RE: [IUG] Receipts not printing every time

["Welch, Andrew" <AWelch at auroragov dot org>]

Kathy Setter replied to me earlier this afternoon with this:
______________
Several of our sites have this problem.  What we finally traced it to
was using the system printer to print paging slips from the circ
terminal.  Many of our libraries are small and do everything from one
workstation.  When they printed paging slips to the system printer then
checked out a patron a receipt would never print.  It was like using the
system printer disabled the receipt printer, but usually just for the
first patron.  Anyway, going back to select the printer - receipt
printer and reselecting the local printer solved it for us.  I don't
know why the receipt printer would be affected when the standard printer
was used, but there it is.  Come to think of it, we upgraded to 2006 the
beginning of December and no one has mentioned this.  I'll have to ask
if it still happens.
______________

I think this is exactly what's happening with our branches, as our
Central branch doesn't print paging slips from any of the circ
terminals. I'm having one of our branches test it out this afternoon.

Regards,

Andrew Welch
Sr. Library Systems Technician
Aurora Public Library
awelch at auroragov dot org 

-----Original Message-----
From: innopac-bounces at innopacusers dot org
[mailto:innopac-bounces at innopacusers dot org] On Behalf Of Josh Stompro
Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2007 12:37 PM
To: Welch, Andrew; IUG INNOPAC List
Subject: Re: [IUG] Receipts not printing every time

Welch, Andrew wrote:
> We're having an issue with our receipt printers at the circ desk. When

> items are checked out to a patron and staff click the Close button, 
> the receipt doesn't always list the patron's items, just the "Items 
> checked out to..." message at the top and our custom message at the
bottom.
> However, clicking the Print button before closing the patron record 
> prints the receipt correctly every time. Of course, this means a huge 
> waste of receipt paper, as we often get 2 full receipts for each 
> transaction.
>
> The really odd thing is that receipt printing is working perfectly at 
> our Central branch, which sees by far the highest volume. Nearly every

> one of our 6 other branches reports the above problem. To make matters

> worse, it isn't at all consistent (that we can tell); not tied to 
> specific patrons or item types or a particular time of day. This makes

> us wonder if perhaps it's a network issue, but we can't see why 
> receipt printing would need to talk to the Millennium server when the 
> information it needs is already sitting in the patron window.
>
> Has anyone else experienced this and determined a cause?
> OR
> Can someone confirm whether the network is involved in the "Close"
> method of receipt printing?
> OR
> Is there an option to only use the Print button and turn off the Close

> button for receipts?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Andrew Welch
> Sr. Library Systems Technician
> Aurora Public Library
> awelch at auroragov dot org
>
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>   
We have also experienced this problem before and haven't found a
solution.  It doesn't happen at our largest branch which is on the same
LAN as our III server, so , like you said, it might be network related.

It is also impossible to replicate in any consistent manner, there is no
pattern to when it happens that I have been able to figure out either.

We are running Release 2006.

I was running a packet sniffer to see if I could tell if the print
command was triggering network traffic, and I used the print button 3
times in a row, fairly rapidly.  The third print job failed with this
error in the console windows.

########start############
print exception: Printer is not accepting job.ils.larl.org:0 milcirc : 
terminus/
192.168.40.5:lmcirc:14547:javax.print.PrintException: Printer is not
accepting j ob.

javax.print.PrintException: Printer is not accepting job.
        at sun.print.Win32PrintJob.print(Unknown Source)
        at
com.iii.print.PrintServiceProxy$DocPrintJobProxy.print(PrintServicePr
oxy.java:362)
        at
com.iii.print.LocalPrinter$PrintRunnable.run(LocalPrinter.java:598)
        at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source) ils.larl.org:0
miltoolbar : 
terminus/192.168.40.5:lmcirc:24643:javax.print.Print
Exception: Printer is not accepting job.
###########Stop###########

That same error message was sent to our III server over the network on
port 4600 to the logsystemerr target, so maybe III keeps a log on the
server of all client errors.

Maybe the problem is that instead of retrying in a second or so when the
printer isn't accepting a print job, the Millennium client just gives up
immediately without notifying the user.  Have you seen any error
messages like this on the staff machines that are experiencing the
problem?


Josh Stompro
Network Administrator

--
Lake Agassiz Regional Library - Moorhead MN larl.org
Josh Stompro               | Office 218.233.3757 EXT-139
LARL Network Administrator | Cell 218.790.2110	


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