printer issue

[Braincramp1]

I have an HP Deskjet6940, only six months old--worked perfectly on my Dell
desktop (XP) until a couple weeks ago. Now even though it looks like
everything's okay, every time you hit File/Print you get, "An unknown error
occurred while printing", or "Windows can't print due to a problem with the
current printer setup", and no printing, nothing even in queue. The printer
is recognized and WORKS PERFECTLY with my Vista laptop, so I know it's not
the printer but something to do with a change in the desktop.

I've tried:

--restoring (it won't go back),

--reinstalling countless times,

--reinstalling with driver from HP site,

--reinstalling with the installation disc,

--reinstalling with Vista installation disc,

--running HP printer diagnostic; it says all is okay.

I read somewhere that Service Pack 3 could cause problems so I deleted it
and tried again. I disabled all firewalls and antivirus and tried again. i
went through two elaborate attempts with HP support and tried again. Even
though it looks like a completely normal installation every time, NOTHING
ever makes it into the print job queue.

Does ANYONE have suggestions for something else to try?

Thanks,

Braincramp
























I read somewhere that maybe XP service Pack 3 was keeping printers from
installing so I uninstalled it and tried the printer again. Nothing.



Can anyone suggest something else I can try?



Thanks,

Braincramp

 

[JS]

Check to see that the print spooler service is running.

 

[Harry]

I have an HP Deskjet6940, only six months old--worked perfectly on my Dell
desktop (XP) until a couple weeks ago. Now even though it looks like
everything's okay, every time you hit File/Print you get, "An unknown error
occurred while printing", or "Windows can't print due to a problem with the
current printer setup", and no printing, nothing even in queue.

Ignore your HP Deskjet6940 for a momment.

Now add a local printer, say, HP LaserJet 4/4M PS. Use "Print to File"
as the printer port, instead of LPT1:.

Test if you can print from applications to this virtual printer.

 

[Braincramp1]

Ignore your HP Deskjet6940 for a momment.

Now add a local printer, say, HP LaserJet 4/4M PS. Use "Print to File"
as the printer port, instead of LPT1:.

Test if you can print from applications to this virtual printer.

Uh, well...I tried printing a web page thru the virtual printer to a file.
It did show up in the file but as 149 pages of gobbledy-gook. But it showed
up!

 

[Harry]

Uh, well...I tried printing a web page thru the virtual printer to a file..
It did show up in the file but as 149 pages of gobbledy-gook. But it showed
up!- Hide quoted text -

Since it was a postscript printer, the file should contain postscript.
But 149 pages! incredible.

Anyway, back to your HP Deskjet6940.
Change its printer port from LPT1: to "Print to File:".
Could you print from applications to your HP Deskjet6940 now?

 

[Harry]

Uh, well...I tried printing a web page thru the virtual printer to a file..
It did show up in the file but as 149 pages of gobbledy-gook. But it showed
up!- Hide quoted text -

Since it was a postscript printer, the file should contain postscript.
But 149 pages! incredible.

Anyway, back to your HP Deskjet6940.
Change its printer port from LPT1: to "Print to File:".
Could you print from applications to your HP Deskjet6940 now?

 

[Braincramp1]

Yes, it prints, the same gobbledy-gook (is that what postscript means?)

Braincramp

 

[Paul]

Yes, it prints, the same gobbledy-gook (is that what postscript means?)

Braincramp

Postscript is a high level language. It is used by printers, and
a version called Display Postscript is used by some computers (Sun Microsystems)
for rendering images on the screen.

Free language manual.
http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/ps/PLRM.pdf

To view what a Postscript file looks like, there is free viewer software.

*******
http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/

You can get gs853w32.exe (i386) from here. That installs the Ghostscript interpreter (low level).

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=1897&package_id=108733&release_id=617197

GSView provides a nice GUI to Ghostscript. You install it second.

http://www.tex.ac.uk/tex-archive/support/ghostscript/ghostgum/gsv49w32.exe
*******

There are other printer languages as well, like PCL. The
printer prints gobbledy-gook, if the wrong language
is sent to it - that is because they think the user
has decided to sent them vanilla text and the printer
is attempting to print the result as a simple text output.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printer_Command_Language

Paul

 

[Harry]

Yes, it prints, the same gobbledy-gook (is that what postscript means?)

