgot to mention that I always powered
off the printers... Which I am assuming would reset their memories, thus any
print jobs - right? Still a mystery to me..... (I think that even though a
Centronix is a parallel cable is used - PC technology might not utilize a
full duplex communications between printer and driver... ("Hey, I'm having
problems with that last request - please hold on.." Rather, more of a
simplex approach, "Here it is - I hope you know what to do with it." )

Thanks, again, guys,

Palmer

 

[MAP]

I used the .bat file MIke suggested and it worked just fine. Thanks,
Mike. (However, I think it leaves a "1" in print queue... but, that's
ok... the job is cancelled right away...)

As far as the other suggestions - I forgot to mention that I always
powered off the printers... Which I am assuming would reset their
memories, thus any print jobs - right? Still a mystery to me.....
(I think that even though a Centronix is a parallel cable is used -
PC technology might not utilize a full duplex communications between
printer and driver... ("Hey, I'm having problems with that last
request - please hold on.." Rather, more of a simplex approach,
"Here it is - I hope you know what to do with it." )

Thanks, again, guys,

Palmer

Your welcome!

As far as the other suggestions - I forgot to mention that I always
powered off the printers... Which I am assuming would reset their
memories, thus any print jobs - right?

I may be wrong here but I don't believe that all printers use their own
memory,
some use the windows cache?. Which is why sometimes when a print job won't
print if you reboot your computer it will start printing.(Which is also why
I said it is a bug in XP).Rebooting my printer doesn't do a thing for me.But
I suspect that it all depends on what printer you have.

 

[pmoore11]

That would explain it, Mike... That's always bown my mind... but, if my HP
LaserJet 2100's memory is actually over in my XP machine... it's makes a
whole lot of sense why resetting it doesn't cancel the print job...

(I've actually had to use you little .bat file twice... thanks, again...)

Palmer