I have 6 networked computers running Windows XP Pro, 2 of which have a Shinko CHC-S2145 attached and shared. The driver in use is v1.4 and, although I can't find reference to it on the website, was supplied with the printer.
Most of the time 5 of the computers will send print jobs to the printer on the 6th, which is dedicated to printing. The 2nd printer is used as an overflow. The print jobs are approximately 13MB in size, according to the printer management dialog box. At times there can be 5-10 jobs entering the queue per minute but they are all single photos.
A few times a day the printer will just go offline. It's hard to tell if:
- a job was corrupt, or
- there was a problem with the driver
By the time I am involved there are 20-30 jobs in the queue but this could just be the result of the processing coming to a sudden halt. The situation is usually rectified by clearing the queue and restarting the print spooler - usually be restarting the computer.
EDIT: After experiencing this a few more times and testing various recovery options it seems that the printer will return to an 'online' state when an offending job or two or three is removed from the top of the queue. I haven't been able to find out if the jobs are related when there are multiple bad jobs but I suspect they are.
What can I do to identify the cause of the printer going offline? Can I blame the driver for not being able to properly deal with a job?
