I am a field service tech for an office equipment dealer (not a manufacturer) in the Pacific Northwest, and below is a situation I am struggling with regarding network printing issues at a customer site, and I am not sure how to solve it or advise their IT guy to try to solve it.
The customer has a Ricoh MP C5503, with just under 300K with most of that as Black and White.
- Environment:
•Computer workstations and laptops running Windows 10, on network with a server.
•Server OS unknown.
• Copier is connected to the network by being plugged into an Apple Airport which is connected to the WiFi acting as a wireless access point / wireless bridge.
• Customer IT has tried using the PCL 5C driver, and a couple versions of the Universal PCL 6 driver, both on the Server acting as a print server, and locally networking each workstation to the Ricoh via TCP/IP Port, using the same above driver versions at different points.
• Customer's IT guy cannot figure out what is wrong, and said to call my employer who sold them the Ricoh and who provide service under a service contract.
• Each customer computer seems to have multiple versions of the drivers installed, including 1 or 2 from the print server.
- Customer reports the following:
• One computer can't punch or staple when printing in a program called "Pro Contractor", but Word documents and PDF's staple and punch fine.
• Other computers being "Pro Contractor", Adobe, Word, Excel, etc. cannot get the programs to staple or punch prints when they indicate to do so in the print driver settings. These computers also cannot print multiple copies of documents; the first copy prints, then it brings up an alert saying to load LTR-R, Plain & Recycled paper, when tray 1 has LTR, Plain and Recycled paper.
• There are around 10 to 20 computers that are printing to this and they are not all always on site so I have not been able to test a bunch of them.
- Steps tried so far:
• First I brought all the firmware up to current levels. Then had the customer try test prints, No Go.
• Next I tried making sure one of the drivers installed was networked directly to the copier's IP Address and not going through the print server, No Go.
• Checking the SC code Histories doesn't indicate any errors tied to these printing issues.
• Then I called Ricoh Xpress Support, opened a case and they had me do the following:
• System SP 5801-008 to do a memory clear on the printer function, then restart the machine.
• Printer SP 1001-005 and change Bit 1 to a 1, which should allow multiple copies when there is a paper size or type mismatch.
•Test the Printer function from the customer's computers, which showed no change.
•Test using my laptop connected via crossover cable, this test was successful for multiple prints, with hole punch and staple.
• Ricoh concluded that it is something on the network but couldn't or wouldn't tell me where to look, have their (Customer's) IT Guy look, or any possible causes.
- My questions:
• What could cause the Staple and Punch functions to not perform when selected in the driver, when printing from multiple applications?
• What could cause the print driver to cause multiple copy print jobs to print the first print fine, then stop and ask for an orientation of paper that isn't loaded but is the same size as paper in one tray (Ask for LTR-R when LTR is present in the same size and weight/type)?
• Especially when the machine has been set to allow continued printing even if there is a mismatch?
• This happens in Multiple applications as well.
Has anyone else seen these kinds of issues and were able to resolve them? I am at a loss as to potential causes and since their IT guy can't figure out the network/computer side issues causing these problems, it has fallen to me to come up with some answers if I can.
Any and all thoughts or suggestions are welcome. Thank you in advance.
Sincerely,
Aaron
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