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Major Problem - Still not resolved

Thomas,
2 things:
1. My Printer def is with default Windows drivers for the HP4L,
2. Is your printer (network) on a Print Server such as LinkSys or NetGear or is it just a share network printer?
Nowadays my printer is a shared printer hooked to one of the systems on the local lan.  At work, my printers were networked and in some cases the default printer was not even in the same state.    My personal default printer though was a HP 4si on one of the corporate print servers (generally these were Windows servers) and the lan being down caused me no problems at all.

I

ask as, if I follow you logic out all the way, I would think the

NetGear drivers could effect this.  But I'm not buying because I've had

same printer and print server for over 10 years, and was not getting

this problem with PMail versions 3.x.  Problem only started when I went

to PMail 4.x versions.  That logic points to a flaw in the PMail.

I doubt this since the way that PMail checks how to display the fonts has not really changed in years, it simply asks the printer driver via a windows call.  The older printer drivers very seldom, if ever, checked to see if the printer was on line  when asked how to display the fonts.  Newer ones, especially HP seem to do this more often.  FWIW, I've never had any experience with a dedicated hardware printer server.


<blockquote>Thomas,</blockquote><blockquote>2 things:</blockquote><blockquote>1. My Printer def is with default Windows drivers for the HP4L,</blockquote><blockquote>2. Is your printer (network) on a Print Server such as LinkSys or NetGear or is it just a share network printer?</blockquote>Nowadays my printer is a shared printer hooked to one of the systems on the local lan.  At work, my printers were networked and in some cases the default printer was not even in the same state.    My personal default printer though was a HP 4si on one of the corporate print servers (generally these were Windows servers) and the lan being down caused me no problems at all. <blockquote><p>I ask as, if I follow you logic out all the way, I would think the NetGear drivers could effect this.  But I'm not buying because I've had same printer and print server for over 10 years, and was not getting this problem with PMail versions 3.x.  Problem only started when I went to PMail 4.x versions.  That logic points to a flaw in the PMail.</p></blockquote><p>I doubt this since the way that PMail checks how to display the fonts has not really changed in years, it simply asks the printer driver via a windows call.  The older printer drivers very seldom, if ever, checked to see if the printer was on line  when asked how to display the fonts.  Newer ones, especially HP seem to do this more often.  FWIW, I've never had any experience with a dedicated hardware printer server. </p>

All,

 

I do not remember at which version it occurred, think 4.01, but the problem has consistently been in the code since, and though I emailed in the problem, don't think it got a serious look, but let me describe  the problem:

 

Something in the code now looks for and make decisions based on printers, do not know what or why, cause printers and their defs should  never be in or play with the base code.

 

Anyway if the default printer goes offline or down, an error of "Error Initializing the printer." with a Title Caption of "OpenCurPrinter: printer: printerpath\name" appears and for each email selected 5 to 10 occurrances of the error "Error creating font." with Title Caption of "CreateOneFont(b)" occur.

 

Oh Yes, everytime the POP3 executes to search for mail this whole series of messages starts again, regardless of where you are in the mailbox. 

 
This is extremely annoying, and causes major problems especially in our company, where the default printer is a networked HP4L on a NetGear PS110 and when it goes down, about 25 people are getting the set of messages.  This would be much worse in even larger companies.  Oh Yes we use PMail commercially and have since 1998.

 

Please fix it so it will work right.  Nothing in the Email engine should ever looks at any printer defs until an actual print is asked for.

 

Thanks!

 

 OMR

 

P.S. 

Forgot the most important part of this bug.  When this error occurs, no mail can be seen or read as all the view are blank, such as occurs in the view window when the "Preview mode" is not "on" or "selected".  To work around this problem, we have to:

1. Create "null printer" defs/sessions on each computer,

2. Close PMail,

3. Assign the default printer on each computer to the "null printer",

4. Re-open PMail.

 
Of course this causes problems, cause the users no longer get their error messages from the printer, forget and start printing to the null printer, etc. and then when the printer comes back up we have to reverse the process above and then re-assign all print jobs to the correct printer, which is a hassle, especially when .pdfs or postscript files print as the generic null printer defs cause problems on the HP4L.

