printing error

[rcarch]

i was trying to plot some drawings today and ran into this beauty:

"cant open PSStream for stdoutERROR:pictwpstops-got an error closing PSStream=-50"

Plotting to a HP800PS from VW9.5.3 thru Mac OSX 10.2.3

The file was working fine until one of my interns exported some jpeg renderings from RW, and brought them into the file (not sure how they did this, ie: import or cut/paste). this actually occured in two separate files undergoing the same type of work. I have deleted all the raster files, but nothing has changed.

Has anyone come across this problem?

Thanks in advance.

[ 01-11-2003, 03:31 PM: Message edited by: rcarch ]

[Guest]

Are you using the Printer Module on HP's website made available on 9-13-2002?

You can try to remove the printer from print center and then set it up again. This may resolve the problem. However that sounds like an error related to the printer software or print center more than VW error.

[rcarch]

i definitely agree it is not in VW that the problem occurs, but it does affect VW, since I can no longer plot from these files to my plotter at this point. i have not been able to replicate the problem, and am still not exactly sure where it came from.

i will look at the info on HP's site and see if that is something to use.

thanks, katie!

[rcarch]

actually, i take back some of what i said in my last post, it does seem to reside in VW, at least in the file itself. I can print any other file I want to the plotter, except for these 2 files, which where both from an earlier original, so something has corrupted the file.

my question is, what does that error code mean? i have not gotten a response from HP yet, and Apple says that it seems to be something in postscript.

i can deal with this, but hope it does not happen again, since i need to re-create the entire job file, then try cutting and pasting things back into, and hope that does not corrupt the file.

[PeterT]

I just upgraded from OS 10.2.2 to 10.2.3 this morning and now I get the exact same error message you are getting when I plot from VectorWorks:

"can't open PSStream for stdoutERROR:pictwpstops-got an error closing PSStream=-50"

I have the exact same setup as you VW 9.5.3 on OS 10.2.3 plotting to anHP 800PS.

Yesterday I was plotting fine from OS 10.2.2 with everything else being the same. It definitly has something to do with the upgrade to OS 10.2.3.

We have another machine in the office that has had this problem for a couple of weeks since he upgraded to OS 10.2.3.

We also have another machine, however, that plots fine to the 800PS from VW 9.5.3 on OS 10.2.3.

It is the total inconsistency of these problems that make them so hard to diagnose.

I have posted this issue on HP's error message forum for the 800PS, but HP never responds to Macintosh issues. That is the third message I have posted to their message board and the Moderator just ignores them.

At least Nemetschek tries to help. Thank you Katie, and the rest .

Also, I just tried to download the latest driver from HP's web site and Explorer just hangs, nothing downloads.

HP in a nutshell: great hardware, nonexistent support.

[rcarch]

Interesting to hear I am not the only one with this problem. I was in the office til 11:30 friday night with another machine doing the same thing with a totally different file. Happens that we upgraded it to OSX 10.2.3 on Wednesday of last week! That is now 3 files on 3 different jobs that this happens on. I have other files that run fine. It seems to happen on files that were created before OSX 10.2.3. I am plotting a file right now as i write that i created this morning from scratch and no problems.

I would love it if NNA tech could look into this. I really dont want to spend more time reconstructing files from scratch, just so that they can plot.

Thanks for everyones help!

[Guest]

I'm looking into this problem to see if it's a PS vs OS issue or if it's a VW vs OS vs PS error.

Please note, it may not be a VW issue and HP will need to resolve it. Of course, it may be a VW problem on the other hand. In which case, we will work on the issue.

It's wierd that OS 10.2.3 has this problem and 10.2.2 does't. HP had a bunch of problems with networked plotters under OS 10.2.2. HP and Apple told users to go back to 10.2.1 until 10.2.3 came out. OS 10.2.3 seemed to fix most of the printing issues between the OS and HP and some other manufactures having problems.

[rcarch]

Wow - Katie thanks for the quick reply on that. I am doing a little investigative work here to see if we can isolate it any further. Will let you know if anything shows up.

Thanks again.

[PeterT]

Katie,

At this point I have now started using Gimp Print to see if I can resolve anything.

Here are a few tests I have run:

1. In MicroSoft Word, I typed in a line of text. I sent it with the HP supplied driver to the 800PS. The file plotted without any problem.

2. In MicroSoft Word, I typed in a line of text. I sent it to 800PS using the Gimp Print driver. The file plotted without any problem.

3. In VectorWorks, I opened a blank document and typed in a line of text. I sent it with the HP supplied driver to the 800PS. The file did not plot.

4. In VectorWorks, I opened a blank document and typed in a line of text. I sent it to 800PS using the Gimp Print driver. The file did not plot.

