Retro-Printer only writes RAW file

[Taylorknox79]

Hello,

i just received the v4 retro-printer module an configured it to print on a network printer and write a pdf file. But i only get a RAW file, which looks great by the way but nothing else happens. No file in the pcl folder and in the retroprinter or retroprinter-error file. Also no print on the network printer which i have configured in cups and printed a test page succesfully.

What i´m missing? My first guess was that the retro printer does not get the end command, but then i read that the end depends on time. And i writes a raw file, so therfor data is comming. Hope you can help me.

Thanks in advance
Michael

[RWAP]

Welcome to the forums.

You are correct in that we use a timeout setting (/root/config/timeout) to detect the end of a print job.

The location of the raw file can give some clues to the issue - if it is in any of the folders within /home/pi/data/ then the end of print job has been detected.

If it is sat in /home/pi/data/pcl my guess is that you have the emulation set to HP, but it is not valid HP output - so you may need some help to identify the correct emulation mode. It probably needs /root/config/emulation to be set to Epson.

If you have the emulation set to Epson already, then it is probably not valid Epson printer output so we need to check what emulation it should be!

Can you upload (or email) the raw file and I will have a look at it.

[Taylorknox79]

Hi,

the raw file is stored in the RAW folder. I emulated HP cause the network printer is HP. I tried before TXT and Epson as well, but there we also no files generated.

Hope the RAW file will help you.

[RWAP]

Hmm - the raw file appears to be completely plain text which actually should work fine with either Epson or HP emulation - I would set the emulation to EPSON anyway.

The emulation setting has nothing to do with the printer you are eventually sending output to - it is what original printer would have worked with the equipment had it been plugged into the centronics / parallel port - so the retro-printer can understand the incoming data.

CUPS then handles printing of the generated PDF to the printer you have now connected over the network.

Can you please check that:
/root/config/output_printer is set to YES

Without that, the PDFs are only generated if:
/root/config/output_PDF is set to YES

If you are still not getting any joy, please email the contents of the /home/pi/data/ folder to our support @ retrroprinter.com address

[RWAP]

We have noticed that one potential issue is if you have enabled /root/config/merge_pages

We need to find a better way of moving the PDFs once they are generated!

[Taylorknox79]

Sadly nothing changed..i mailed you my data folder. Hope you can find a solution.

Again thanks

[RWAP]

I have had the opportunity to investigate this remotely and whilst we have resolved the issue (by changing the emulation to HP), something odd is going on.

Michael is running the Retro-Printer module on a Raspberry Pi 3B and it appears that the majority of printer emulators are reporting "ILLEGAL INSTRUCTION".

We have just tried using the same software on a Raspberry Pi 3B equipped Retro-Printer here and do not get that error.

I therefore wonder if it is an interaction with the CUPS printer which has been installed. We will investigate further, but has anyone else experienced similar?