Troubleshooting Guide

Table of contents

Printing troubleshooting checklist

  1. 5250 host printing troubleshooting checklist
  2. 3270 host printing troubleshooting checklist
  3. Cannot print some characters on Simplified Chinese Windows with Java 2 runtime environment
  4. Serial printing not supported
  5. Print Screen does not work within the Alternate Terminal interface using Internet Explorer
  6. Spaces between Hindi characters when printing the screen
  7. Print Screen on Windows 2000 in a session using monospaced fonts
  8. Multi-language limitations on Select Printer function
  9. Select Printer feature available on Windows clients only
  10. Printing problems under Netscape 4.x and Windows
  11. 3270 printing problems under Windows platforms or with USB printers
  12. Print screen not available on some Unix platforms
  13. Host On-Demand does not print some characters in the Cumberland Hebrew font
  14. Consistency between Page Setup and Print Setup windows
  15. Positions of DBCS characters appear lower than SBCS characters when printing a screen with IBM JRE 1.3.1 or 1.4.0 on Simplified Chinese Windows
  16. Review these references.
  17. DBCS characters print as square symbols when using Windows or Red Hat 8.0 (opens new file)

  1. 5250 host printing troubleshooting checklist
    Note: Host On-Demand uses Host Print Transforms.
    1. If you are receiving printouts that are blank or have garbage characters:
      1. Make sure that the model and manufacturer of the printer match the printer defined in the Host On-Demand printer session and the iSeries system. To check the model and manufacturer on the AS/400, do the following steps:
        1. Enter the following command from the command line using a 5250 display session with the printer session started
          Wrkcfgsts *dev qpa 

          or

          Wrkcfgsts session_name 
        2. Choose OPT 8 = Work with device.
        3. Select the QPA or session that you are working with.
        4. Choose Opt 5 = Display and press enter.
        5. Page down and on the nineth line you will see the manufacturer and model of the printer.
      2. If the manufacturer type and model of the printer defined on the AS/400 and the Host On-Demand session match, check with the manufacturer to determine which drivers work with the list that Host On-Demand provis.
    2. Check the session properties for the destination address and/or port address are correct for the telnet server, or a Host On-Demand Redirector computer.
    3. Check the Printer properties tab on the session for the manufacturer and model properties to see that they are set to match with a printer manufacturer and model that the AS 400 operating system on the iSeries recognizes. For example, a locally attached HP LaserJet 4050 PCL printer works correctly with an "HP LaserJet III" type printer defined within the Host On-Demand 5250 printer session connecting to the iSeries/AS/400.
    4. You may want to try upgrading to the latest Java 1 JVM or Java 2 JRE.
  2. 3270 host print troubleshooting checklist
    1. If you are using LUs in the configuration of Host On-Demand, check to see you have TN3270E.
    2. If you have set the default printing as "native windows printing", try setting this to usee "Other" and explicitly select the printer.
    3. If you are using a printer definition table (PDT), make sure that you are using the correct PDT for the brand of printer that you are trying to print to.
    4. Try printing to a file rather then directly to the printer. Then, open the file in a application that you can print from to see if the printout is different from the original printout.
    5. If you are trying to print via the Alternate Terminal Interface:
      1. If you are using the Alternate Terminal interface, try printing without Alternate Terminal enabled to isolate the problem.
      2. Have customer try Parameter "OldPrintScreen value=true".
      3. Apply the latest Java 1 update, or upgrade to a Java 2 JRE.
      4. Apply the latest Host On-Demand fixpack. Reference Service updates.
    6. If you have a networked attached printer, check to see if you can connect the printer or a printer locally to your Personal Computer and print. See if there is a difference with the printout from the original printout.
    7. You may want to try upgrading to the latest Java 1 JVM or Java 2 JRE .
    8. Try printing from another browser.
  3. Cannot print some characters (including the Euro and SAA characters) using the Print Screen command

    On Simplified Chinese Windows (GB18030 locale), if you cannot print some characters (including the Euro and the SAA characters) using the Print Screen command, try upgrading to the latest Java 2 JRE.

  4. Serial printing not supported

    Host On-Demand does not support printing to serial printers attached to COMx ports.

  5. Print Screen does not work within the Alternate Terminal interface using Internet Explorer

    If the Host On-Demand Print Screen feature does not work within the Alternate Terminal interface using Internet Explorer. You may want to try upgrading to the latest Java 1 JVM or Java 2 JRE .