I do not always see the error message when the plot fails, but sometimes the message appears and goes away so fast you do not see it. But consistently, I cannot plot to the 800PS from VectorWorks with either the HP driver or the Gimp Print driver.

I would think that Word sends its data via PDF to the driver, so since VectorWorks sends it via Pict to Postscript, maybe that is where the problem lies.

One more thing is that on Friday I had a Tech at HP email fresh copies of the 800PS driver to me, but they did not change anything after installation.

For me, my computer is dead in the water as far as ploting from VectorWorks. It does not seem to matter if it is a new or old file as Rich seems to indicate.

Any help appreciated,

PeterT

[Guest]

Peter,

Did you create a new file for the text, or an existing file you had with text in it?

Try restarting the computer, launching ONLY VW and print a new blank document with one block of text and a few simple rectangles or other 2d objects.

[Guest]

Peter --

Also, are you not able to print ANYTHING to this printer?

There are many people that cannot print large drawings to this printer. We think it might be a memory related problem in the RIP, however we are still investigating to see where that problem lies.

But for all those that can't print large files, they can at least print smaller files.

[rcarch]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Katie:

Okay, I have a few tests I need you to try to better help up in determining where the problem occurs.

1. Does anything print before this error occurs?

2. Is there a particular object in the drawing that causes this error?

(Try only printing a few objects at a time)

Pictwpstops is a filter to convert pict output to PS output in the new

CUPS printing architecture of OS10.2.

3. If you have GIMP PRINT, try to see if Gimp Print can produce this same error. Thankfully, the HP 800ps is supported by Gimp Print.

If you do not have Gimp Print, it's not too terribly difficult to learn. I managed to figure it out in just a little bit of time. The documentation is pretty good.

The website for Gimp Print is

http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/

Make sure you use Version 4.2.4. The 4.2.5 version is still a beta version.

---

1.Not from the effected file. Print Center opens and says opening printer connection, then I will either get the error message or the printer just closes up and nothing is printed.

2.I have not been able to isolate any particular item. One common feature to the 3 problem files is that they all have had images imported at some point in time.

3. Actually, the 800PS is not supported by GIMP yet, but I can use one of the other plotters (I chose the 750C). Gimp was able to print the file, but it took a lot long than normal since GIMP does not send it to the machine to get ripped.

I noticed another thing, after i ran a problem file thru GIMP, i was able to print it thru the normal print center driver, but i have not been able to replicate that yet with any other file.

Man, GIMP PRINT is slow.............

Thats everything I have been able to deduce up til now. I am not getting any consistency at this point in errors or successes.

Thanks again for you help, Katie.

[ 01-20-2003, 03:05 PM: Message edited by: rcarch ]

[Guest]

Rich,

Were you having problems printing to the 7xx printer also?

[rcarch]

So far, anything out of GIMP PRINT thru the 750C driver has worked on the 800PS plotter.

[rcarch]

ok- my previous statement about pre 10.2.3 files being run in 10.2.3 is false. i have been able to open a file from november 1, 02 and print it with no problem. i even copied and pasted some stuff in from a problem file and still no issues. everything printed fine thru the normal route.

[rcarch]

ok - here we go:

i take a file that is not printing, run it thru gimp print on the 750c driver, sit back read a book and have it print eventually.

then i switch over to the 800PS driver thru print center (no gimp print involved), send it to the printer and the darned thing prints now! and it prints every time i ask it to.

2 of the 3 jobs that i was having problems with are now fixed for some reason. maybe gimp print is like a high cholonic and cleans everything out?

go figure - would like to know for sure that this is a real fix tho'.

[PeterT]

Katie and Rich,

I have definitely figured out and resolved the PostScript error message problem on both my affected machines and I would think on any others.

The problem seems to be with any preset setups you have created in the print dialog prior to the OS 10.2.3 upgrade.

If a saved setup is chosen from the pull down menu in the print dialog and you print, you will get the PostScript error message.

If you choose the standard setup however, the drawing will plot just fine.

This is complicated though, because once you have encountered the error message once, you will continue to get the same message even on the standard preset if you are in the same VectorWorks session.

To test this you need to quit and restart VectorWorks, plot with the standard preset (the plot will print), then switch to one of your preset setups and try again (the plot will fail), then switch back to the standard setup and try again (the plot will fail again).

This explains why some machines in our office do not have the problem (we created the presets on these machines after OS 10.2.3 was installed)

To resolve the problem, I deleted all preset print setups from the two bad machines and created them again from scratch. Now we are happily plotting again.

