Mike Chaney's Tech Corner

Greetings! I have been pulling my hair out over this one. I had to uninstall/reinstall my printers last week, and in the process associated printer ports were deleted/recreated. So while I ended up with installed printers of the same names as before as seen in Windows Devices & Printers and as listed by Qimage in the Printer Setup window, Qimage keeps trying to print to those printers on non-existent ports. This results in files being created with the name of the non-existent port, e.g. HPDesignjetZ310044inPhoto_copy_4, but nothing being printed. A very weird and frustrating situation.

I can see the port name is embedded in my job logs and in several Qimage settings files (e.g. the .prt files in C:\ProgramData\ddisoftware\Qimage). I succeeded in working around the problem by deleting the settings files and restarting Qimage.

Is there another (easier) way to tell Qimage to "choose" an existing printer port for the printer? This is important for me because I have kept my print job logs going back years and clients still call me up to reprint old jobs.

Thanks.

Cheers!

Brad

Hi Brad
I have had that problem once, but I solved it easily by choosing MANUAL PORT selection when the option screen pops up during Install.
It always asks: AUTO or Manual when selecting Ports.

In Manual, I follow the prompts and select USB 001, or USB 004, or Wireless...   whatever you had before.


Fred

Hi Fred, to which "install" are you referring? The printer has been reinstalled, given a name and assigned a port. Qimage-U has also been installed and can see the printer by name.

Thanks.

Brad

Brad,

I'm referring to installing the printer driver.
Somewhere during install (perhaps with no cable connected to the printer) it will ask you if you wish to Manually select the port.
That is when you choose the one that matches your set up.

To give you an example, I have (27) twenty seven printer drivers installed. Only 4 are connected to printers. The rest are just drivers which I installed to try to help people with setting their printer drivers for size and color etc.
I select the ports.  Some are on LPT1 and LPT2 (which hardly exist anymore) Others are on com ports and multiple drivers on the same ports.
The point is I can select the ports.

Fred

That's all been done Fred. The printer has been installed, given a name and assigned a port as part of reinstalling it. I can confirm through the Print Server Properties > Ports tab, that there is only one port assigned to this printer. In this case the printer name is "HP Designjet Z3100 44in Photo PCL3" and the port name is "HPDesignjetZ310044inPhoto".

When Qimage-U prints to that printer, it is using port "HPDesignjetZ310044inPhoto_copy_4" (see note *) which was removed when I uninstalled the printer and later reinstalled it. However, Qimage-U is "holding on" to that old port name in some of its files--you can see it in the .jpt files in the Log folder. If I reprint those jobs, Qimage-U sends the job to the right printer, but the wrong port which results in job being spooled to a file having the name of the port. It's very weird.

*NOTE: "HPDesignjetZ310044inPhoto_copy_4" was no doubt the port name of this printer before the most recent uninstall/reinstall of the printer. If a printer is reinstalled, the installer will generate a new port name (e.g. _copy_2, etc.) if a port name is already in the system. So port names can change over time. In this last case, I deliberately removed unused ports after uninstalling the printer, the driver and support software, to avoid conflicts going forward.

I have kept my job logs for years, as I said earlier, and I'm concerned because Qimage is holding on to old port names in the job log files (I can actually see it in the log display and the files themselves) and this will give me grief if I want to reprint those jobs, which I often do.

Thanks.

Cheers!

Brad

That really doesn't sound like a port designation to me, but I am not familiar with HP Designjets.

You do not sound like you have a port problem... sounds more like you have a printer name problem, and Qimage is not recognizing the new name.
Will it print from Qimage if you do not use any previously saved printer setups (prt)?  Just set the paper choice, and size manually?
***  See attached screen snap.   In Printers and Devices, Right click on your printer and select Printer Properties.
In the box I show you can change the name of the printer to exactly what it was before, and it will work.

Let me know, please, Brad.
Fred

Hi Fred. The printer name is exactly the same as before.

NOTE: I've just tried to re-run a previous job, and Qimage-U has printed to another non-existent port (this time _copy_2). I can see the job spooling through the correct printer and driver, but like before, it is going to a file with that port name.

