Problem with some reports

[mhoward]

We are having problems with some of the reports. The printer prints the first page OK, then half the second, then pagination is broken for the remainder of the document. Looking at #LPT3.txt shows that the first page and a half is missing. 


    Config looks like - LPT3=SEL:"Canon" RAW
    I have tried it without RAW, same result.
    Report prints fine from Windows 7 to the same printer (same driver, etc) (net use LPT3 \\etc)
    Sending the report to file from the DOS application paginates correctly.
    I upgraded to 2021.05.01, same issue.

Any thoughts?

[Jos]

vDos collects/caches printer output before sending that to the Windows printer driver.
At some moment it has to decide to go for it. By default that is when no further data is send to the DOS printer in the last 5 seconds (or 1 second if the last data was an eject page command).

Your program seemingly needs more time to construct the output for the second half of the second page.
You could simply increase those 5 seconds waiting time with the TIO:nn directive. But then you have always to wait nn (for instance 10) seconds before printing starts.

So first try the alternative methods described in Printing.pdf - TIO: <seconds> | files | key | spool. That would probably get you an instant response of the printer w/o any waiting.

Jos

[mhoward]

Thanks you! TIO:0 fixed it for them. All reports seem to be printing correctly now.

-Mark

[Jos]

You could also add TIO:0 to the other printer definitions (LPT1 and LPT2?) in config.txt.

That would give you instant printing w/o the default mandatory 1 or 5 second delay.

Jos