OMR 

<p>All,</p><p> </p><p>I do not remember at which version it occurred, think 4.01, but the problem has consistently been in the code since, and though I emailed in the problem, don't think it got a serious look, but let me describe  the problem:</p><p> </p><p>Something in the code now looks for and make decisions based on printers, do not know what or why, cause printers and their defs should  never be in or play with the base code.</p><p> </p><p>Anyway if the default printer goes offline or down, an error of "Error Initializing the printer." with a Title Caption of "OpenCurPrinter: printer: printerpath\name" appears and for each email selected 5 to 10 occurrances of the error "Error creating font." with Title Caption of "CreateOneFont(b)" occur.</p><p> </p><p>Oh Yes, everytime the POP3 executes to search for mail this whole series of messages starts again, regardless of where you are in the mailbox. </p><p>  This is extremely annoying, and causes major problems especially in our company, where the default printer is a networked HP4L on a NetGear PS110 and when it goes down, about 25 people are getting the set of messages.  This would be much worse in even larger companies.  Oh Yes we use PMail commercially and have since 1998. </p><p> </p><p>Please fix it so it will work right.  Nothing in the Email engine should ever looks at any printer defs until an actual print is asked for.</p><p> </p><p>Thanks!</p><p> </p><p> OMR</p><p> </p><p>P.S. </p><p>Forgot the most important part of this bug.  When this error occurs, no mail can be seen or read as all the view are blank, such as occurs in the view window when the "Preview mode" is not "on" or "selected".  To work around this problem, we have to:</p><p>1. Create "null printer" defs/sessions on each computer,</p><p>2. Close PMail,</p><p>3. Assign the default printer on each computer to the "null printer",</p><p>4. Re-open PMail.</p><p>  Of course this causes problems, cause the users no longer get their error messages from the printer, forget and start printing to the null printer, etc. and then when the printer comes back up we have to reverse the process above and then re-assign all print jobs to the correct printer, which is a hassle, especially when .pdfs or postscript files print as the generic null printer defs cause problems on the HP4L.</p><p>OMR </p>

Something in the code now looks for and make decisions based on

printers, do not know what or why, cause printers and their defs

should  never be in or play with the base code.

WinMail is a WYSIWYG application and it is supposed to access the default printer to determine how to display the font.  If the printer driver also checking to see if the default printer is available (it should not) then you'll get these errors.  The only way that WinPMail could not do this is to not ever check the printer and just guess how it would print in violation of the spec.

1. Create "null printer" defs/sessions on each computer,

If you create a new default printer definition of the current printer and set it to print to a file then the problem is solved.  When  you print then you simply select the printer to be used, there is no need to change the default printer.

In many cases, updating the printer driver will also solve the problem.  FWIW, my default printer always points to a network printer HP D7360 and it make no different if it is online or offline.

 

I know that you will disagree with what I have just written so you really do not need to respond to disagree, your choice though.  ;-) 

 

 

 

<blockquote><p>Something in the code now looks for and make decisions based on printers, do not know what or why, cause printers and their defs should  never be in or play with the base code.</p></blockquote><p>WinMail is a WYSIWYG application and it is supposed to access the default printer to determine how to display the font.  If the printer driver also checking to see if the default printer is available (it should not) then you'll get these errors.  The only way that WinPMail could not do this is to not ever check the printer and just guess how it would print in violation of the spec. </p><blockquote><p>1. Create "null printer" defs/sessions on each computer,</p></blockquote><p>If you create a new default printer definition of the current printer and set it to print to a file then the problem is solved.  When  you print then you simply select the printer to be used, there is no need to change the default printer. </p><p>In many cases, updating the printer driver will also solve the problem.  FWIW, my default printer always points to a network printer HP D7360 and it make no different if it is online or offline.</p><p> </p><p>I know that you will disagree with what I have just written so you really do not need to respond to disagree, your choice though.  ;-) </p><blockquote><p> </p><p> </p></blockquote><p> </p>

Thomas,

 

A query of the fonts, without printer defs, will still make all printers work correctly, because all you are doing with the printer defs is seeing which font sets they use.

