Software? Problem with HP 4L

[John Normile]

I have a HP 4L laser jet operating under XP Home, SP2. Up until
about 2 weeks ago it was working perfectly. Now however, a problem
has arisen with the first print job after boot up. A single sheet is
printed with 4 lines of code(?). All subsequent jobs print OK.

The following lines are printed:
X@PJL COMMENT HP LaserJet 4L
@PJL SET PAGEPROTECT=OFF
@PJL SET PAGEPROTECT=AUTO
@PJ
Any ideas how to prevent this from printing and returning the printer
to it's previous flawless operation?

Thanks
John Normile

 

[AdMan]

Have you tried deleting the printer driver and reinstalling it?

 

[Alan]

I have a HP 4L laser jet operating under XP Home, SP2. Up until
about 2 weeks ago it was working perfectly. Now however, a problem
has arisen with the first print job after boot up. A single sheet is
printed with 4 lines of code(?). All subsequent jobs print OK.

The following lines are printed:
X@PJL COMMENT HP LaserJet 4L
@PJL SET PAGEPROTECT=OFF
@PJL SET PAGEPROTECT=AUTO
@PJ
Any ideas how to prevent this from printing and returning the printer
to it's previous flawless operation?

I don't know why this is happening, but aside from the "X", what
you're seeing is the correct PJL (Printer Job Language) setup for your
printer that should begin each job. It looks like a spurious character
is being sent on boot that messes this up, so the subsequent commands
are being printed instead of executed.
What might work is a process that runs on startup that clears the
printer spool. My knowledge of Windows XP is zero, so I can't tell you
exactly how to so set that up.

Or it could be hardware setting or error with the port, either
physical or logical.

 

[Curt Bousquet]

This happened to me a several years ago (with Win95, actually)
and turned out to be some file that got replaced by another
program as part of a software install. All I had to do was
restore the original file and the problem went away.

The file in question back then was 'lpt.vxd'. This should at
least give you a good starting place to search for an answer!