How to capture a Print Spool File (.SPL file).

Question:

How do you capture a printers spool file (.SPL file)?

Answer:

Here's how to capture a Windows spool file using the Pharos Administrator in Uniprint 8.3 and greater.

There may be instances when Pharos Support asks you to send the spool files of problematic jobs for analysis and troubleshooting. Uniprint enables you to easily save the spool file of specific print jobs directly from Pharos Administrator using the Save Spool File action.

You must have sufficient permission to capture spool files.By default, only the Administrator and Sub-Administrator roles are allowed to do this.

To save the spool file of a print job:

1. Go to the Job Management context.

2. Open the Queued Jobs or Printed Jobs context as appropriate.

3. Select the job or jobs whose spool files you want to capture. Hold down the SHIFT or CTRL keys to select multiple print jobs (for consecutive jobs or non-consecutive jobs respectively).

4. In the Actions Pane, click the Save Spool File button. This opens a dialog box showing the Job IDs of the selected print job(s) and the Print Server that each job was sent from.

The spool file for the selected print jobs will be stored in the Pharos\Temp (e.g. C:\Program Files\Pharos\Temp) folder of the Uniprint Print Server owning the job.

A report file called SpoolFileInfo-<date><time>.txt is saved on the machine in which the Pharos Administrator is installed. The report shows a list of the jobs selected, including the Print Server where they belong, which will help you easily map the spool file with its Print Server. This is important for multiple server environments. Click the link to the report file (shown at the bottom of the dialog box) to view the report file.

NOTE: In a cluster environment, the spool files will be saved on the "active" node. In this case, you will need to identify which of the nodes is active when locating the spool files for selected print jobs. In addition, if a fail-over occurs, the spool files shown will be that of the current active node.

Versions Prior to Uniprint 8.3

In versions of Uniprint prior to 8.3 you will need to capture the .SPL file from the Windows Operating System. When capturing it from a server it may be easier to do this when the system is not so busy.
 
 1. Pause all print queues so that documents are not released to the physical printers.
 2. Go to Windows Print Manager ( Start > Settings > Printers and Faxes ), select File > Server Properties > Advanced tab and open the folder specified by the Spool folder property.
 3. Make sure this folder is empty. If it is not, delete any existing files. You may need to stop the Print Spooler service to do this. Restart the service once you have deleted any files.
 4. Once the folder is empty, print a document that replicates the problem you are having. This will create two files, with the extensions .shd and .spl.
 5. Copy and zip these files. These are the spool files that you need to send to Pharos Support.
 6. Delete these files from the spool directory and unpause any print queues with the comment "Pharos Controlled Device". Do NOT unpause the Pharos Spool Queues.
 7. Normal printing can resume.

Here's how to capture a spool file from the Macintosh Operating System

1. Temporarily stop the printer, or turn off the printer so that jobs hold in the queue. Print a test job that demonstrates the problem behavior.

2. Open the Terminal under Applications/Utilities

3. Type the following in the terminal:

   sudo su -
   
   [enter your password]
   
   cp `ls -t /var/spool/cups/d* | head -2` /Users/<username>
   
   exit
   
   where <username> is your short login name. (i.e. this denotes the location of your home directory). Special Note: the character preceding the ls and following the 2 is a back-tick (`).

4. You should how find at least one file in your home directory with a name like:

   d00077-001

5. email the file(s) to support and also include the "expected" information related to the job including:

   • the number of pages

   • the paper size

   • other attributes such as grayscale, copies, etc.