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Author Topic: Problems with Samsung SRP-350 printers Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-06-2012 06:34 PM                        We have two of the Samsung (Bixolon) SRP-350 printers. One of them just decided to stop printing suddenly. I spent two hours today on the phone with the RTS tech guy -- we uninstalled, reinstalled, unplugged, shut down, restarted, changed drivers, changed the USB port, and virtually everything else under the sun and nothing works. The printer will print its own self-test page, so I know it CAN print, but nothing from the computer. The print jobs show up in the print queue. What's weird is, it was working yesterday just fine. It quit when I called in to have RTS change-over our credit card processing to a different vendor -- the printer wouldn't print when we did a test transaction. Anyone else had trouble with these and is there a little known solution? The computer is a fairly new Dell running Win7, and the printer is plugged in via one of those parallel-to-USB adaptor cables.  |  IP: Logged Frank Cox Film God Posts: 2234 From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada Registered: Apr 2011 posted 09-06-2012 06:38 PM                        Have you tried it on a different computer?  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-06-2012 07:44 PM                        Not yet, I ran out of time and had to get back over here (day job). I'm going over right now to try that.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-06-2012 11:03 PM                        Well. I goofed around with things and got everything to working. Along with refusing to print, the printer would cause RTS to crash -- the only way out was to exit and restart RTS. I just unplugged and swapped things around and did some trial runs. Swapped the printers, problem stayed with the same computer -- so that ruled the printer out. Swapped the USB adapter cable, the problem moved to the other computer, so it looks like the cable is the culprit. But during RTS' "recovery" from the cable-caused crash, the receipt suddenly printed, so I rebooted and now it's working fine after about a dozen trials. I'm sure it will perform perfectly until right before we start selling tickets tomorrow.  |  IP: Logged Frank Cox Film God Posts: 2234 From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada Registered: Apr 2011 posted 09-06-2012 11:32 PM                         |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-07-2012 12:43 AM                        That is a surprisingly-accurate representation of my mood this evening!  |  IP: Logged Jeff Kane Film Handler Posts: 74 From: corpus christi, tx Registered: Jun 2011 posted 09-07-2012 08:35 AM                     Cables are often overlooked but are as often as not the source of problems. Between wear and tear, cheap manufacturing, etc, they can be marginal but work for years until they just... don't. It's also common for them to work well enough to transfer device-IDs and allow the PC to recognize the device, but not sustain the data transfer necessary to print. You can order cables from Monoprice.com for very very little, it's worth having a few on hand just to swap out.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-07-2012 10:58 AM                        I swappped the cables too, but the problem stayed in the same spot. The bottom line is, BOTH of these printers are working erratically. The boxoffice one had been the most reliable, until this most recent incident. When we put the new computer into the concession stand about 3 weeks ago, the printer refused to work in there at first. I spent about 2 hours on the phone with RTS trying various things, nothing worked, until they asked me to swap printers and then.....voila, they BOTH worked. We thought we were out of the woods, but now the problem keeps recurring in both printers, intermittently, with no apparent cause. The boxoffice setup seems to be a little more reliable, but either one will stop working, for no reason. Sometimes they'll quit during a shift; other times they'll be working when we close, and then the next night one will not be working. I truly don't know what I did to get it to work last night, but at this moment everything is working. I'm sure we'll be right in the middle of ticket sales tonight and one or the other will quit. Short of chucking the entire system and getting a whole new one, I don't know what to do.  |  IP: Logged Frank Cox Film God Posts: 2234 From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada Registered: Apr 2011 posted 09-07-2012 11:17 AM                        If you're having intermittent problems with both printers, I would replace the cables on both with new cables and see what happens. When installing the cables, don't leave them in a bundle tie-wrapped behind the machine or wadded up into a ball -- unroll them completely and try to insure that you have no right-angle bends in them.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-07-2012 12:18 PM                        The one printer is connected via a brand new cable which is a USB-to-parallel adapter. The other has a similar (older) adapter, connected to a standard parallel printer cable (not directly to the printer). The same problem has surfaced in both printers periodically and I've moved the cables/adapters back and forth. And, I have a spare printer cable that I've switched in a time or two, it doesn't cure the problem. It all started when we got the new concession computer. At the same time, we downloaded and installed the newest version of RTS. I've asked RTS if there could be a connection there, but they say no. I know SOMETHING has to be causing this but I am at a loss for a cause. This is a problem with technology -- sometimes it just....doesn't....work. That's what I like about steam engines. If it's not working you can usually see, hear or feel the problem.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-07-2012 02:37 PM                        So....I just went over to give things a test, and after leaving it all in "working order" last night, today the concession printer does not work. The office printer, which was the one not working at the beginning of this thread, is still working. That's after zero activity, nobody being in the building, no power outage, no reboots or restarts, NOTHING HAPPENED ALL NIGHT AND ALL MORNING and still this thing has stopped. W. T. F.????  |  IP: Logged Rick Raskin Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1100 From: Manassas Virginia Registered: Jan 2003 posted 09-07-2012 02:49 PM                     Is it possible to use USB - USB cable in your setup? I have seen problems with USB - Parallel printers before that I could never make any sense of.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-07-2012 03:47 PM                        Well these printers don't have a USB port on them. Even the "new" version of the printer on the RTS site doesn't have a USB. I'm going to order in a couple of these accessory ports, made by Samsung that plug into the back of the printers and basically replace the parallel port with a USB port. Then just use a regular USB cable to connect them to the computers. After that, it's the sledgehammer pictured above.  |  IP: Logged Rick Raskin Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1100 From: Manassas Virginia Registered: Jan 2003 posted 09-08-2012 07:16 AM                     Changing to a serial - parallel converter is probably a good move. Let the interface do the physical layer protocol conversion. The computer will see USB and the printer will see parallel.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-17-2012 12:25 AM                        Well the converters (above link) are installed, and the problem is still there. Both printers worked great on Friday. On Saturday, the concession machine worked for about 10 minutes and then quit. On Sunday, neither one will work. I've had two computer experts on this problem and they are both stumped, plus I've spent at least 5 or 6 hours on the phone with RTS with no problem uncovered by them, either. And, lost a 100-hour-old bulb on Friday night. First show it worked fine, second show it would not light. Replacement bulb worked fine. That's the first defective bulb I've ever had. To say I've had a frustrating weekend is quite the understatement!  |  IP: Logged

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