Pcounter New Installation
Troubleshooting guide
1. Check Pcounter and Spooler Services
Pcounter for Windows uses two services:


Printer Control Service
Data Server Service
Confirm that both of these
services are running through
Pcontrol. To do this, select the
name of your server, hit the
Pcounter button on the toolbar
and select Services and Ports
from the left menu.
If the services are running they
will be listed in green. If they are
not running they will be in red.
Use the associated Start buttons
to start if stopped.
If both services are running, try
restarting them. Once the services
are stopped, the Stop buttons will
become Start buttons.
If the services are stopped and will not restart, or stop soon after restarting confirm that the
spooler service is running by opening services.msc through Start > Run.
If the spooler will not start or stops again soon after starting the most likely explanation is a
corrupted spool file in the spool folder. To determine if this is the case:



Browse to your spool folder. Default location C:\Windows\System32\spool\PRINTERS
Either delete or cut all spool files out of the folder
Attempt to restart the service
If the spooler still crashes with no spool files then the most likely explanation is an issue with a
specific print driver. To troubleshoot this issue it is recommended using Print Driver
Isolation (Windows Server 2008 R2) to identify the driver in question. More information on
http://msdn.microsoft.com/enprint
driver
isolation
can
be
found
at
us/library/windows/hardware/ff560836(v=vs.85).aspx
2. Network problems
If there are no problems with either of the Pcounter services or the spooler service, however
printing is still disabled the individual printers need to be investigated.
Confirm that there are no network issues by pinging a number of the printers from the server.
Also confirm that there are no IP conflicts on the network by starting a rolling ping (ping -t)
then disconnecting or powering down the device. If the IP still pings then there must be an IP
address conflict which must be investigated.
See http://www.livinginternet.com/i/ia_tools_ping.htm#use if you are unfamiliar with the ping
command.
3. Restore the previous printer port
To establish if Pcounter is causing a problem, revert the port of the printer to a standard
TCP/IP port and test. To do this:



In Pcontrol open the
Server Configuration
of the local server. To do
this, select the name of
the server in the device
list and hit the Pcounter
button
Select Printers in the
left menu
Select the printer in
question from the list
and
select
Restore
previous port from the
Port
management
menu
This printer is now no longer
being monitored by Pcounter
therefore if the problem still
occurs it is outside of
Pcounter’s influence.
If the error “Previous port is unknown” appears when attempting to restore the previous
port then there is no record of the port this queue was previously using, or the port has been
deleted.
In this case we suggest creating a brand new queue to the same device using a standard
TCP/IP port. Again if the same problem occurs with this brand new queue Pcounter cannot be
causing the problem.
4. Legitimate Pcounter Deletion
If the problem only occurs when the printer is on a Pcounter port it is possible that Pcounter is
working correctly however is doing something unexpected.
To determine if Pcounter is legitimately stopping printing, first ensure that Log rejected jobs
is enabled in the Pcontrol Server Configuration.
Enable this option if not already enabled, then perform a test print. If the job has been deleted
legitimately then the reason will now be recorded in C:\PCOUNTER\DATA\Reject.log. To open
this log, open Pcounter Administrator and select Open log file in the Utility menu.
If the job is recorded in here, the reason will be recorded in the Client code column:
The reason recorded will lead you to the next step. Common reasons you will find and the
resolutions are:

Insufficient funds
 The user attempting to print the job does not have enough credit. Either
increase the users’ Pcounter balance or change the Accounting settings on the
printer from User account balances and log file to Log file only.
 See http://www.ait.co.uk/files/pcounteramendingaccountbalanceshowtoguide.pdf for instructions on settings a user’s balance.
 See http://www.ait.co.uk/files/pcounterquotamanagement-howtoguide.pdf for
instructions on changing the accounting settings on a printer.

Invalid Paper Size [paper size]
 The user has selected a paper size which has not been allowed on this printer.
Allow the specific paper size through the printer configuration in Pcontrol.
 A common cause of this problem is that A4 paper is detected as being Letter
paper. If this is the case the server’s regional settings will be set to English (US)
rather than English (UK). Either change the server regional settings (reboot
required) or simply allow Letter paper.
 See http://www.ait.co.uk/files/pcounterquotamanagement-howtoguide.pdf for
instructions on how to allow/disallow certain paper sizes.

Above/Below Pagecount/Copy limit
 If any of these messages appear a rule has been set on the printer to delete the
job if the number of pages/copies if above or below a certain limit.
 To check this rule open the printer configuration in Pcontrol (select the printer
and hit the Pcounter button) and select the rules tab.
 Examine any rules which are ticked and remove them if necessary using the
Remove rule button.
 See http://www.ait.co.uk/files/pcounterrules-howtoguide.pdf for more
information on Rules in Pcounter.