Tickets print continuously

Just delete queue orders from printer setting from your website. Hope it helps.

@pjknight
Continutoutly reprinting the last print job would indicate that the plugin can not remove the job from the print queue when the printer reports that it has completed.

Printer information, and print jobs are stored in a folder names “wp-content/star-cloudprnt/” under your main WordPress folder. Please make sure that your web server has full read/write/delete permission to this folder and all sub-folders. Re-printing indicates that it probably does not have delete permission.

Unfortunately, that did not work for us… I did clear the print queue from within the wordpress admin area & we adjusted the permissions..any new order placed still prints indefinitely…
any other suggestions we might look to address this?
thanks,
`pj

@pjknight could you please let me know which printer model you have, and what firmware version? You can tell the firmware version from a self-test print (generate this by switching the printer on with the FEED switch held). If you have an mC-Print model, then the important firmware version is on the first line. If you have a printer with HIX interface (eg. TSP650II) then the important firmware version is at the top of the second part of the self-test.

The general communication process requires that the printer sends a message to your server when printing is completed. The server then deletes the print file to remove it from the print job queue. This is why file permissions can be a factor, if the file is not deleted then the print job can not be removed. However, there is also some possibility that the print completion messages are, for some reason being blocked form reaching the server.

In case of very unreliable networks, we can see occasional double prints when this message gets lost occasionally, but for it to be continuous, there must be a deeper issue. It’s hard to diagnose so I’ll have to make educated guesses.

The print job completion message is sent using an http GET request, which is the same method used to retrieve the print job. However, the request will always look the same, and your server response will always look the same (the printer effectively says “please clear the last job”, and your server will respond with “Success”) so it is possible that a traffic filtering system believes that there is no action and simply takes care of replying to this request without passing it to the server.

This kind of traffic filtering is most likely to happen on the server side, either as rules installed on the server directly, or via a service like cloudflare. If that’s the case, then you will need to talk to your hosting company.

The best that I can do immediately is to check that you have firmware that is up to date enough to support the plugin. If the firmware is ok (it probably is) then I can help you verify that the issue is server side by testing your printer with one of Stars CloudPRNT services.

Model: MCP31LB
mC-Print3 Ver3.1 -b3.1

@pjknight
Thanks, that is completely up to date and supports everything that the plugin needs, and anyway my only compatibility concern really was older firmware revisions of a different product.

Our work day is almost over here in the UK, but if you can use this form to pass on your direct contact details, then I can give you access to one of our servers to test and ensure that you do not have any outgoing connection problems. Unfortunately, I’m guessing that the issue will be on your web host side, but let’s test that first.

I’ve contacted hosting support…
“Could you ask the developers for the IP and User Agent that is doing that GET request? Also, what page on the website is that GET request being sent to?”

@pjknight

Thanks, I’ve contacted you by email directly about testing with one of our servers.

I will check the user agent of the mC-Print. I’m sorry but I will not have that information until tomorrow, it may be empty with current firmware, recently we have decided to update it, specifically because it can be useful for traffic filters.

The site and source IP address both depend on your site and local network.

For the webpage address, please supply them with the CloudPRNT URL that our plugin asked you to install into the printer. For their information, there will be basically three types of connection to this URL:

• regular POST requests sent to that URL inform the server of your printers status and check for the availability of print jobs.
• occasional GET requests to receive a print job,
• and either a DELETE or GET request with “delete” included in the query parameters to complete the print job. Using a GET request for this is already a work-around since many sites block DELETE requests by default.

The IP address that the request comes from will probably be the public internet IP of your local router. This may change from time to time (depending on your internet package and how it has been configured by your ISP) so it is not reliable to use for filtering rules.

Tested thru your server late yesterday and prints single tickets as expected..thanks!

HI
I have the same Isssue. my ordering tickets ( Prints ) are Stuck in PRINTER QUEUE and prints continously the same Order for muiltiple times

Model: MCP31CB
Version: 3.3

@vjramesh
Your printer model and firmware are fine. Unfortunately this issue can really only be caused by server side/hosting issues as discussed above, therefore we can only offer limited help.

The first point is to check your file/folder permissions on your hosting site. It is essential that the user account your web server runs under has permission to delete files from the wp-content folder when needed. If it can delete files, then it will not be able to remove a print job from the spooling folder when the printer informs your server that it has finished printing a job. In reality, this is less likely to be the issue, because you would likely experience issues with other plugins, such as being prevented from uninstalling them.

More common, seems to be that your hosting provider has a traffic filter with very heavy caching enabled. This helps them to provide a service that feels much faster when customers browse your site, but it is not compatible with CloudPRNT printer connections. Our plugin does add necessary headers to request no-caching of printer communication, but we have seen several cases of traffic filters ignoring this.
Therefore, please contact your hosting provider, and ask them if they are able to disable all caching to the CloudPRNT URL (the one that you have to install into the printer) for your site.

Unfortunately the huge array of hosting solutions, plugins and customisation options for WordPress and WooCommerce, mean that we just can’t guarantee perfect operation for every site. However, if those two points above don’t help, and you are in the UK/EU/ME region, then I can offer a completely different method of integration based on email which should avoid this issue completely.

I see that you have also contacted us directly with the web form, so if you need to test the alternative integration option, please let me know on here and I will contact you directly.

Thanks a lot for your email. Yeah please contact me for the email integeration option. I would like to try that.

@vjramesh — If it’s helpful, for us the issue was definitely caching…We called the hosting company to get a cache exclusion…Caching was set for the correct folder but in our case the exclusion needed to be set for that specific URL…Good Luck!

Thanks again for the reply. Now, what is the action? I do not understand. What should I have to do now?