Printing to the new HP LaserJet 8100 N causes an error message, and there is a break of about 100 seconds between printing two spoolfiles, according to customers. Others are trying to replace their old 256x printers with HP’s new LPQ series networked to an HP 3000, and apparently, page-level recovery does not work. “One of my favorite parts of the conversation I had with the Response Center was the finger-pointing over the need for PJL_SUPPORTED=FALSE in NPCONFIG.PUB.SYS,” said one customer. “The [MPE] software people say it’s the printers’ fault, and the [printer] guys are saying it’s the software. I just want a printer that works right! Is that too much to ask?”

Apparently it is. Chris Bartram put it all together. “This is yet another example of the MPE spooler not being up-to-date with the PJL that HP’s own printers’ support,” Bartram said. “We’ve had an open HP Response Center (HPRC) call on this problem since 10/98, which they just finally closed on us after dozens of traces and other diagnostics. No fix. The workaround is to turn off PJL support on the printer (in npconfig.pub.sys) and lose all ability to do page level recovery. Feel free to call HPRC and add your name to the SR# 5003-464131. In the meantime, add PJL_SUPPORTED=FALSE to the NPCONFIG.PUB.SYS entry for your printer.

“Apparently when CSY (the 3000 division) wrote the code for network printing, the PJL dialogue of the era was more or less hardcoded in. This makes it difficult to extend it to be forward compatible with the features that the new fancy lasers use, like multi-bin and paper tray status reports. In some tests I’ve done with and for the HPRC, we found that sometimes we could get printing to work fine with PJL enabled. In one case, by emptying one of the optional feed trays, we then got the printer to loop, printing one page of a printout repeatedly, along with the associated console messages (unknown PJL sequence, or powerfail message, depending on MPE and patch versions). My guess is that the printer was adding status information warning that tray 2 was empty (which is a warning since it goes ahead and feeds from tray 3) but the spooler didn’t know how to handle that additional information and gagged on it.

Bartram continued, “The page-level recovery problem affects LPQ printers (the LPQ800 and 1200s we have demonstrated here ourselves) and all HP LaserJet 5-and-newer models (LJ 5si, 8000s, and a couple other models we have also confirmed). LJ4 and older printers work just fine; they apparently don’t generate the newer, ‘confusing’ PJL status messages. The symptoms are the same: The spooler prints until it gets an error reported by the printer. The error message seems to confuse the spooler, which either generates an error about an unknown PJL sequence (pre spooler patch) or a generic error message about communications with the printer, and after a 60-second-or-so delay, starts the printout over from the beginning."

I’ve used MPE’s network printing with reasonable success since its earliest days. However, it seems like something CSY does half heartedly. Little, but important features were unavailable or did not work. And there seemed to be little interest in fixing them or enhancing the utility. HP has always said there are third party utilities to do the job. Which is true, to a point. But the convenience of having a full-featured, fully functioning spooler integrated into MPE/iX that handles all print devices, no matter how connected, cannot be over-emphasized. CSY has not been reticent about competing with third parties in other areas. So what is the problem here?