Since around the beginning of this year I have had random and intermittent problems with RPC errors causing prints to fail. I have exhausted everything Google has come up with and this is driving me crazy, as well as constantly wasting expensive media.
I print from a RIP (ColorGATE Productionserver) to a remote Canon iPF8300 printer via a short (40m) wireless bridge. The host PC is an i7-980x running the latest Windows 10 64-bit, upgraded from the original Windows 7 Pro installation, and with plenty of RAM, disk and scratch space.
The issue is that printing randomly fails with RPC errors. Sometimes the first print in a run fails but will then print successfully on the second, third or fourth attempt with no intervening changes to the system, simply by resending the file. On other occasions the first few prints may be successful, followed by a print failure. The failed job will then often print correctly when re-sent one or more times.
At times the system will print correctly for days or even weeks at a time; others, the issue is almost constant.
Sometimes when the print fails there is no visible response from the printer; others, the crop marks at the start of the image are printed but none of the image itself, so at least some data is reaching the printer. The progress bar in the RIP may halt at perhaps 10% or 15% or may go nearly to completion before failure. When this happens the printer feeds 150mm of media and cuts this off. In these latter instances the printer log reports Job Cancelled.
It makes no apparent difference whether the printer is on standby or is active when the job is sent, nor whether previous jobs have printed successfully.
The reported errors in the RIP log are:
The RPC server is unavailable (this is usually, but not always, the first error reported), and
The remote procedure call failed
I have checked and double-checked that all the required RPC and associated services are running when the problem occurs, reset the TCP/IP stack, and uninstalled and reinstalled the software, all to no avail.
The RIP has the option to print either directly to the TCP/IP port or to let Windows handle the print path to the same port. The RPC errors and failed prints only occur when printing via the TCP/IP port on this one PC; printing via the Windows driver has so far been invariably successful. There are no problems printing from other software on this machine to the office laser printer, also on a TCP/IP port. Unfortunately, printing via the Windows driver is not an acceptable long-term solution as this lacks the media size and cost reporting from the printer that the TCP/IP port allows.
Furthermore, the identical RIP setup on an older backup machine, running the same version of Windows 10 and also via the same TCP/IP port, invariably works correctly.
ColorGATE have been unable to come up with any further suggestions. I have a vague suspicion (but not more than that) that the issue may have surfaced with the upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10, but have no way of confirming that, especially as it is so random and intermittent. The only other thing I haven't yet tried is a full, clean installation of Windows 10 but, as this is my main production machine, that is not a trivial undertaking.
Any suggestions or pointers to further lines of enquiry, please?
Many thanks in advance.
Malcolm
