Home Forums Discussions Problems AC FREEZES AT PRINTING

I have been using AC now for about 4 years and never had any problems. I use three laptops, hard-wired, in my 3 exam rooms and then have 4 other desktops throughout the office, all hard-wired. I am using SB 2003 on the server and all of the clients are XP Professional.
Since moving to my new office I am now having an issue with AC freezing up at the time of printing (yes I am one of those that still prints out all encounters). I first noted it only on one laptop in one room. Then today another laptop started having the same problem. I have to use the task manager to end AC and then reopen AC and it prints off just fine. Anyone with any ideas?

I have tried wireless about three years ago and had problem with AC dropping out and with printing causing freezing. Once I hardwired the office, I have not had much of a problem.

Currently, I have problems with AC freezing (and shutting down) when trying to printing out a letter/order from outside the opened chart (it says that the print margins,or something like that, is not compatible). I have learned to live with the shortcoming as I am told that this is what I should expect when I have a low cost EMR. I turned off the bug reporting because I don't want to be a bug.

Leslie,

This could be many things. Print drivers are in a world of their own. But, I or others will need a little more information to help with troubleshooting:

1. What kind of printer are you using?
2. LaserJet vs InkJet, etc. as well
3. Are there multiple printers or are you printing to just one?
4. Are you sharing these printers from the server, network or a PC?
5. What print drivers are you using? Native XP or downloads or CD from the company?
6. Are these PCL6 or PCL5?

First, congrats on your choice of wired and SBS2003. Nice!
AC has had issues with PCL6 drivers in the past. Kind of like the dermatology mantra: If you are using PCL6, try PCL5 and vice versa. Nothing wrong with PCL5.

Are you allowing your server to handle the print jobs? Or, if the computer which is sharing the computer slow or used a lot? Is there a lot of printing going on at the same time to a PC connected printer?

Have you updated the firmware on the printer or increased its memory?

Is the printer connected directly to the network or shared through a PC? I have always regretted purchasing any printer that more than one person will be using and not buying it networked. If not, pick up an inexpensive D-Link print server. I am not a huge fan of D-Link, but they make a great little printer server -- very easy to configure. Type in DP-301P print server and click I'm Feeling Lucky on Google.

Are you using DHCP on the server with reservations or static IPs for the printer if its networked. It sounds like it's an intermittent problem so probably not an issue. If you are't using DHCP, then we should talk, lol.

Check print driver properties and make sure paper is exactly the same dimensions. Try deleting the driver and reinstalling. Again, download updated drivers both PCL6 and PCL5.

A little off the subject, do you print to one central printer or do you have printers in the rooms? You can put HP LaserJet 1050s in each room for like $75.00. It's nice to print out the script and be done with it. Of course, for the encounter it may be nicer to print to the reception area.

Sorry for too much information. Hope it helps.

Bert,

WHEW!!! You lost me after about the second question
The machine is a Brother MFC, directly networked to the server and yes it is used by all the exam rooms and the front office as well. It is a laser. It is the same one and connected the same way (I think)as it was in the old office. The fact that it has worked up until recently and, initially only affected one laptop (which it did not prior to the move) seems curious. You lost me on the PCL5 and PCL6 stuff. I will try deleting the driver and re-installing it but if it were that, why would it then work after I reboot AC? And, none of the other programs have any issues with printing to this machine. I will check into some of your suggestions. Thanks.

Leslie

It still sounds like a driver issue to me. When you install the print driver from the server, are you using the local install, because you should use the local install, and then chooses a TCP/IP port and a generic connection. It is rather easy to follow.

I am not sure exactly why it works after shutting down AC. You may want to try installing a print driver on the computer which is having the problems and not using the shared driver on the server. After installing, check properties and Advanced to see if it is PCL6 or 5. Again, check the paper settings. I would basically go through all the tabs in properties and see if any make sense to change.

The Brother MFC. Is there a model number. Big help.

I quickly went to this page:

http://www.brother.com/E-ftp/info/index.html

It has what appears to be drivers and firmware for networked printers listed for all models. It takes you right through it. I would download the latest drivers and/or firmware. Install the firmware for the printer and the new printer driver. It appears as though there is something about AC that is not playing happy with the current drivers.

Hope this helps.

Just for kicks, I will guess the MFC5440CN. I have no idea why I am guessing, but what else is there to do at 9:00 AM Friday morning?

Leslie,
Hey there. Our little printer in the back for the NYS Rx paper just got a bit too beat up after many years of good service. So my mom's boyfriend gave us a used HPL5 laser printer. I installed it on the main machine and the other are sharing it from the tower (P2P). All was well for about 2 days and this afternoon I started getting all those wing ding looking font things that we called computer printer gibberish.

Couldn't figure out what if anything had changed but something certainly did. Before Jon did an update for HP printers about a year ago both 5 and 6 HP drivers gave this same looking junk when printing. So I simply did a system restore on all the computers for yesterday. Yeserday they were fine, this morning they were fine, but this afternoon something changed. Now all is well again with out Rx printer running the plug and play software. Every now and again something that you can't pin down messes with a well oiled machine and I just restore back to when all was well. Might be the easy fix. Restore back to before you moved and all was good.
Paul

I would say the three most likely causes as we like to say in medicine are:

1. Drivers
2. Drivers
3. Drivers

Thanks to all. I will address this issue again Monday morning. I spent the weekend down at camp with a few good friends and a few full coolers

Leslie

OK, so I will throw out some other info. And, of course, it will be something simple. It's probably not JUST the driver as I am sure other things can print via the driver. There is something with Amazing Charts on those two machines that is playing well with the print driver that seems to get better when program is restarted. Have you tried printing from notepad over and over and then from Word and other applications. Notepad is about as basic as it gets. If those fail intermittently, then it may not be AC.

This is probably just semantics, but the printer isn't really networked TO the server, it is on the domain but connected via the switch. What I am really getting at is the printer must have a TCP/IP address. Are your clients each using their own print driver connected directly to printer, or do you have one print driver installed from your server which is shared to each client?

If it is the former, when you right click on the print driver you are using in Printers and Faxes and choose properties, you should see a model on the General Tab with something like Brother MFC (model#) then PCL 5 or 6. You can compare the 5 or 6 with the clients that work. If there is an About tab, you can look at the exact driver number and compare with the others.

Check info on all tabs and make sure everything looks correct, ie. page size, etc.

Finally, is the Amazing Charts appliction on those computers cleanly installed or were they installed on top of another -- check in Add/Remove programs.

Sorry so long.