I have an account that is really giving me fits and just really want some independent opinions on weather or not I am heading in the right direction on not. We all have times when we think we are on track to solving a tough problem, but want someone else's opinion just to make sure? Well, this is one of those times for me.
What we have here is a WAN (wide area network) with a fax server that routes incoming faxes to the proper destination. Those destinations are Savin MFP's. The jobs are sent as print jobs in a TIFF format. Whats happening on a few of the machines is that some of the faxes (completely random) have either a solid block of missing data or a full path of missing data from lead edge to trail edge.
Our dealership installed two 3535's into a otherwise perfectly working environment several months ago. About a week after these machines came online, I got a phone call about a copy quality issue concerning fax jobs on one of the machines. I made a service call to the account and spoke with two of the admins there. After talking with them for awhile and testing the machine, I concluded that the machine was not at fault. I asked the IT person in charge of the fax server to reprint one of the faulty faxes to the same machine. We found the CQ defect was duplicated perfectly. No matter how many times you resent the job to the CMFP, the defect was the same. At this point I was certain that the machine was not at fault, the IT personal was dead set that it was something with the MFP. I asked him if he could eliminate any differences between the two subnets of networks and he said, "NO!". At this point I asked if he could resend the job to another MFP on site, so he sent it to the 8035g in their office. The CQ was perfect and did not have the same issue.
At this point I was a little confused to say the least. One of the admin staff suggested that they install the Client software on the end users PC to see if the issue went away... and it did. So, this department has been working this way for several months now. When she gets a bad fax, she opens the Tobit client software and reprints the job directly from her PC. Everytime, the issue does not repeat.
Again, at this point, I am totally convinced that the 3535 is not to blame. It has to be something in either the Tobit FaxWare Server or the I-Print Server or even something in between. For goes several months with no complaints. That is until 2 weeks ago when I have a message at the shop about this "long standing issue" and that we (our dealership) needs to find a solution to this problem.
I called the admin in charge of the fax server and he tells me that he checked the ports on the switch leading from the server to the MFP's and there were no errors. Now, in my head I am thinking to myself, no S**t Sherlock! But I don't say this to him... no... even though I wanted to! I tell
him that I will order a IPU and go from there. (my mistake!! Damit to hell!!)
A few days later I get an e-mail stating that a newly installed 8055 has the same problem, note that it is in the same building as the 3535's that have the same problem, but this time it is with the threat that they will not purchase any more 8055's until this issue is resolved.
After speaking with our owners, they are going to go with me to the account on Monday and we are going to either get more info this or get to the bottom of this. I spoke with tech support and the person I got had no idea what Tobit was, but I cannot hold that against them since I didn't either. Once I explained what had happened up until this point, he agreed with me. And I personally feel that it's a driver issue. Why? Well, after doing some Google searches on Tobit 6.0, I found that it only runs smoothly on Win2000 or Win98. And I know that these guys have installed only PCL6 drivers for all the machines. I feel that if they install a PCL5 driver the issue will be solved, but as a simple tech I cannot get them to understand this.
What do you guys think?
What we have here is a WAN (wide area network) with a fax server that routes incoming faxes to the proper destination. Those destinations are Savin MFP's. The jobs are sent as print jobs in a TIFF format. Whats happening on a few of the machines is that some of the faxes (completely random) have either a solid block of missing data or a full path of missing data from lead edge to trail edge.
Our dealership installed two 3535's into a otherwise perfectly working environment several months ago. About a week after these machines came online, I got a phone call about a copy quality issue concerning fax jobs on one of the machines. I made a service call to the account and spoke with two of the admins there. After talking with them for awhile and testing the machine, I concluded that the machine was not at fault. I asked the IT person in charge of the fax server to reprint one of the faulty faxes to the same machine. We found the CQ defect was duplicated perfectly. No matter how many times you resent the job to the CMFP, the defect was the same. At this point I was certain that the machine was not at fault, the IT personal was dead set that it was something with the MFP. I asked him if he could eliminate any differences between the two subnets of networks and he said, "NO!". At this point I asked if he could resend the job to another MFP on site, so he sent it to the 8035g in their office. The CQ was perfect and did not have the same issue.
At this point I was a little confused to say the least. One of the admin staff suggested that they install the Client software on the end users PC to see if the issue went away... and it did. So, this department has been working this way for several months now. When she gets a bad fax, she opens the Tobit client software and reprints the job directly from her PC. Everytime, the issue does not repeat.
Again, at this point, I am totally convinced that the 3535 is not to blame. It has to be something in either the Tobit FaxWare Server or the I-Print Server or even something in between. For goes several months with no complaints. That is until 2 weeks ago when I have a message at the shop about this "long standing issue" and that we (our dealership) needs to find a solution to this problem.
I called the admin in charge of the fax server and he tells me that he checked the ports on the switch leading from the server to the MFP's and there were no errors. Now, in my head I am thinking to myself, no S**t Sherlock! But I don't say this to him... no... even though I wanted to! I tell
him that I will order a IPU and go from there. (my mistake!! Damit to hell!!)
A few days later I get an e-mail stating that a newly installed 8055 has the same problem, note that it is in the same building as the 3535's that have the same problem, but this time it is with the threat that they will not purchase any more 8055's until this issue is resolved.

After speaking with our owners, they are going to go with me to the account on Monday and we are going to either get more info this or get to the bottom of this. I spoke with tech support and the person I got had no idea what Tobit was, but I cannot hold that against them since I didn't either. Once I explained what had happened up until this point, he agreed with me. And I personally feel that it's a driver issue. Why? Well, after doing some Google searches on Tobit 6.0, I found that it only runs smoothly on Win2000 or Win98. And I know that these guys have installed only PCL6 drivers for all the machines. I feel that if they install a PCL5 driver the issue will be solved, but as a simple tech I cannot get them to understand this.
What do you guys think?
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