Am I crazy or is it my user? (printing problem)

[Alisa]

I have a user who has this problem: when he prints a report in my program to a certain printer (local), he gets a printer error, then the report won't print out until he reboots his computer (no error within the program itself). This is what I know so far:
He can print the report to any other printer without any problems
No other users have reported problems printing
He has the most recent driver for the printer
He has current windows updates
He has enough RAM
The printer with the problem is a brother printer, and it is a multifunction printer/fax machine.

I am at a loss here - I called the printer company and they say there is no known issue with the driver. I can't have him open access and print a dummy report (to see if the problem is with access) because he is using my program in the runtime version.

Have any of you run into a similar problem before?

 

[KenHigg]

Can he print from other applications or is it just Access that bugs out?

 

[MSAccessRookie]

I have a user who has this problem: when he prints a report in my program to a certain printer (local), he gets a printer error, then the report won't print out until he reboots his computer (no error within the program itself). This is what I know so far:
He can print the report to any other printer without any problems
No other users have reported problems printing
He has the most recent driver for the printer
He has current windows updates
He has enough RAM
The printer with the problem is a brother printer, and it is a multifunction printer/fax machine.

I am at a loss here - I called the printer company and they say there is no known issue with the driver. I can't have him open access and print a dummy report (to see if the problem is with access) because he is using my program in the runtime version.

Have any of you run into a similar problem before?

Have you tried to use this printer with other Office applications such as MS Word or Excel? If other MS Office applications work, then the issue must be Access. If they do not, then it is likely the way that the printer is installed on the user's workstation.

 

[Alisa]

Can he print from other applications or is it just Access that bugs out?

Yes, he can print from Word, excel, etc. without any problems.

 

[Alisa]

If other MS Office applications work, then the issue must be Access.

This appears to be the case, but since he can print to other printers from access, I am at a loss for how to fix this.

 

[dkinley]

Is the report being kicked out in .pdf (Access '07)? I had some problems even in Word and IE with the Adobe side of life until I downloaded the latest patch.

-dK

 

[MSAccessRookie]

This appears to be the case, but since he can print to other printers from access, I am at a loss for how to fix this.

I am not aware of any issues. Hopefully someone else has encountered this before.

 

[Alisa]

Is the report being kicked out in .pdf (Access '07)? I had some problems even in Word and IE with the Adobe side of life until I downloaded the latest patch.

-dK

Nope - I am in 2003, using docmd.print on a command button.

 

[Alisa]

I am not aware of any issues. Hopefully someone else has esncountered this before.

Here's hoping . . . If I have to get on the phone with brother again I may shoot myself.

 

[KenHigg]

My guess is that something is screwy with the references.

 

[Alisa]

My guess is that something is screwy with the references.

I don't know . . . I changed everything over to late binding so the program only has references to the Access object library, DAO, and VBA . . . I thought those were the harmless ones?

 

[KenHigg]

I would examine the creation dates etc of the ref'd files in a working verision and see how they compare to the ones where it doen't work - ?

 

[Alisa]

I would examine the creation dates etc of the ref'd files in a working verision and see how they compare to the ones where it doen't work - ?

Do you mean the dates of the dlls that are referenced? I know they are all identical because the installation package includes them and registers them.

 

[KenHigg]

Oh... Hum.

I would build an entirely new .mdb with real simple report to print and deploy it and see if it works. It may just be something in the original file you deployed. Just a stab in the dark but it should eliminate a range of potential issues...

 

[dkinley]

Found this ... althought it's for a slightly different problem. Perhaps access is overloading the printer buffer causing the need to reboot ...

Increase the time-out setting for a printer driver

Increasing the time-out setting for a printer driver to 90 may resolve this error message. On the Details tab of the Printer Properties dialog box, extend the two time-out values to 90. They default to 15.

-dK

 

[Alisa]

Both good suggestions - I will try them and report back. Thanks guys!

 

[neileg]

Is it possible that your form is too large for the print area of the printer?

 

[Alisa]

Is it possible that your form is too large for the print area of the printer?

Anything is possible
But I don't think that is it because after he reboots, the report does print out just fine (it is a standard report size that prints on standard 8.5 by 11 paper).

 

[dkinley]

Last ... is the report based on a pivot table? This seems to be a known issue that it takes earlier versions of Access awhile to print these types.

I guess I am asking is it happening with all reports or a specific one?

-dK

 

[Alisa]

Last ... is the report based on a pivot table? This seems to be a known issue that it takes earlier versions of Access awhile to print these types.

I guess I am asking is it happening with all reports or a specific one?

-dK

Not exactly. It is a main report with two subreports, one of which has it's own subreport. One of the subreports is based on a crosstab, but I was having issues with that so now it writes the results of the crosstab to a temp table, and the report is generated off of that. The report does take awhile to generate, but I think that is mostly due to the code in the on format and on print events that counts up various things.

There is only one report in this program, so I think the idea of doing a dummy program with a simpler report is probably a good one.