SambaPOS Forum
English Boards => Support => Topic started by: Hugove on July 20, 2013, 12:22:41 am
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My Kitchen printer only prints the header and a couple of lines that contains table information then stops...
Weird. Any ideas?
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Post your Kitchen Template. Probably a wrong tag used or something that is interrupting the print job.
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Hi John,
It only does it sometimes and with selected products. It prints the header and stops half way through the time tag.
Header:
<EB>
<T>{TABLE USER}
<F>-
<F>-
<L00>Date:{TICKET DATE}
<L00>Time:{TIME}
<F>-
[<C01>Note
<L>
{NOTE}
<L>]
<DB>
Line template:
<L>
<L21>{QUANTITY} x {NAME}
* {PROPERTIES}
Void line temp:
<L>
<L21>**VOID**{QUANTITY} x {NAME}
* {PROPERTIES}
<L>
Footer:
<EB>
<F>-
<L>
<L00>Waitron: {TICKETTAG:Waitron}
<L00>Table No: {TABLE}
<L00>Guests: {TICKETTAG:Guest Count}
<DB>
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If it is an issue only with selected products, then maybe a product name is the problem.
You could try removing the {TIME} tag and see if you can reproduce the issue.
The template looks OK.
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John,
Now I am a well confused. The offending products are printing again... I didnt remove the {TIME} tag, because some of the tickets printed.
didnt really change anything???
Weird
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Problem still exist. Its not product specific, I notice some users it works for and some users printing some products still only prints just the header.
There are too many variables here to narrow it down. #smh
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So the problem is still here. Lets start from the beginning:
I have two PC's both running windows 7 (server and a waiter station)
3 printers - All Epson TM-T88III (one connected to the server and 2 connected to the waiter station)
One printer connected to the waiter station is a USB printer that is based in the kitchen - USB cable goes through the wall into the kitchen about 2m away from the waiter station which is on the restaurant side of the wall.
The two computers is connected with a cat5e cable and a home group is setup for printer sharing.
The server and the waiter station printers all function very well (Parallel cable connections) no problems at all. They are for printing bills mainly.
Both computers on input of food orders through SambaPOS is setup to print in the kitchen. And this also works from both computers, but intermittently. The main problem being that at some point it only prints the table number at the top of the ticket then stops.
...and this is how troubleshooting has gone so far:
I have changes the USB cable - made no difference.
I have swoped the printer out - no difference
I have upgraded the drivers to Epson Version 4 advanced
Anyone with a technical background that can help me out with some advice? I dont know where else to look to. This seems to be an Isolated problem as far as I can tell.
Thanks
Hugo
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Can I just check ?
You have three printers, two are parallel and one is usb. All three printers are Epson TM-T88iii. So two printers are connected the waiter terminal.
The usb printer is the shared printer and the drivers have been installed on both the server and waiter PC, so therefore its shared on the server and is directly connected to the waiter station.
The two PCs I assume are connected via a router or hub.
We need to narrow this down, is it a Windows sharing issue or an issue within SambaPOS.
And you can print to the shared USB printer from the server PC through Windows with no issues - ie Windows test pages print in full.
How often does this problem happen as you say its intermittent, have you noticed if it only occurs if the waiter terminal printer is being used.
Sorry for all the questions, Iam an IT Field Engineer and as I cannot physically see your setup Im trying to get an idea of whats happening.
Those printers only have a small data buffer and therefore cannot store very much of the job in memory - which could be the reason why only part of the ticket is printed especially if the PC already has another printer connected to it.
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Does the problem happen from both computers ?
Try adding a duplicate kitchen print job printing to the second printer on the Waiter terminal.
This will help to see if its a printer or print job issue.
Usually when a printer stops, it's what it's about to print that is the issue, but it could still have info buffered which a means its further down the print job.
Can you see any similarities between the half printed tickets? Items, modifiers, Waiters name?
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Hugo,
Can you post a picture of the half printed ticket.
