Pagewide & Laserjet - lack of "Paper mismatch action" function.

[J2Blueprint]

When some one prints to the printer and the print requests a paper size the printer does not have, the machine pauses until some one press's the ok button or cancel at the display screen. Below is a better rundown of the issue my customer is facing.

• Copier is located on the first floor in a dedicated print room. Customers employees print to the copier from the 2nd floor of the building.
• Primary operator sits a few feet outside the door to the print room.
• 2nd floor employee sends a print job that request a metric size (or something the machine does not have loaded). Copier has no ability to force a print job to "Hold/Pause/print anyway" after a preset time that is requesting something not loaded.
• So at this point the machine is stalled until the customer walks up to the machine and presses cancel or tells the machine to print on letter.
• Primary operator has no idea that there is a issue as the machine does not alert her/him.
• Machine does not have a ability to make a audible tone alert when there is a issue such as paper size mismatch. This function would help notify the primary operator.  Kyocera devices do this.
• All print jobs sent to the machine in the mean time simply stack up in the print queue and do not print as the first job has stalled out waiting for user intervention.
• End result is a lot of wasted time and end users standing around waiting for prints. Not to mention a lot of frustration.

These machines need a audible alert tone for issues as well as a setting in EWS that allows for "paper mismatch action". The PagewideXL and the Designjet's have this. Every other manufacture has this option as well. This situation apply's to not only the Pagewide A3 but also the LaserJet A3 as well. attached is a screenshot of the setting needed in the A3 product.

Any one else ran into this?

[Dennis-G]

Hi,

Thanks for sharing your information. It is correct that we don't have that option on our A3's yet. What we do have is the override letter option that allows the printer to print on A4 media when letter is being asked but is not available in the printer.

What you also can do is install web jetadmin (WJA) and setup a template that lets WJA sends out an email to the operator whenever there is an error or warning on the screen. This minimizes the frustration and loss of time whenever a print job is held in the queue due to a paper size mismatch.

WJA is a free management tool that allows you to manage your entire fleet of devices. You can download Web Jetadmin here: http://www.hp.com/go/wja

Kind regards

Dennis

[J2Blueprint]

Dennis

The override A4 does not work on any other size. Such as a A5 or other metric sizes. This causes the machine to lock up solid. We need to get these metric sizes removed from US based machines OR get the machine to have a paper mismatch action. It is now looking like i may loose this deal over this.

[GaryL1]

Just a thought:   If the other trays are programmed to a specific size, such as (totally made up) T-2, Letter, T-3 Legal, T-4 Letterhead 8.5X11...  And you put some 8.5X11(or other)  in T-1 set to Any/Any, would the unit not seek out the Any/Any if it could not find the requested size in the other trays?  Also, maybe suggest they set their defaults in the program/application they are using so they do not accidentally pick a non-standard paper size.  Not being funny or smart-alec, but they may not know how to do this. It is AMAZING how much some IT folks do not know about printers.

We were having weird issues with an E8 laser and it only took refreshing the properties in the UPD to solve it and restore the settings to paper/sizes/functions that the unit recognized.  That saved us a 9 unit deal. 

[J2Blueprint]

Thank you Gary

I 100% agree with you. The amount of IT people who make more money then me and are dumb as a box of rocks astounds me. But in this case, the customer has the following setup.  Numbers are the tray assignment. All are plain paper

1. 8.5x14
2. 8.5x11 rotated landscape for 2-hole punch at the top of page
3. 11x17
4. 8.5x11 Portrait
5. 8.5x11 Portrait

I double checked the drivers and they are all set to Letter. Customer is using the UPD 6.8 PCL6.  They are printing from the web, Acrobat, Foxit, and some times Autocad. This customer does not always print simply 8.5x11 or 11x17. They jump all over the place as this is a Fire Protection company and they do everything from work orders to large format 24x36 docs reduced to 11x17. Any time something is not set just right, the machine locks up solid and waits for someone to hit continue. And as the machine does not give a audible alert, the end user does not know to fix the issue. 

Also, the machines do have the ability to have the copier send a email alert on this kind of issue, but if the end user is doing anything other then looking directly at the emails system on her computer, then the issue still persists as it may be some time before she discovers the email.

[GaryL1]

OK, gotcha.  Likely the creation software was online based or they may be using an existing doc and doing a massive edit, saving under a different name.  We see that with remote connections a lot for national chain locations like hotels and restaurants.  They toss 49 errors.

Our work-around for that is:  If they "Save as" a specific document name and print from there. 

If you open a PDF and have the left side properties expanded, just put the mouse anywhere and it will show the document creation size.  Then force it to print-to-scale on the closest paper size.  Given the way they "want" to print, it is the best option.   Either that or the previous IT guys were better at system configuration!

There us a pre-sales tech support we have had help us.  Even our assigned guy has him assist with nightmare issues.  He is a document configuration genius.  I'll send you his name via PM.  Maybe your assigned support person can call upon him for help.

[Repairatrooper]

There is one work around but might not be acceptable to all users. Under the security settings there is a button for "cancel print jobs after an unattended error" which if turned on, will purge the print queue on the printer after the standard time out. Just tested it on our machine and it does indeed flush the queue if a manual prompt for uninstalled paper size is on the screen. The gotcha is that it purges all print jobs so any following jobs would be lost as well. 

[AndyDuke]

Hi, I've had similar in a university where Papercut is being used. Some students walk away without pressing to select another tray. The next student can then potentially walk up and print out the previous students job.

I've selected delete jobs on unattended errors and set the time out to 20 seconds. Its not a fix for you but it would prevent jobs building up.

[J2Blueprint]

Andy, where do you select to delete jobs? I have been unable to find them anyplace on the PW or LJ.

[AndyDuke]

I think its under the security tab on the EWS if I remember correctly.

"Delete job on unattended errors"  . You then set the timeout to an appropriate amount