Crystal report throwing “Invalid printer” error but only for some users and only for one report

1
votes

We have an application which allows users to print batches of documents that are generated using crystal reports. The batches vary in what reports are printed, but batches always proceed by repeating the following steps: generate a report, send it to the printer, update the screen to notify the user, and reset the variables.

Batches that contain one specific report throw an "Invalid printer" error when assigning the printer name to that report, but only for certain users and only when they are using a specific printer. Using exactly the same desktop and exactly the same printer many users can print this report fine 100% of the time, while other users fail %100 of the time.

On the surface this seems like a simple matter of tracing a problem with rights but once you dig deeper it gets confusing. . .

Users without this issue can print all documents on all printers with no issue. Users with this issue can print all documents except one on all printers except one. They can print all other documents on the printer that is failing and they can also print the failing report on any other printer.

What the heck is going on here? It seems like the answer is some combination of report settings and printer access, but it just doesn't make any logical sense.

1
vb.netprintingcrystal-reports
Lol, I've never heard Crystal Reports and logical used in the same sentence. It's most likely a printer driver issue. CR seems to hang onto which ever default print driver was used when developing the report. Maybe try to update that, or try setting the 'No Printer (optimize for screen display)' option in the print preferences. – dotjoe
Great ideas, I'll let you know how it works out. – Dudely
dotjoe is most likely spot on. Crystal tethers itself to the printers (a mentality that has been with it since it's inception). How to deal with it depends on the version of Crystal you use but in Crystal 2011 go into page setup and choose "No Printer (optimize for screen display). If I am not actually printing the document or it's a spreadsheet output I also choose "Dissociate Formatting Page Size and Printer Paper Size" so Crystal doesn't try to constrain page width (which doesn't make sense for a spreadsheet). – b.pell

1 Answers

0
votes

I am going to answer my own question. . .

Turns out if you have the visual studio IDE installed on your machine it can interfere with some printer drivers when printing non-standard character sets. The answer in our case was to simply not attempt to print that document from a development machine.