Lexmark x342n Printer - Printing Garbage intermittantly

[asdinnie]

Hi All

Issue: I am getting garbage printing out, rather than my expected printing, about 50% of the time,


I am running Precise with a Lexmark 342n (multifunction laser) connected via USB.
Its using the "Lexmark X342n Foomatic/pxlmono (recommended)" printer driver, under CUPS?

About every second print job, I am just getting garbage printing out (dribbles of garbage on the top of the pages, with multiple page ejects).
e.g. the first print will go fine, the second one will be garbage so I have to cancel the print job from the printer console.
I then cancel the job & reprint: it might be ok, it might not.
When I power-down & power-up the printer I think it usually fixes the problem.
The problem happens with multiple applications so its not the application at fault.


Its got me frustrated as I need to watch my print jobs and so cannot leave the printer.
Plus it wastes paper...

Any ideas folks?

Many thanks

Andy

[oshunluvr]

Sounds like a bad driver or ppd file.

You might try generating a new ppd file and installing it:

http://www.openprinting.org/driver/pxlmono

[asdinnie]

Thanks oshunluvr.

I've generated it & installed the ppd file, plus deleted the old printers.
Will give it a bash asn see how it goes.

Cheers

Andy

[asdinnie]

Hi oshunluvr.

Worked ok yesterday for the only print I did.
Today ...
1. first print has same old problem: printing garbage again.
2. Switched off printer .. printed ok
3. next print... printed fine.

So its somewhat intermittant... and frustrating!

Any other ideas?

Cheers, thanks

Andy

[oshunluvr]

Sounds like something is sending some unwanted data to your printer cache. You might start searching through your log files and see if anything is trying to print something. These intermittent problems are the hardest to figure out. The best thing you can do is spend some time searching the internet for others with similar problems or figure out how to reset the printer using software instead of switching it on and off all the time.