LaserJet M404 randomly prints out PCL gibberish

[rtack]

We are currently rolling out new hardware to our customers. Everything is working well minus printing from the brand new HP laserJet PRO m404's we purchased for them. Every once in a while they get the following..

SET JABATTR="OS = Windows" @PJL SET JOB ATTR="OS Version =  10.0.18362.1" @PJL SET and then from then on a bunch of pages of gibberish.

I have tried all the obvious. totally strip out the driver and reinstall the pcl 6 (v3 and V4) driver, and then the universal driver.  New usb cables. Nothing seems to fix.  We have just tried to update the firmware on these printers. Anyone run into something similar? Have any idea on a fix?

[Macmac55]

Possible causes of the PJL commands being output as text include the driver not prefixing the PJL statements (at the beginning of each job) with a Universal Exit Language (UEL) escape sequence. (http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1618494)

To rule this out, one can use the “print to file” option in the print dialog box to produce a file that contains the instructions that would be sent to the printer.

Choose File | Print in your application, then check the “Print to file” box in the print dialog box. (In Office 2010, the Print Options button under the available printers menu displays the print dialog box.) Choose a name for the .prn file and save it somewhere, then open the resultant *.prn file in something that displays escape characters, such as Notepad++ (or even Notepad). The first character should be an escape character, and the first line of text will begin something like this:

{ESC}%-12345X

If the PJL initialization command looks correct, it’s possible that the printer is not properly configured to accept PJL commands. Older printers may not be PJL-aware, but I knew our printers to work fine with older 32-bit HP UPDs installed on our Windows XP machines. The ‘Personality’ attribute on HP printers can be checked by going to the printer’s web admin panel and browsing to Settings | Configure Device | System Setup. Setting the Personality to PS is probably going to cause problems, but either Auto or PCL should work. I confirmed that our printers were set to Auto, further ruling out the printers themselves as the cause of the problem.

I next looked at disabling the advanced features of the driver (a little skeptically, I’ll admit). This can be done by going into the printer’s properties and unchecking the “Enable advanced printing features” box on the Advanced tab. (http://h30499.www3.hp.com/t5/Print-Servers-Network-Storage/12345X-PJL-Printing-on-Dot-Matrix-Printer...) I was curious about how this affected the job sent to the printer – would the entire series of JPL commands be removed?

To test, I unchecked the “Enable advanced printing features” and printed an email message to a *.prn file, then checked the box and printed the same email to a second *.prn file, then compared the two files. The only difference in the PJL commands was that “@PJL SET SEPARATORPAGE=OFF” was present with advanced printing features enabled, and absent with advanced printing features disabled.

I found the separator page line to be an interesting difference, as banner pages/separator pages had been suggested as a possible cause, but our drivers were not configured to print separator pages. (http://www.oasq.com/PJL-SET-JOBATTR-thread-252568-1-1.html)

So, that’s where the issue currently stands. I’m waiting to see if turning off advanced printing features has any effect. To be thorough, I need to test whether the UPD PS driver prints without error and whether the problem continues with a printer connected via TCP/IP and with a manually installed driver. I can also bring the printers up to the latest version of the firmware, although this would be a less satisfactory resolution, as we have a variety of printer models and not all of them have firmware updates available.

[rtack]

Thanks Macmac55 I will try some of those possibilities...

[Macmac55]

Your welcome it is a lot to digest but,  I feel this should be a fairly easy fix,  Its deff driver related or its the documents being printed from an odd program that is over riding the driver.  Best of luck 

[rtack]

Well we now know that it doesn't happen if printing through the network to a fixed IP as that we have a duplicate pc printing to another exact same model, exact same driver only networked right across the room and that doesn't exhibit the issues. So we know it only happens locally printing via usb cable.

[CardPatThunder]

I am having a very similar issue on m404 when connected via USB print jobs will hang in queue for up to 5 mins.

It seems to be ignoring PCL page eject command.

[rtack]

Does it happen in a specific program or for any and every print to the unit?

I had a very similar issue with brand new M203s out of box connected usb to brand new HP pc's where they'd be working along for a week or two and all of the sudden when they print it would sit in the queue for like 1-3 minutes, for just single page print jobs. It happened for every type of job, the only recourse was to uninstall and reinstall the printer and it would work correctly with almost instantaneous prints for a week or two and then they'd call with the 1-2 minute wait. (It was something unrelated to our customers network or setup because it happened at multiple customers of ours.  I tried everything, firm ware, different drivers, setting the printer not to ever go into power save mode etc, setting the pc to use always on power  etc. Then all of the sudden it went away? I theorized that maybe it took a windows update that helped, but I don't know? I haven't seen your issue directly, but if I do and I come u p with a solution I will let you know!

I think part of the issue is that the HP drivers are now so huge, used to be just a few dlls and INI's , now every driver has some huge installer and gui. Go back to the simple drivers where you just pointed to a small directory with some .dlls and ini's and the driver was simple. The complexity is only adding opportunities for things to not be compatible or conflict....but what do I know? and i have yet to fix anythign with the universal print driver, every time I try that it inevitably breaks something else...

[CardPatThunder]

I misspoke on earlier message, it doesn't hang up in queue it leaves the queue and goes to the printer.

The printer has printing message on lcd for whole time. I have replicated this on several computers with several different printer. I tried loading the m402 driver with the same result. If you connect the printer with ethernet cable it works fine.

I am printing from custom software that is using PCL commands.

[rtack]

Have you tried the universal printing PS driver? We rolled that out at a customer having our PCL gibberish issue and it's cured it so far.  (3 weeks of using) I just rolled it out to another customer yesterday that's having the same issue. (fingers crossed)

HP Universal Print Driver for Windows PostScript (64-bit)  - 6.8.0.24296 - If you haven't tried, its worth at try? 

[CardPatThunder]

Yes I have tried the Universal print driver.