Odd Dell AIO A940 Problem.....

Hello, it's been a while (I guess that's a good thing . Anyway, Our Dell All-In-One A940 Printer is acting weird. I don't want to mislead any of you by saying what I said; This problem affects the printer, but I seriously doubt the printer itself is faulty (We hooked it up to a friend's laptop and installed the drivers and it worked fine.) Also, re-installing the driver changed nothing about the issue (even downloaded it two separate times from two different websites and re-installed it twice, so I doubt it's the driver either.)
The printer's behavior is this: It allows me to print ONCE, then refuses to delete the old spool data from the printing queue. After that, it won't let me print unless I completely restart (turn off and on) the printer. On other users' accounts it doesn't work at all, giving us a "communication unavailable" message.
I think it has something to do with other drivers and software on the computer...But I have no idea what. Any Ideas?

 

Well, I wish it was that simple. I've pretty much determined it's not a USB/hardware problem through simple troubleshooting like this. I did try switching USB ports again just to see and unfortunately that still doesn't seem to help any.
Personally, I think it may be a computer software problem, such as [driver] incompatibility (meaning drivers from other things than the printer itself) or conflicting drivers, etc. If you or anyone knows more about what kind of software issues could cause the printer drivers (probably among other things) to malfunction, I believe it would lead me in the right direction.
Again, the printer itself works on my user account; the progress bar on the printer dialog reaches 99% then stops (The page has already finished printing out) and doesn't seem to want to remove the old document from the printing queue. Then I have to turn the printer off, then back on again in order to clear the queue and print again. On the others' user accounts on the computer, the printer simply gives us the "communication Unavailable" message (which is why I imagine you suggested switching USB ports) and doesn't work period.
As far as I know this might be more than one issue giving me problems at the same time, so give me whatever possibilities come to your mind, and I'll check them out. Thanks.

 

Hi, PyroLizard.

Perhaps Event Viewer (in the "Application" or "System" section?) will shed some light on the issue.

• Click Start > Run...
• Type [FONT= "Courier New"][SIZE= "3"]eventvwr.msc[/SIZE][/FONT] in the "Open:" field.
• Click the OK button.

 

Okay, I tried the event viewer and at first was a little confounded. (This was the first time I've ever seen this thing to be honest) But after searching I found 1 [warning] (and nothing else) regarding the printer. It read: "Printer Dell AIO Printer A940 was purged. " Personally, all this means to me is that it is notifying me that I restarted the printer earlier today when I was messing around with it and switching USB ports, and force deleted the remanants of the file I test printed before. That is just an "educated" guess on my account. Perhaps it means something more to you? If there is anything else on the printer (or remotely related to it) in those error logs it will probably be a pain sifting through the 2,500 or more entries...unless you know of a search feature somewhere in there or something. Oh well ... tell me what you think. If this isn't leading anywhere I'll just move on to the next step, given there is one.

 

Thanks, Pete.

I'm sorry, PyroLizard. I'll try to remember from now on to include those Event Viewer details Pete provided so I don't confuse others.

I have attached the "Advanced" tab information in my computer's Print Server Properties window that Pete pointed you to since I have never changed my print spool location (C:\WINDOWS\System32\spool\PRINTERS) as far as I know. The "PRINTERS" in that path is a FOLDER that is currently empty on my system according to Windows Explorer. (I assume that PRINTERS folder is empty because I do not currently have any print jobs running/pending).

Click on the thumbnail below to view the full-size image.

Start > Control Panel > Printers and Faxes > File > Server Properties > "Advanced" tab:

 

Okay, I tried what you said (restarted the computer and everything) and the printer still hangs up at 99%. Unfortunately the print spool doesn't seem to be the problem either. Is there anything else that could be corrupt or in conflict with the printer software? Any logs or anything I can post that may help you out?

 

Hi, PyroLizard.

I am not ready to rule out your printer firmware/software as a cause of your issue just yet.

Perhaps the firmware and/or the driver (from the Dell web site) for your A940 All-In-One Personal Printer printer needs to be reinstalled to make your printer cooperate with your particular computer configuration.

Have you tried removing/deleting your A940 printer from your computer (both physically and via Control Panel > Printers and Faxes), rebooting, and then carefully following the instructions in the links I provided in the paragraph above?

EDIT: I know you stated in your first post that you re-installed drivers from "two different websites ". Perhaps there's a part of the "Installation Instructions" in the Dell links I provided above that you forgot to perform.

Barring that possibility, perhaps running System File Checker (SFC) will help you resolve your issue.

