Tag: hp

Fixing HP Mopier, Collation, and Storage problems (WIN 7)

After upgrading to the latest HP “Universal” drivers, our HP LaserJet CP4525 printers started reporting that they were “Unable to store job at printer”, that they ran out of memory, and were “Unable to collate job at printer”.  The error messages suggested the disk wasn’t present, was full, that I needed to delete files, add RAM, or even a very expensive EIO hard disk. Didn’t get much obvious help from the HP Universal Print Driver Systems Administrator’s Guide either.

I tried adding RAM to the full capacity.  That didn’t help.  Here’s how I ended up fixing the problem, thanks to piecing together dozens of support forum posts for different printer models and a little experimentation.

  1. Go to Start / Devices and Printers (yours may say Printers and Faxes).
  2. Right click the Printer Icon of the printer giving you problems and click Printer Properties (not plain old properties that’s at the bottom).
  3. While on the General table, click the Change Properties button near the bottom left (otherwise you’ll get a read-only mode of grey items).
  4. Change over to the Device Settings tab.
  5. Ensure that the Mopier Mode is set to Disabled.
  6. Ensure that the Job Storage is also set to Disabled.
  7. Click Apply, ideally to see there were no errors in doing this.
  8. Click OK to close the dialog.

Printing in Parallels

Using Parallels virtualization, I got this pretty scary error message: pstopdffilter/pstocupsraster failed with err number -31000. I’m almost ashamed to tell you what the solution is to get past it.

Parallels is a virtualization package for the Macintosh that primarily is used for running Microsoft Windows in a virtualized environment on OS X.

At some point you’re going to run into the problem of wanting to print something from the guest OS. Do not try to install a Windows XP print driver for the device that’s connected directly to your Apple. That’s not how it works.

You have a virtual machine. Surprise, you have a virtual printer too.

To set it up is trivial:

  1. Stop your Windows VM if it’s running.
  2. Open VM Configuration Editor (Parallels Desktop menu – Edit – Virtual Machine)
  3. Add Parallel Port Printer to the VM Configuration: click “Add” – select “Parallel Port”, hit “Next” – select “Use a printer” – select the printer you have available in the Mac OS.
  4. Make sure that you are able to print using that printer from the Mac OS side.
  5. Start Windows and try printing some document using “HP Color LaserJet 8500 PS” (it’s generic driver that’s being used for printing from the Virtual Machine to any Mac OS compatible printer).

This creates a HP Color LaserJet 8500 PS printer, which then gets redirected to the host operating system’s default printer. Printing then works normally, queuing and all.

Now, I did run into this problem using Microsoft Office on Windows XP with a HP DeskJet 6980 connected wirelessly through an Apple AirPort Extreme in bridge mode:

pstopdffilter/pstocupsraster failed with err number -31000

Here’s how I solved it.
I deleted the print queue on the host operating system, then I turned the power off and back on again on the printer, and tried again.

Seriously. I power cycled the printer. That’s all that was required. Second time through, it worked like a champ.

Big scary error message, itty-bitty solution.

NOTE: You will want to scan through your document if you’re using exotic fonts. In my case apostrophes were coming out as í.