Troubleshooting AS/400 Printing

• If the printer is attached to a PC, make sure that the PC can print to the printer – For example, go to the notepad and print something.  If this prints, then you will know that the PC print driver is correct and that the printer is communicating with the PC.  If it does not print, then verify the following items:

1 – Is the correct windows print driver loaded in the Printers folder

2 – Is the Printer turned on and is it ready

3 – Is the cable secure between printer and PC

4 – Try rebooting the PC and printing again

• Make sure that the AS/400 printer session is started.  The box for the printer session should show Ready on Online highlighted.   If the ONLINE light is not on, try the following:

1. Bring up the printer session (if you don’t get the menus, right click on the AS/400 printer on the task bar and choose Maximize)
2. Select Communication, Disconnect.  This will disconnect the printer from the AS/400 – you will have just a black screen
3. Select Communication, Connect.  You should now have the printer box again.  Check to see if Ready and Online are turned on.  If so, continue with the next bullet.
4. Try closing the printer session and reopening it – If still not ready and online, make sure that you can still print from the PC (i.e. from notepad).
5. Turn the PC off and wait about 6 minutes before restarting and opening the printer session again.
6. If you still do not have the ready and online highlighted, there may be a configuration problem with the printer session.

• Note the AS/400 printer name – you can find this by bringing up the AS/400 printer session.   At the top of the printer box that shows ready and online you will see the AS/400 system name followed by the printer name.  Make sure that the printer name is what you expect it to be.  If it is not the correct name, then do the following:

1.  Bring up the printer session (if you don’t get the menus, right click on the AS/400 printer on the task bar and choose Maximize)
2. Select Communication, Configure.   Change the printer name in the Workstation Name area to be the correct printer ID. Click on OK.  You will get a message that the session will be terminated if you continue – Select OK.
3. Within a few minutes you should get the printer box with the ready and online highlighted.  The printer name should now be correct.

• Try printing a generic device description off of the AS/400.  This will tell us whether or not we can print from the AS/400 at all:

1. Signon to the AS/400 Session with QSECOFR.  
2. Get to an AS/400 command line and do:

CHGJOB   OUTQ(printername)   enter

WRKDEVD  P*    enter

Put a 6 beside the first entry in the list and press enter.               

1. If it does not print, do the following:

WRKOUTQ  printername     (enter)

Look to see if your printout is sitting in the queue.  What is the status???  If the status is MSGW, then you have a message waiting to be answered.   If you have a message, put an option 7 next to the item and press enter.  If you have a message asking you to load form *STD, answer the message with a G on the reply line and press enter.  Press enter again to return to the work with output queue screen.  

If it still does not print, press F5 on the work with output queue screen to see what the status is.  If the status is still MSGW, put a 7 next to the item again and press enter.  This time you may have a message asking to Verify Alignment.  Answer this message with an I on the reply line and press enter.  Press enter again to return to the Work with output queue screen.   If the item disappears from the AS/400 output queue, then it has been sent to the PC.

                                                                If you never saw the item go to the output queue, then do the following:

                                                                                WRKSPLF  and press enter.

This command will show you all of the printouts that you have waiting on the AS/400, regardless of what output queue they are sitting in.  Ignore the ones that say QPJOBLOG.   Look to see what output queue they are in.

• Once the printouts leave the AS/400 output queue, they are sent to the AS/400 printer session on the PC which then passes them to the Windows print manager.  If at this point your printouts have gone to the PC but have not printed,  check to see if you have the little printer icon in the bottom right corner of your Windows screen.  Click on this icon to see if your printouts are queued at the PC – If they are queued here and have not printed, then you have a problem between the PC and the printer – start from the first item again at the top of these instructions.

• If your printout of the device description is successful,  then you know that the AS/400 printer is defined correctly and printing correctly.  Now we need to check to see if the user’s  printouts are printing.  If they have problems with this, then either their  user profile is incorrect, or the application on the AS400 (i.e. QS) is not defined correctly.

Have the user try to print whatever they need to print from the AS/400.  Have them sign on to the AS/400 with their userid and print something

If it did not print, check the AS/400 printer messages as described above by using the WRKOUTQ printername and checking for messages.  If their printout did not go to the AS/400 printer queue, then the AS/400 may be directing the printouts to the wrong place.  

The AS/400 determines which output to send printouts to based on the following hierarchy:

1. Does the application specify where to print to??  For example – Is this a Sunpac printout and does Sunpac control where this report prints? This will override any of the other settings below.
2. If the application does not specify where to print to, then the next place it will look is in the user profile of the person signed on – To look at this, sign on with the QSECOFR user profile and do:

WRKUSRPRF   *ALL and press enter

Find the user in the list and use option 2 to change

Press F10 to see all parameters

Page down to the second or third screen and you will see options for Print Device and Output Queue.  I usually put the printer name in both places.  Put *LIBL on the library prompt below the output queue.

Press enter and it will save the changes.

1. If the user profile says *SYSVAL in the printer device and  the output queue, then it will print to the main system printer by default.   If the user profile says to *WRKSTN, then  it will look at the device description of the display that the person is signed onto to find out where to print.  This method is what Cabarrus Health users, so that as users sign onto different places, their printouts will print at whatever the closest printer is.  So for example, if you are signed on at workstation PCSE17S1, and your user profile specifies *WRKSTN, then your printouts will go to whatever  device is specified in PCSE17S1.  To look at how this is set for a device, do:

WRKDEVD  device name i.e.:

                WRKDEVD  PCSE17S1   (enter)

Use option 2 to change

Press F10 to see all of the parameters

Look to see what is specified in the Printer device and output queue for this device.