Ricoh 3045 Printing Continuous When Network Cable Attached

[zionhealth]

We've had a Ricoh 3045 in our office for years, and for years it has worked great as a copier and as a network printer. Recently, something changed and it started printing pages that are blank or have gibberish like.....Remote1T0, @EJL 1284.4.

If we unplug the network cable, and turn the machine off and on again, it will work fine as a copier. As soon as we plug the network cable in again, the green "communicating" light on the panel starts to flash, and a few seconds later it switches modes from copier to printer, and start spitting out continuous pages until we remove the paper or it jams. The light on the printer button is red.

We though maybe one of the stations on our network had something stuck in the print queue which is causing this, but we tried turning off many (not all) of the stations, and the problem persists. After everyone leaves tonight, we're going to try turning off all the stations and see if the problem still persists.

Does anyone have any idea as to what is going on? or suggestions that we can try? it would be greatly appreciated.

FYI. We tried holding down the two buttons to reset the copier, but that didn't help, we even cleared all the queues in the system panel.

Also, the copier firmware is 1.39 i believe. Is this user updatetable? is there a later version?

[TonerMunkeh]

A virus on the network is a possibility, trying to replicate itself onto the machine. Also a Postscript print job sent by an iphone or ipad. Do any users bring in their own devices? Just change the machine's IP by one digit.

[zionhealth]

The copier is setup to get it's IP from DHCP. Should I make it a static IP address?

A virus on the network is a possibility, trying to replicate itself onto the machine. Also a Postscript print job sent by an iphone or ipad. Do any users bring in their own devices? Just change the machine's IP by one digit.

[allan]

not sure about virus. I agree, try changing the machine IP address could work. there is a bad diver somewhere.

[sandmanmac]

I have a feeling that once all PC's are restarted the job will be deleted. (there are other ways that I have done it, but too complicated to explain here).
My experience with similar issues has most often been due to corrupt data - usually originating from IE, but sometimes a downloaded and corrupt PDF has also caused it, but also P/S jobs as TonerMunkeh suggested.
'Yes', I believe there are firmware updates that help with these issues, but "No" they're not user downloadable/Installable.

[Debs1964]

If you switch the copier off, open all paper trays, then switch back on again, when the print job reaches the machine you'll get the red error light for printer, if you press the printer button you should get the option to reset the job.
As others have said, the possible reasons for this are someone trying to print from an Apple device without having postscript on the machine, a corrupt print driver, or a corrupt print job

[C.Vallon]

I'd start off with the firmware. Make sure the printer, System and PCL 6 firmware are all up to date. I've had a few calls that had similiar systems as you've explained here, though one was for a fax causing this issue. Once the firmware was updated the problem seemed to be resolved.

As the other techs have noted, we usually see this issue when someone is sending a post script job to a machine that doesn't support it, or outdated drivers/firmware.

Are any of the units on the network apple? If so, that might help narrow down your search for the source. Let us know what you find.

[nmfaxman]

X3.
See this all the time.
Why not just unplug all the computers from the network?
The first one that prints out the garbage when plugged back in is the culprit.
No need to shut them down.

[zionhealth]

Thanks for everyone's responses. I changed the IP on the Copier from 192.168.0.110 to 192.168.0.205, and we haven't had any more random copies. Looks like the problem may be resolved.

I'm still a little confused about the firmware. A couple people suggest upgrading the firmware, but I can't find it on the RIcoh website.

[slimslob]

The last Printer firmware released for the 3045 was Version 1.05n December 2008. The only Custom/Special released since then was in April 2013 to allow SMB scan to Win 8/Server 2012. There is no firmware for the dreaded SC899 or other printing problems. Doing what Debs said is the best way to clear the offending job, unless the person who sent it comes forth. It you change the IP address, then you have to go to every PC an change the address in the print driver. If the problem comes and there has been a new computer installed just before the problem first occurred, check to se if that computer has the PS driver installed. THE PROBLEM YOU DESCRIBE IS EXACTLY WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF YOU SEND A JOB USING A POSTSCRIPT, DOT MATRIX OR INKJET DRIVER TO A PCL PRINTER.