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Thanks for the input:
@Lemmings
You have three printers, two are parallel and one is usb. All three printers are Epson TM-T88iii. So two printers are connected the waiter terminal. -Correct (1 x usb and 1 x Parallel)
The usb printer is the shared printer and the drivers have been installed on both the server and waiter PC, so therefore its shared on the server and is directly connected to the waiter station. - Correct
The two PCs I assume are connected via a router or hub. No - Crossover cable (15m in Lenght)
We need to narrow this down, is it a Windows sharing issue or an issue within SambaPOS.
And you can print to the shared USB printer from the server PC through Windows with no issues - ie Windows test pages print in full. - Correct
How often does this problem happen as you say its intermittent, have you noticed if it only occurs if the waiter terminal printer is being used. - It happened daily often the first tickets of the day. Not sure, going to set up a duplicate test now as John Suggested.
Sorry for all the questions, Iam an IT Field Engineer and as I cannot physically see your setup Im trying to get an idea of whats happening. - I appreciate your help and input.
Those printers only have a small data buffer and therefore cannot store very much of the job in memory - which could be the reason why only part of the ticket is printed especially if the PC already has another printer connected to it. - Is it possible that I can set priorities to printers/Jobs?
Test Results on the Duplicate:
So, As John Suggested, I setup a print job (Duplicate of that of "Print Kitchen Orders") to the waiter station printer. In theory it should now print Kitchen orders at both printers? Right? It still prints in the Kitchen but kicks out the error that we are trying to solve at the waiter station printer. See attached image. This is the problem.
We are now sending 2 jobs to one printer which gives us the same error as presumably when two jobs or too much data are sent to one printer? I am speculating, Ideas?
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@John
Can you see any similarities between the half printed tickets? Items, modifiers, Waiters name?
As per the image above, they all the same bar the table number that is correct everytime
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When the printer fails does it cut or feed the paper or stop ?
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I don't see that this is a buffer issue. The Windows printer driver will control the flow.
I have never seen an intermittent issue like this, but my gut is telling me it could be regional settings.
There seems to be no consistency with the fault. But ticket printers do have a habit of stopping mid print if they cannot process what is being sent.
If both waiter printers are producing the same result, it's not printer or port related. It's the information being printed.
What character set do you have set for the printer in SambaPOS? Default is 857 which is Turkish, I run 437.
As a test move the Date and Time to the very bottom of the ticket.
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@lemmings - It just stops. I press the feed on the printer to get it out. The bit that prints is so small, it hardly looks like anything has printed at all when looking at the printer, because its inside the printer.
@John - There are three printers and its only the kitchen printer that is doing this. The waiter station printer also did this when I crested a duplicate kitchen order print job to it. The server printer has never stopped once nor has the waiter station printer bar the test above. The character sets on all the printers are 857 but I will change it to see if it makes a difference.
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It's not a hardware issue. It is the Kitchen Printer Template that is the problem.
The fact that its not cutting means that it is receiving data that it cannot process and stops.
Which means that its a language / character set issue.
Move the Date/Time to the bottom.
Remove any unnecessary formatting lines to test.
Get back to a very basic setup an then add formatting to the template.
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OK, I have now setup the Character set to: 437 and moved the time and datee to the bottom, so far so good.
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Hugo,
So far so good?
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Have you tried the built in PrintingTemplate instead of yours?
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Hi All,
I have been away for a break in Portugal only to return to the same problem, only now it seems to be narrowed down to when there are power outages. In this area it happens 2-3 times a week. Printing a test page somehow resets it and it works again - a workaround for the time being but still really annoying.
Does anyone know "From a tech point of view" why this could be happening and if there is an obvious fix? I have thought about maybe a script that sends a test print to the printer on restart but still this would not root out the problem only another workaround.
Any ideas?
Ta
Hugo
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@Stelzi79 - The template is the built in one, the problem occurred prior to any changes made, however I believe that John has helped with moving the time and date to the bottom and changing the character set. It is now less intermittent but reoccurs when there are power failures which seems to be constant problem here. investing in a UPS is a good idea however there is something not right here and I need to find out what it is.
Appreciate your help and input.
Regards
Hugo
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Hugo,
Funny would should mention this. One of my sites had an issue where the printer refused to work. I got them to power cycle the printer and it started printing the reports.