  6. Spaces between Hindi characters when printing the screen

    When using the print screen facility to print a screen which has composed Hindi characters, you may notice that there are spaces between the composed Hindi characters.

  7. Print Screen on Windows 2000 in a session using monospaced fonts

    If your monospaced Host On-Demand session font, such as MS Gothic or MS Mincho, is mapped to one of PAGES' fonts, you must set your Windows 2000 printer driver to Don't Substitute fonts in order to Print Screen. MS Gothic and MS Mincho fonts are mapped to PAGES' Gothic and PAGES' Mincho fonts by default, which results in incorrect print screen output.

  8. Multi-language limitations on Select Printer function

    When editing the hodmodel.properties and hodpdt.properties files you must enter PDT and model names exactly as they appear in the PDT or model field of the Printer tab. The PDT and model fields are translated, so the hodpdt.properties and hodmodel.properties files must be in the same language as the Host On-Demand clients that are trying to use the Select Printer function. There can only be one set of printer selection properties files on a Host On-Demand server, so all the clients using the Select Printer function must be in the same language as the properties files.

  9. Select Printer feature available on Windows clients only

    The Select Printer feature is available only on Windows clients. You will not see a Select Printer button on the Printer tab when running Host On-Demand on clients other than Windows.

  10. Printing problems under Netscape 4.x and Windows

    If you configure a Host Print session or use the Windows printer function on the Netscape 4.x browser running on a Windows platform, you must turn the Just-In-Time (JIT) compiler on.

    Do not use Netscape 4.x if your environment requires both host printing and database access. The first function requires that the Just-In-Time (JIT) compiler be enabled, while the second function requires that the JIT compiler be disabled.

  11. 3270 printing problems with USB printers

    Try using "Running external commands after host print jobs".

  12. Print screen not available on some Unix platforms

    The Print Screen function of Host On-Demand uses a programming interface provided by Java. It works on most platforms, but it does not work on some Unix-based operating systems, such as Linux. The implementation of the programming interface uses the Unix lp command, which is not available on some Unix-based operating systems.

    Following is the workaround for this problem:

    1. Log into the system as a superuser.
    2. Open a terminal session to input commands from prompt.
    3. Change directory to the directory where lpr command is stored. Typically, it is /usr/bin. If this is so, type
       cd /usr/bin
    4. Create a symbolic link with the ln command. Type
       ln -s lpr lp
    5. Log out.
    6. Log in to the system as a user and start a Host On-Demand display session.
    7. Click File > Print Screen.
    8. Delete the string specified for Banner Page Title. By default, it is specified like Print Screen.
    9. Click OK.

  13. Host On-Demand does not print some characters in the Cumberland Hebrew font

    Host On-Demand does not print the following characters in the Cumberland Hebrew font:

    To print these characters, use the Hebrew Shalom font for Adobe PDF print.

  14. Consistency between Page Setup and Print Setup windows
  15. When a Host On-Demand terminal session runs with a Java 2 JVM, you can configure some Print Screen properties on the Page Setup and Print Setup windows under File > Print Screen Setup.

    On Windows, the Page Setup and Print Setup windows are interrelated. Print Setup can be invoked from Page Setup by clicking Printer and you can configure Page Setup properties from the Print Setup window by clicking Properties.

    The current Host On-Demand Java 2 implementation on Windows is not designed to process that interrelationship. As a result, you can observe some inconsistencies. For example, even if the print orientation is set to Landscape on the Page Setup window, it might not be reflected on the Properties window launched from the Print Setup window. To avoid these inconsistencies, you should not open the Print Setup window from the Page Setup window or open the Page Setup window from the Print Setup window.

  16. Positions of DBCS characters appear lower than SBCS characters when printing a screen with IBM JRE 1.3.1 or 1.4.0 on Simplified Chinese Windows
  17. If you run Host On-Demand on Simplified Chinese Windows with IBM JRE 1.3.1 or 1.4.0 and print a screen with default monospaced font, the vertical positions of Double Byte Character Set (DBCS) characters appear lower then Single Byte Character Set (SBCS) characters.

    To fix this problem, upgrade to the latest JRE.

  18. Review these references.
    1. Check to see if the client is not connecting.
    2. Search the IBM Websphere Host On-Demand Web site for Technotes.
    3. How to obtain a transport trace to help debug problems when printing with Host On-Demand.

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