However, I have found a rather clumsy work-around.
1. In QU, setup and run the job while monitoring the printer's queue.
2. If the job goes to a non-existent port (the printer will spool to a file with the port and), kill the job in QU.
3. Bring up the Printer Setup dialog and choose an entirely different printer.
4. Save the job.
5. Exit and restart QU.
6. Recall the saved job.
7. Bring up the Printer Setup dialog and then choose the original printer. This seems to force QU to get the right port.
8. Reconfigure the job as the paper size, etc. was probably changed in step 3.
9. Resubmit the job. This time it prints to the right port.

However, would it possible to look into why QU is holding on to these non-existent ports and saving them into the log files?

Thanks.

Cheers!

Brad

Yes, it seems to.

The problem is the reprinting from the log or using a previous job to create a new job, both of which I do a lot. Some jobs have a port name embedded in them and it seems once the old port is brought back, it persists.

BTW, I have just tried to manually create ports that match the old port names and attach them to the same printer, without success.

I know that over the years, if these printers had problems, I would reinstall (without deleting ports) and this has created a succession of port names (_copy_1, _copy_2, _copy_3, _copy_4, etc.). The last one (_copy_4) has clearly been around long enough not to cause much grief until this last week when was installing new equipment and had to reinstall this older machine temporarily.
 
Cheers!

Brad

Have you renamed the printer as I explained in my previous post?
As you can see, even my printer shows COPY1 "AS THE NAME OF THE PRINTER" because of the way it was originally installed years ago.
It gets fed by USB 001. THAT is the port assigned.
See the pointer in the screen snap?
Good luck,
Fred

Hi, Fred. The printer name was already the correct name, no need to rename it. Here is my Printer Setup dialog box in Qimage-U. These printers are network attached, not local. Even though the "Where:" field shows only the "HPDesignjetZ310044inPhoto", this job still prints to a non-existent port. I show the job in question in the second attachment (note that this job actually shows the port name in the log entry, not all jobs do).

The third attachment shows the print queue while this job is spooling showing (under the "Port" column) that it is actually creating a file. Normally, while spooling, the "Port" column is empty until the spooling is done and then the "Port" column will show the correct port as the driver prints the file.

Brad

I  guess the HP is different.
Maybe Ernst will read your post and help. He is an expert on HP large format.
Fred

The port is saved as part of the printer driver saved settings.  When you save a job, the driver settings are saved and the port must be saved: it has to be because you could have more than one of the same printer.  This is particularly true when dealing with network printers that aren't always available.  So when you do something (like reinstall drivers) and you end up with a new port name due to it being a network printer, you probably ended up with a new port named _copy_4 at the end: and you saved a couple jobs under that port name.  At some point, you must have noticed the _copy_4 and removed that from the port name... Now when you open the job, it tries to print it to the same place it was printed when the job was saved (_copy_4) because it has no way to know whether you got a second printer, reinstalled the same one, or the designation just changed.

Simply put, you'd have to update the job to pick up the new/correct port (in this case network) name.  I know no other way to do that other than the way you found: choosing a different printer to clear it and then re-choosing the HP printer to get the new location.  To avoid this in the future (we all learn the hard way, including me), I recommend always reviewing the printer and port names after the reinstall to make sure that if you are just updating or reinstalling the driver, you don't end up with extraneous (copy 1, copy 2, etc.) in the name and port values.  I guess Windows errs on the side of caution and always assumes when you do things like that, you are installing a second, third, etc. printer of the same type and it keeps unique names.  Ideally (IMO) when you do that, it should at some point ask if you are adding another printer or replacing the driver for an existing one.  Normally it doesn't cause a problem because QU is one of the only programs that allows you to save/recall such specific driver settings so I guess they didn't consider that.

Mike

Mike, thanks so much for confirming this and confirming that I'm not crazy! :-)

The workaround is good except that I can't tell if the job is going to a non-existent port until it starts spooling because the Printer Setup window seems to not display the non-existent port name in the "Where:" field.  Sometimes I have noticed in the printer selection dropdown that the printer name has more characters in it than it should and can change the printer selection, but that doesn't happen consistently.

Your "going forward" advice is good and I will be more watchful for that since I am frequently reinstalling, migrating and/or adding printers.