I think a UPS may be a good idea. Power can do weird things to computers.
After a power failure is it doing the same thing and stopping at the Date/Time ?
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Hugo
I agree with John if you are having that many power outages I would definately consider a UPS, just to give you the time to shutdown each terminal safely, otherwise one day they will not restart due to corrupt data.
With regards to your shared printer as far as Iam comcerned its classic windows sharing issues. I had a similar setup to yours at home so the printer could be used by all and I always had issues with printing.
I eventually bought a wireless printer !!
When PCs are first started it takes longer to discover shared devices in a workgroup than it would if a shared device was using TCP/IP (Networked).
I would suggest getting a USB to Ethernet print server - thats how I set up my Epson TM.
Well I hope this helps
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I had an issue with two Epson TM-T88III serial printers (connected by a serial to usb adapter). The setup worked fine for about half a year, but when the high season started we got more and more problems. We got half printed tickets, and delayed tickets. On busy times tickets came out in the kitchen with an half hour delay...
I tried everything cables, drivers etc. etc. nothing worked.
My assumption was that serial printing was too slow, and I replaced one serial printer for a network ticket printer.
I still had the same problems until I connected the serial printer to the second serial port. Some old tickets came out, and since then everything works as it should.
I think that you have similar problems. I is worth to look for a network tcp to parallel adapter.
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I have found more recently that some problems have been due to the Windows Homegroup. Since I have gone back to traditional Windows networking things have been a lot better.
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@rvandam - I dont use serial printers, all my connections are parallel or USB or Parallel to USB. When you say: "I is worth to look for a network tcp to parallel adapter" is this an adapter that converts parallel to CAT5/6 RJ 45 ?
Just to update you all and for those who might suffer a similar strange problem, things are working OK now but using workarounds. Here goes:
As the printer got knocked off by power failures computer restarts etc and would only come back online when a test print was sent to it I wrote a script that on automatically sends a test print to the printer when the computer/windows starts up. I used windows task scheduler to execute the following script:
RUNDLL32 PRINTUI.DLL,PrintUIEntry /n"kp" /k
Its been a month with no real problems, but not the way I would like it to be.
@JohnS When you say "Windows networking" how is that different to homegroups etc?
Thanks
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Homegroups was introduced in Vista. It was a simplified way to share resources. But as with most things about Vista, it didn't behave fully as expected. Homegroups is built on top of Windows Networking.
In Win7 it got better, but was still problematic.
With Windows Networking, if you have mapped network drives, and restart a computer, you will more often then not get a message that "There are disconnected network drives" or something similar. This is because Windows has not opened any files from that share and therefore thinks it's not there, but when you click on the drive, it's connected. Homegroup will see this as an issue and that's when things stop working properly.
The way I setup printer sharing means I don't even need the printer drivers locally installed for a computer to use a remote printer. Yes the computer that shares the printer will need the drivers loaded, but then all computers will print to it by using a share name like "\\POS01-PC\RECEIPT".
Now there is a little more to it than that, like turning off some security around sharing, but I almost never experience any issues with printing. In fact I have one site that has been running for over 18mths without any printing issues and all their terminals (which have USB printers) run off wifi, and with the Kitchen Printer running ethernet. They have blackouts, and even renovations more recently and have had no issues at all.
I am currently working on a setup guide to help people setup SambaPOS from scratch on a server, with physical terminals, Windows tablets and RDP clients (iPad, iPhone, etc) all using shared printers. This will fully cover the printer setup and sharing.
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John,
Thanks again, Would really like a copy of that. Do you suggest not using home groups at all? does this then mean that we need to create dedicated ip addresses to each terminal?
Things have been OK since the workaround but thinking about migrating to V3, I read that there is no tool available for this. I guess the tables structures of V3 is very different?
Let me know
regards
Hugo
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I don't use Home Groups at all. I only use static IP's on servers, you can use DHCP for the rest and share by their NetBIOS name, ie POS01-PC
Yes, the DB's are very different. I have looked at creating a migration tool, and it is a big job.