An online magazine in the UK uses Pagesuite to print pages from it. This facility hasn't worked since the beginning of 2019. Any thoughts?
The PageSuite window comes up, tells me it is loading the selected page(s) and waits while I choose the Printer details. When I press OK that small window goes away and PrintSuite says 'Printing Finished'. Now that's what happened before the New Year, so everything appears to be fine.
It took me some time to figure out that I needed to see what was in the printer queue. That showed nothing.
I eventually thought to set up the printer queue window before I pressed OK. When I do that, the file is sent to the printer and it is immediately removed from the queue. The file name is in the list for a fraction of a second, no more. Just enough time for the file name to register on the screen. So that's the problem I have run into.
Now, details:
Operating system - Windows 10 Home 64-bit
Web browser - Firefox Quantum, v 66.0.3
Printer - Brother HL-1210W
Chosen solution
It seems a subscription is necessary to see what you are trying to print.
I notice they have a PDF Edition. Have you tried downloading that and printing from your PDF reader application instead? If the PDF opens in Firefox's viewer, you can use the download button to save it:
All Replies (10)
Please provide screenshots of that "choose the Printer details." window and one for "When I press OK that small window goes away and PrintSuite says 'Printing Finished'."
To:- the-edmeister,
I think I have interpreted your requests correctly. 'Capture 1' is the printer select part, and 'Capture 2' is the aftermath. When I click on OK a filename appears in the printer queue and almost immediately is wiped from it. And, of course, nothing gets printed. The magazine had me try any other browser, so I tried IE and it prints the required file just fine.
The magazine also suggested that an update of Firefox could be the source of this problem. They shut down over the Christmas and New Year holidays so if it was an update, it would be around that time. That would make the last date for printing without difficulty around the 20th/21st Dec. It would have been around the 9th/10th Jan before there would have been a need to print anything from the magazine.
I trust that this is of help.
Rob H
Firefox 64 was released on 2018-12-11, and Firefox 65 on 2019-01-29. That could be a clue, but I wonder about the Where: in the Print dialog box on the left-upper corner of that first screenshot.
How is that printer connected? Typically I would expect that Where: to be a USB port, like USB001 or USB002 - or possibly a LAN URI if that printer is using an LAN connection. See my screenshot. I have no idea what that long WSD-..... string is about, but it may be sending the "Print" somewhere unexpected, like to a file ?? in the operating system.
I have 2 Brother printers, an MFC J-615W Inkjet and a HL20 Laser - both 10 years old; never seen that - with Where: showing a string such as that, although I haven't had a problem like that.
My suggestion it to look at the Properties for that printer; both for that printer thru the Firefox Print dialog box (in my screenshot) AND thru the Brother software, too.
The printer is connected via WiFi. It has been since I got it, what? 2-3 years ago. Long enough to go through 3 toner cartridges. That's what the WSD… deotes.
Rob H
Thanks for that info about the WSD being a wi-fi connection; that hadn't occurred to me.
I am at a loss with troubleshooting suggestions for this issue right now. Best I can I can think of is to reset all your printer settings inside Firefox and see if that solves your problem.
Just got back from a short break, so I've got some catching up to do. If you don't mind, I'll leave this as unsolved for the moment, and when I can I'll follow your suggestion of resetting printer parameters. I'll update you on what transpires. Thanks for your help so far.
Rob H
edmeister, Hi, it's me again. Time to give you an update on what I've done and what I've achieved.
I did the printer reset as you suggested, putting everything back how it should be. That turned out to be a waste of time because the same thing happened again. The file to be printed appears in the printer queue and immediately disappears from the queue. I did another reset, this time setting up the printer via the USB cable instead of WiFi. That made no difference either.
My last effort was to set up a different additional printer, again via USB cable, but the result is still the same.
So from this I discern that there is a little bit of incompatibility between Firefox and Pagesuite, the print facility which the magazine uses. I have derived a work-around, but it is a bit of a faff and takes a lot longer than the print facility (when it worked).
The on-line magazine is titled 'Railway Herald' (http://railwayherald.com/) if you can investigate this further. I've previously demonstrated that Pagesuite works correctly with other browsers. As I mentioned earlier, it worked with Firefox up until after the New Year.
Rob H
Chosen Solution
It seems a subscription is necessary to see what you are trying to print.
I notice they have a PDF Edition. Have you tried downloading that and printing from your PDF reader application instead? If the PDF opens in Firefox's viewer, you can use the download button to save it:
That method is my fall-back. When I needed to print a page I did it there and then, but now I need to note the page(s) I want to have hard copy of and then download the PDF version and go through the list I've made and then print. As I said, it's a bit of a faff, but it looks like I'm stuck with!
I won't be bothering you any more over this issue.
If I stumble across PageSuite somewhere else, hopefully I'll remember to share my experience back here in case it helps.