networking - Network printer prints gibberish

08
2014-07
  • John

    Throughout the day my network printer spits out a page that has a single line of characters at the top of the page. I used the navigator on the printer to pull up the print history and for all the jobs that we want to print it shows an origin, (John's computer, Mikes's computer etc.) but for the gibberish it shows nothing.

    Any ideas?

    It's a Canon Imagerunner Advanced. There are two paper sizes but it only prints out on 8.5x11, never 11x17.

    Also, there are three different pages that will print out and the line of gibberish is the same for all of that type.

    • Answers
  • slhck

    Gibberish in printouts…

    I'll give you some background, so you understand what's going on: When you connect any device to a computer (let's say a printer.. of course) the computer doesn't know what that device is.

    This is where the hardware of the computer detects the hardware that is being connected, on the port of the computer, and in order for the two to communicate, they need software to work as a translator, so to speak.

    These are obviously called drivers. Now, drivers are specifically written for a certain hardware model and version and they tell the computer what the hardware is and what it can do.

    In the case of a printer, it needs to know how to print the characters, it uses this thing called PDL (Page Description Language)

    In a nutshell: Uninstall and reinstall your printer drivers. If that doesn't work – and for network printers, it usually doesn't – install the PostScript Drivers for your printer model from your manufacturer.

    Assuming there is nothing faulty with your printer's main controller board you should find that the gibberish disappears.

    Let me know how that went.


    • Related Question

    windows 7 - HP LaserJet P4014 PCL6 Network Printer - Print Queue Stalls
  • Simon Owen

    I am connected to a HP LeserJet P4014 network printer in Windows 7. If I send multiple print jobs to the printer, say 3 single page prints from Word, the first page prints no problem at all but any subsiquent pages will sit in the queue for 10-15 mins before it prints, then the same gap until the next one etc.

    After a page has printed it is still shown in the print queue during the wait for the next file to print - it is as if the printer is not getting a job finished message and after timing-out the next page will print.

    Has anybody seen this before?


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  • Joe Taylor

    I haven't experienced the exact error but when we were setting up a sattelite network at a remote site we had no end of problems with the PCL drivers for both a HP P4015n and a HP 5550, they were printing out the first print job or the first page of a print job and then either: Idling with jobs in the print queue or displaying that the memory was full. I never had it start to print after a time out though, it just stopped. We solved these issues by using the PostScript drivers. I'm not sure if this is a viable solution for yourself but I would recommend giving it a go if it is possible. If memory servers me correctly for the 4015 we had to use the Universal print drivers while the 5550 had its own PS drivers.

    Hope it helps