 

Since the printer font set is always a subset of the installed fonts, on a computer, simply query the fonts.  All printers, except dot matrix and specialty printers, like the barcode printer I have installed, are able to call any of the fonts and use them in the print session, so calling font, independent of the print def will work, and never give errors.

 

Just think about it.

 

OMR
 

<p>Thomas,</p><p> </p><p>A query of the fonts, without printer defs, will still make all printers work correctly, because all you are doing with the printer defs is seeing which font sets they use.</p><p> </p><p>Since the printer font set is always a subset of the installed fonts, on a computer, simply query the fonts.  All printers, except dot matrix and specialty printers, like the barcode printer I have installed, are able to call any of the fonts and use them in the print session, so calling font, independent of the print def will work, and never give errors.</p><p> </p><p>Just think about it.</p><p> </p><p>OMR  </p>

As I said, Pegasus Mail is required to query the default printer to determine how to display the fonts.  If for some strange reason the broken printer driver also calls to determine if the default printer is on line this is not a requirement of WinPmail, this is a requirement of the printer driver.  Since the problem comes from the printer driver, i believe you should be talking to the people who developed the printer driver to get the problem fixed.

I agree that many other application never talk to the printer driver at all and only use the installed default fonts but this sure can cause problems when what is printer is not what is displayed.  Pegasus Mail is operating the way MS Win32 says the application should operate, even though many of the MS applications bypass this requirement as well.  ;-(

 

 

<p>As I said, Pegasus Mail is required to query the default printer to determine how to display the fonts.  If for some strange reason the broken printer driver also calls to determine if the default printer is on line this is not a requirement of WinPmail, this is a requirement of the printer driver.  Since the problem comes from the printer driver, i believe you should be talking to the people who developed the printer driver to get the problem fixed.</p><p>I agree that many other application never talk to the printer driver at all and only use the installed default fonts but this sure can cause problems when what is printer is not what is displayed.  Pegasus Mail is operating the way MS Win32 says the application should operate, even though many of the MS applications bypass this requirement as well.  ;-(</p><p> </p><p>  </p>

[quote user="Thomas R. Stephenson"]

FWIW, my default printer always points to a network printer HP D7360 and it make no different if it is online or offline.

[/quote]

Thomas,

2 things:

1. My Printer def is with default Windows drivers for the HP4L,

2. Is your printer (network) on a Print Server such as LinkSys or NetGear or is it just a share network printer?

I ask as, if I follow you logic out all the way, I would think the NetGear drivers could effect this.  But I'm not buying because I've had same printer and print server for over 10 years, and was not getting this problem with PMail versions 3.x.  Problem only started when I went to PMail 4.x versions.  That logic points to a flaw in the PMail.

Your thoughts please!

Thanks!

OMR
 

[quote user="Thomas R. Stephenson"]<p>FWIW, my default printer always points to a network printer HP D7360 and it make no different if it is online or offline.</p><p>[/quote]</p><p>Thomas,</p><p>2 things:</p><p>1. My Printer def is with default Windows drivers for the HP4L,</p><p>2. Is your printer (network) on a Print Server such as LinkSys or NetGear or is it just a share network printer?</p><p>I ask as, if I follow you logic out all the way, I would think the NetGear drivers could effect this.  But I'm not buying because I've had same printer and print server for over 10 years, and was not getting this problem with PMail versions 3.x.  Problem only started when I went to PMail 4.x versions.  That logic points to a flaw in the PMail.</p><p>Your thoughts please!</p><p>Thanks!</p><p>OMR  </p>
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