Here is a sample of what a postscript file look like.

c:\> head xx.ps <-- showing only the first 10 lines...
$B"+(B%-12345X@PJL JOB
@PJL SET RESOLUTION = 600
@PJL ENTER LANGUAGE = POSTSCRIPT
%!PS-Adobe-3.0
%%Title: Ghostscript output
%%Creator: PScript5.dll Version 5.2.2
%%CreationDate: 2/16/2009 15:22:39
%%For: SYSTEM
%%BoundingBox: (atend)
%%Pages: (atend)

When you said "gobbledy-gook", did it look like the above?

BTW, did you HP Deskjet 6940 hook up with your PC
via the parallel port? or via USB?
Since you could print something to a file via your
HP Deskjet 6940, I am guessing in the dark that there might be
hardware connection issue between your printer & your PC.

 

[Braincramp1]

Here's a sample of what it looked like:

€ÿ﷓€ú;€}פ€~X¦€~Y&€~Ã(€ú˜‚úû€ÿ<€ÿߘ
ÿ]€úÚ€úw€~[§‚~X¦€}פ€þY€ƒ~۟!€€Ã€üB€€"€€¥€€b0v173w¿ÿF&Â`Ãÿ™ OËÚÂ@¼Ê‚+"¼œ
@¼ÊÂoóþÂOËÚ +â„¢ @¼ÊÂ+"¼ †Â„oóþ †ÂÅ“ ÿÿ¿ â„¢ @¼ÊÂÿÿ¿ Â^]a‡ÿÿ Â^]aÅ“
I°z…QA~„`ÃÿÂVMÂ`Ãÿ¹ ‡QA~
¿ÿÿÿk‡  ÿ ÿ
ÿ
ÿB ÿ ÿ ¹¿¿ ‡kiç ¿ ç ¿ ù ¿ ä0v96wºÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ©€‰f€‰ç€…e€€ƒ€ÿ€þ9‚}O€ú
€þX‚þz€úš€þÛ‡úÛ€úš€þY€þ8€}Ó‚}O€þZ€ÿ~€€£€„䀀A€„a€„€„倀b0v0w0v333wšÿO`ÃÿÂVMü ÂQA~â„¢ 6ž]Å¡ +Ÿ †  +‡+"¼ ÂOËÚ¹ Â^]aÂÿÿÂ+"¼… †Ââ„¢
OËÚÂoóþ‚ÿÿÂOËÚ™ †Âù  +â„¢ +"¼œ †Â +Â@¼Ê‚^]aÂÿÿÂgÃ¥mÅ¡
VM„QA~„`ÃÿÂQA~Âoóþ¿å ‡ ü
ÿ ÿ ùçÿ ý ¿ ç ý ÿ

I'm hooked up with a USB cable; and I tried more than one on the computer.
Worked fine with my laptop.

Braincramp

 

[Paul]

Here's a sample of what it looked like:

I'm hooked up with a USB cable; and I tried more than one on the computer.
Worked fine with my laptop.

Braincramp

The info here says the printer is PCL 3 language. But the above almost looks
like binary - either that, or some kind of compression algorithm. I'd try
my hand at decoding it, if I thought there was a language reference around
for it. I think people are generally more interested in PCL 5 or 6, as
they're more current examples of HP technology. PCL 3 might be
"off the radar".

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF06a/18972-18972-236251-14438-3328074-468001.html

"PCL 3 and PCL 5/6 Features and Differences"

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c00068221

Anyway, an interesting sample. And only 145 more pages to look at

Sometimes, the very beginning of the file, and the very ending, can
also be interesting parts. For example, in the sample Harry provided below,
there are actually two languages - three lines of PJL, and then the
Postscript starts. In your sample, there might be some stuff at the
very start of the file, that will tell you what it is. I cannot
say I've spent any great amount of time on PCL, but in the old
days, I used to "fix" simple errors in Postscript documents for
people at work.

Paul