HP Says it's not their fault!

[John Chamberlain]

HELP! HAS ANYONE ELSE HAD THIS PROBLEM?

I just recently converted to Macintosh OS X (10.2.8, running on a G4 Dual). I upgraded to FMP 5.5 so that it would work with the new OS. At the same time I replaced my old LaserJet with a new HP OfficeJet 6110.

Yesterday I had to print 120 records from one of my files. I knew my ink cartridge was close to the end, so I printed the first 60 pages first. When I tried to print pages 61 - 120, the printer started to spit out blank pages. I tried this with several different files, and they all worked the same.

Next I changed the startup to OS 9.2.2 (native), and the results were the same (even in FMP 5, which had always worked perfectly with my old printer. Running in OS 9 Classic prduced some really strange results (e.g. printing pages 2-6 actually produced pages 3-6).

I had an extensive conversation with HP Tech Support that provided no help. Together we tried other applications (Word, Text Edit, etc.) and they all printed normally. HP's conclusion was that this was an application problem, and they could not provide any solution.

My final solution was to reselect only those records that had not printed and then print them. But that is not a satisfactory long term answer.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Version: v5.x

Platform: Mac OS X Jaguar

[Vaughan]

It may be a problem that was fixed in FMP 6. Try getting a copy of the FMP 6 Trial version and test it out.

At the very least make sure you are using the last patch version of FMP 5.5 - I think it was 5.5v3. Updates are on the web site.

[John Chamberlain]

Sorry to say that 5.5v2 is the only upgrade offered by the FMP website, and that is the one I have installed. I have to stay with this because the charity that I donate my programming time to has 5.5v2 on their computers and, unless some good samaritan comes along with at least four copies of a later version, they have no budget for upgrades.

I am going to convert to OS 10.3 tomorrow, maybe that will solve it.

Version: v5.x

Platform: Mac OS X Panther

[John Chamberlain]

Now it gets more bizarre! I installed OS 9.3.3 and tried to print a page range (I had 17 letters; printed the first 8, then printed from 8 to 17). Pages 8 to 17 printed just fine, then the printer spit out 8 blank pages - just the reverse of what it did before. Oh well!

Version: v5.x

Platform: Mac OS X Panther

[Hurican]

I think that I have seen this before. I believe that it is an option in the part setup.

Empty layout parts should be removed first.

Then go to part setup and check this option. "Allow part to break across page boundaries".

Also check the box that then becomes available.

"Discard remainder of part before new page".

I think that this will take care of the blank pages deal. Sometimes if there is extra space not being accounted for, the printer (due to a tough time with translation between the application and the printer drivers) will interpret this as a blank page, and typically spit out one blank per record. By looking at the numbers in your post, it seem that this would be the issue.

Hope that helps.

[Vaughan]

No no no, this will no solve the problem.

Use Sliding/Printing to get rid of blank pages.