Another Odd Epson 11880 issue. Or...whose?

[John V.]

CS5, Epson 11880

This appears to be a consistent issue and not just a fluke.

I leave the 11880 on 24/7.

When I go to print, after the machine has been resting for a while (not too sure exactly the time-frame. At least 24 hours it seems),
I get what "appears" to be a print that uses the incorrect, unspecified, rendering intent.

It has become a habit of mine to start a print... then cancel early on... then reprint. And then they come out fine.

What could be to blame here?   

[nairb]

I was having a similar issue with my 9880 when I first got it late this summer. After sitting for a time, often as little as half a day, I'd get a print coming out that was a little too light and skewed toward magenta. I ran a bunch of test prints then eventually tried one on my 4880 and got the same thing on the first print. It reminded me that I would occasionally see that on my 4880, but never to the extent I was then having with the new to me 9880 that had just been reprogrammed after having the main board replaced.

In the end, I decided that it was likely some strange issue with Windows 7 and the Epson drivers (I'm also printing from CS5). I haven't been printing as much through the fall as I had when I first noticed it in September, but I haven't seen the issue for some time now. We'll see, perhaps it'll crop up again as my printing picks up prior to christmas.

[jferrari]

So, the first thing you print is NOT a nozzle check? I think I would try that first just to be safe.

[John V.]

Yep, I print a nozzle check. Doesn't change anything.

Yep, I was always learning toward a funny win7/driver issue also. At first, I thought Epsons "print preview" was the culprit somehow, as the print would come out looking that awful (extremely saturated, etc), so I disabled it, but the problem sill remains.

[nairb]

I always print the nozzle check before printing for the day as well. It's just necessary with Epson printers.

I forgot to mention in my earlier post that the behaviour was the same for me in that I'd get a funky print on first try (after a nozzle check of course) after it's been sitting 12 or more hours (but in several cases less than 6), then the very next print would come out normal.

[Farmer]

Can you post some screen shots of your FULL printing workflow, showing all relevant application and driver settings?

[John V.]

Image not prepared for print, obviously, but all settings are the same.

Win7 Pro
Latest Epson Drivers
CS5

[Farmer]

OK - no issues with your print workflow.

Nozzle checks are fine, right?

Have you updated your printer to the latest firmware (you can do it through the Remote Panel software)?

What happens if you turn the printer off for 24h and then on and test?

[Scott Martin]

I think it's important to anyways cancel print jobs from the spooler on your computer. Canceling the job on the printer itself can lead to problems like what you're describing.

[John V.]

I'm canceling the print job through the Epson software (the dialogue that shows ink levels), never on the machine itself, and also make sure the spooler is empty.

Nozzle checks are good.

I'll try letting the machine rest a while and/or updating firmware.

[nairb]

Just thought I'd update this as I'm now in a busy printing season again.

I had this issue the last couple days with my 9880, but mostly my 4880. The 9880 had a ridiculous clog that took a day to actually clear (finally did so using the auto nozzle check), but it did the light funky print the first time using it Saturday after being off friday night. The very next print was normal apart from the nasty clogg. But it's been my 4880 that's been terrible with this today. First print after being left on after a couple hours of sitting idle was light and with funky colours, but the next was as it should have been. Throughout the day, I've been using it to do test print strips of a new image and each time after making 10 minutes worth of adjustments, the first print is too light with skewed colours, then the next is normal.

here's a photo of the resulting prints. As this happens with both printers, and the OP and I are both using Windows 7, I'm feeling pretty confident that this is a OS/driver problem.

[John V.]

OP here. Yeah, so here's something kind of weird.

nairb: CS5 right? This may be the problem. MAY.. be.

Using my colormunki the other day I noticed something.

Printing the colormunki targets produced consistent results. (no more funky first print) Which straight uses the epson drivers.

See attached photo. Minor variation in colors due to crappy, neglectful photography. They are, in reality, the same colors. First print vs 2nd print.

Obviously no where near the same variation when printing from within CS5.

Could this be an Adobe problem and not an epson/windows problem?

[Farmer]

Which version of CS5 are you using (i.e. patches etc)?

[John V.]

CS5 Extended 12.1  x64

Straight from adobe

[Farmer]

If you don't have a resolution by about the 13th of January (when I get back to the office), post up and remind me and I'll try to test this!

[nairb]

After posting this latest update, I went back and read what Scott Martin suggested and realized that this may have been part of my problem. In and effort to save time, I was stopping a print when I saw it was funky colours by first holding the pause button to reset the machine, then clicking stop in the printing dialogue, then finally deleting the print job from the print queue.

This was a bad habit I got into in order to speed up the process of stopping the print, so I was now going to try avoiding holding the pause button to stop the machine and just click the stop tab then delete the print from the queue to see if that prevents the problem.