I suspect this is a Driver/OS Upgrade issue, but for us it was only a problem in VectorWorks. I do not have any other OSX graphics applications to test though, and I would suspect it would be the same for other apps that send PICT data to the driver.

Other than four hours of testing and quite a few yards of paper off our plotter roll, the problem seems easy to fix.

I hope this solves it for anyone else, it worked for us.

Regards,

PeterT

[Guest]

Wow

You guys are good detectives.

Thanks for the information. I am going to pass this on to the rest of Tech Support and the printer engineer.

[Guest]

I think it might be happening with VW and not some of the other applications because of the way VW stores printer information.

That's just a guess right now.

[John@NNA]

I downloaded gimp-print today, v4.2.4, and after installing it, it listed the DesignJet 800PS as the 2nd item in the list of supported drivers.

[PeterT]

That's interestring, I guess they need to update thier website, because at the bottom of the GimpPrint page their is a link to the supported printers page, and the 800PS does not appear on that list.

Good to know though as a backup driver. Now that we have the PostScript error message solved, I will see if GimpPrint will take care of the performance slowdown (Rubber Band cursor) we get after plotting with the HP Driver from VectorWorks.

Regards,

PeterT

[rcarch]

Interesting thing for me is that we do not use any presets, so that is not an issue here.

I think the driver that you are seeing in print center is the one that installs w/ jaguar. when i installed gimp, no other 800PS drivers were put in.

Thanks for everyones effort.

[Guest]

Okay, I have a few tests I need you to try to better help up in determining where the problem occurs.

1. Does anything print before this error occurs?

2. Is there a particular object in the drawing that causes this error?

(Try only printing a few objects at a time)

Pictwpstops is a filter to convert pict output to PS output in the new

CUPS printing architecture of OS10.2.

3. If you have GIMP PRINT, try to see if Gimp Print can produce this same error. Thankfully, the HP 800ps is supported by Gimp Print.

If you do not have Gimp Print, it's not too terribly difficult to learn. I managed to figure it out in just a little bit of time. The documentation is pretty good.

The website for Gimp Print is

http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/

Make sure you use Version 4.2.4. The 4.2.5 version is still a beta version.

[Guest]

Peter T-

Please see the following article on Apple's website about sluggishness after installing HP drivers under OS 10.2.x

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=32147&SaveKCWindowURL=http%3A%2F%2Fkbase.info.apple.com%2Fcgi-bin%2FWebObjects%2Fkbase.woa%2Fwa%2FSaveKCToHomePage&searchMode=Assiste d&kbhost=kbase.info.apple.com&showButton=false&randomValue=100&showSurvey=false&sessionID=anonymous|162467392

Article ID 32147

Mac OS X 10.2.2: Sluggish System Performance After Installing HP Printer Drivers

[PeterT]

Katie,

Thanks for the Apple link. I am not sure that that article is specific to our problem though. We have the problem only directly after Plotting with the driver, not just the installation. And the sluggishness goes away if we quit VectorWorks and re-launch it. Also, we are still having the problem in OS 10.2.3, not just 10.2.2.

It is encouraging though that other possibly related problems are being identified, and that engineers at HP and Apple are working to resolve them.

I'm sure all these driver issues will be resolved over time, and then we can benifit from what OS X offers instead of griping about what it lacks.

Regards,

PeterT

[NinjaZX7R]

We've recently had exactly the same problem at our office while using VWA/RW 9.5.3 and the latest OS X 10.2.3 - prior to this, we experienced no problems since upgrading to "Jaguar". Strange as it may seem, we do have one station that appears to be operating normally, while my PowerBook and Dual G4 can't print diddly at this time.

As Ishmael would quote, the work-around that I have found is to save the image as a *.pdf, then print via Adobe's Acrobat Reader; thing is, the scale is not completely accurate, so adjustments all along the way are necessary, especially for anything that is referenced as such (renderings don't usually need such attention to dimensions).

ANYway - obviously being able to render from VWA/RW is one thing, as such Adobe's application is submitted to the plotter (HP 1050c and 1055CM) in likewise PostScript fashion, so the issue seems to stem from VW talking to OS X 10.2.x, in some manner, and not coming to 'terms' accurately.

Hope somebody at Apple, NNA and HP get this resolved soon, as this latest OS has our entire office seemingly enticed at this point (been doing my best to 'port them' from Wintel stations to Macs...). They've even stated that running VW/RW on the Macs, is much nicer than the same on our Windows machines. Most of them do note that the dockable pallets on the Windows versions are much nicer than the quirky Mac renditions.

Thanks for all the great work - looking forward to being able to cut the check for v.10 in our office. Colorado is slower than a log in the mud right now, thus the delay.

Craig in Denver