I should tell you that two of QU's most essential features for me (since I run a commercial print shop) are the job log (with manual naming) and the saved printer settings. I have been migrating these from WinXP to Win7 and now to Win10, across several different computers (and several uninstalls/reinstalls of the HP Designjets). I do this by keeping backups of the C:\ProgramData\ddisoftware\Qimage directory and copying these into any new installation. I keep all the source images for every print job in a similarly organized backup system. That way I can recreate print jobs for clients that were done ages ago with the same settings (paper type, paper size, source files, etc.). I can appreciate that you might not consider this a supported feature of QU, but I find it essential in my workflow.

I have had only two hiccups with this methodology. One is this non-existent port thing, which I now understand what's going on and can deal with it. And two is preserving all my paper sizes (I have built up a very long list).  E.g. a clean install of Windows will clear all the paper sizes and it looks like only a registry hack can get the previous list back. I'm working on that.

Cheers!

Brad

Argh, this is still driving me nuts--the workaround doesn't appear to work consistently. I really need to be able to retrieve previous jobs because the settings are non-trivial to reproduce, but I can't seem to clear the non-existent port name contained in the saved job and/or the related printer settings. NOTE: the jobs were printed on the same machine with the same paper & profile, etc., the only difference is the port name. Mike, is there anything else you can suggest, please?

Cheers!

Brad

Please give this beta version a try.  I've made an attempt to have QU ignore the port and pick up the current port associated with the printer:

http:\\www.ddisoftware.com/qimage-u/reg/v2016.132/qu16-133a.exe (http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage-u/reg/v2016.132/qu16-133a.exe)

The username and password are the same ones that you used for the most recent v2016.132 (from your v2016.132 registration email).

Thanks,
Mike

Thanks so much Mike. So far so good on my first test. I have more reprints today and later, so I will keep you posted here.

Cheers!

Brad

Please let me know how the rest of your testing works out.  If it looks good, I'll release it to the masses.  Might help some other people as I'm sure you're not the only one to encounter that.

Regards,
Mike

It's working well so far. Even jobs which I can see have a non-existent port number in the log, are no longer spooling to a file. AFAICS, it's good to go. If I encounter any glitches, I'll report them right away.

Cheers!

Brad

Upon closer inspection, there is still a glitch. While saved jobs will print (not get spooled to a file), there is still a lack of communication between QU and the printer driver. Saved settings don't appear to be sent to the driver. If I recall a print job with all settings, which is my normal procedure, and then bring up the "Printer Setup" dialog box and go into "Properties...", any changes I make at that time in the driver settings appear to be discarded when I exit back to the "Printer Setup" dialog box.

However, if I first choose a different printer, then re-choose the desired printer, then any changes I make in the printer driver through "Properties..." are kept.

Cheers!

Brad

I don't think that problem is related.  When you load printer settings and the driver is acting strange, won't print, or won't allow you to make changes, it means that the settings you just loaded are not compatible with the current driver.  That sometimes happens when you save settings and then install a newer driver or one for a different OS, then load the old settings from before the change.  Selecting another printer and then re-selecting the one you want clears the incompatible settings and resets them.  I don't think there's any way you can fix that other than doing what you are doing.  QU already checks the driver version when loading settings and if it's a different driver version, it'll display a message saying the settings cannot be loaded.  But I've seen more than one company update their driver and not update the version number that is reported to Windows.

Mike

Well, I'll keep my eye on it Mike. However, the issue might go away (for a long while) because I have retired the Z3100 and I'm installing a Z3200 as I write this. That means as I recall earlier customer jobs, they'll be changing printers anyway.

I really do appreciate your support and good spirits. Have a great holiday and I wish you all the best in 2016.

Cheers!

Brad

Thank you Brad for raising this query. And thank you Mike (especially!), and again Brad for getting us to this point where I (and other QU Users) now have a work-around for 'lost', former printer-driver names.

I was struggling with a similar problem. When I updated the drivers for my HP OfficeJet 8600+ I took the "opportunity" to delete the clunkily-named WSD Port that I had added years ago.  But that WSD-port-name was (as I now know) being used ONLY by Qimage.

This is a much less serious issue for me than for you Brad because I rarely depend on my previously-saved Job logs.  In addition I have recently re-arranged my image folders, therefore (knowingly) decoupling / breaking the links between those older logs and the images to which they referred.

However - although I am very late in saying this - your change Mike in Version 2016.133 to allow Qimage to handle this situation more gracefully is hugely appreciated  ;D

Colin P.