• Have your Windows XP CD handy because you may be prompted to insert it into your CD drive during this process.
• Click Start > Run...
• Type [FONT= "Courier New"][SIZE= "3"]sfc /scannow[/SIZE][/FONT] in the "Open:" field.
• Click the OK button.

A "Windows File Protection" window will open and display its progress. If SFC runs successfully without any intervention from you, it will take approximately 15-25 minutes to complete. When SFC completes, the "Windows File Protection" window will simply disappear.

To see any changes that may have been made by SFC after it completes:

• Click Start > Run...
• Type [FONT= "Courier New"][SIZE= "3"]eventvwr.msc[/SIZE][/FONT] in the "Open:" field.
• Click the OK button.
• Click the "System" item on the left side of the "Event Viewer" window.

Any changes made by SFC will be displayed (in reverse order) as "Windows File Protection" events between Event ID 64016 (Windows File Protection started) and 64017 (Windows File Protection completed).

Double-click on an event (or right-click on the event and select "Properties ") to view details about the event. You can use the up/down arrow buttons on the right side of the event's "Properties" window to view details about adjacent events without having to close the event's "Properties" window.

If you want to copy event details to your clipboard (for pasting into Notepad or a forum message, for example), use the button immediately below the up/down arrow buttons in the event's "Properties" window.

If SFC made any changes, then reboot and try printing again.

 

Sorry it's taken so long to get back (Had a bunch of things pertaining to Christmas to take care of. )

I tried the SFC thing and mainly got two things out of it (One fairly unkown to me-an http.sys file change, and one I knew what it was and wasn't a problem) neither which had anything to do with my printer. I restarted, printed and had the same problem as before.

However you brought up Firmware . . . I updated the printer's firmware shortly before this problem began, and I didn't think of re-installing it when I re-installed the printer drivers. This COULD just be a firmware problem . . . I will check it out and get back to you later with the results.
Thanks.

 

Alright, This doesn't seem to be the issue either. It seems as if my knowledge of Firmware was a little vague...All it does is set a permanent address in the system's RAM to do a certain thing every time the related device/etc. is used. This particular Firmware update parks the print head while you pick the paper. Don't seem to see where a correlation between that and the problem would exist, but reinstalled it anyway, to no effect. If I understand right, the only way to "roll back" Firmware is to re-install an earlier version, which in this case is not available. So, in other words, even if that was the problem I wouldn't be able to fix it...unless I had a way to Flash the RAM, but I believe that would be a rather rash action by someone of my experience level, so I'm staying away from it. Why worry about it anyway if you think something else is causing the problem? And of course, if there is something else, do you guys have any other ideas of what it might be?
I don't mean to be dragging this out, but I have a sister and brother who rely on this printer to do their homework, so they're all coming down on me

 

Hi, PyroLizard.

I understand your reluctance to pursue the "firmware" avenue. Might be best to wait to see if someone familiar with your issue (or someone with fresh ideas) might read this thread and offer some help.

I'm sorry I can't be more helpful.

 

Thanks, Mailman. If I can remember right, you helped me on the last issue I had too, so thanks for that as well.
I'll keep tinkering around with it and doing research on the web. Hopefully I will find something, but if someone here knows how to help me, suggestions are (obviously) welcome .

 

Well, the research part paid off. And I didn't even have to leave the site! The thing that lead me to the answer was from our very own "Mr." Mailman here on the site. In a past post he mentioned after uninstalling a driver (remarkably in this case, a printer driver) to make sure you completely restart the computer before reinstalling the driver. Last time I "reinstalled" the driver, there must've still been problem files on my computer from before. All I figured is that I got busy with something and decided to postpone restarting the computer until I was finished, left the PC for awhile, and went ahead and reinstalled the driver while forgetting to restart, lol. That annoying little mistake not only burned me once two years ago during a serious repair job, but also when I tried to fix this back in July Oh well...It's fixed now I guess. I'm sure I'll never make that mistake again (lol) Simple, but annoying.

Unfortunately, while trying to sort things out on the Administer account, I found another problem with the user account, so you can expect me back in a few days once I've assessed the problem fully.

Again, thanks to all that helped me, and for others who may be just looking around, REMEMBER: This site has tons of problems and fixes...your answer could be anywhere here if not in your thread!

 

Hi, PyroLizard.

Thanks for following up with your fix. I'm glad rebooting after uninstall and before reinstall of your printer driver worked.

You're very welcome. I recognized your nickname as well, so I expect I did help you before.