Troubleshooting print jobs with Mobility Print

Even though cmd-P or ctrl-P is so easy, sometimes there are snags. Here are some tips for troubleshooting what can go wrong when someone can’t Mobility Print.

Try printing a test page from the server

Let’s set Mobility Print to the side for a moment and verify that you can send a job to the printer. Log on to the server running Mobility Print and send a test page to the printer in question. If this is a Windows print server, open Devices & Printers, right-click on the printer, and select Print test page.

If the problem persists when printing from the server, then that points to an issue with the printer, driver, or print queue on the operating system and is unlikely to be related to Mobility Print.

Does the driver prompt for a pin?

Some print drivers can be configured to show an authentication prompt for a user or department PIN. When you try printing a test page from your Mobility Print any authentication prompt from a driver will stop Mobility Print from being able to print the job.

Consider turning off this setting (usually found on the Windows print queue, Printer Properties, Device Settings tab) and use PaperCut NG or MF instead for pin printing.

Another solution is to set up an identical print queue with this setting disabled, expressly to publish through Mobility Print.

MacOS Client Problems

Is the printing problem only affecting macOS clients?

Hold for Authentication error - In some cases macOS users see a ‘Hold for Authentication’ message in the job status window after clicking ‘print. This error can appear if:

the user enters the wrong credentials when printing from macOS to Mobility Print. Ask them to click the refresh button and enter the correct credentials.
Authentication per job is enabled and the user has tried to save their printing credentials in the KeyChain.

For more details, have a look at our article: Hold for Authentication .

Another printing problem - This is unlikely to happen, but if the job is only affecting macOS clients then we will ask you to Enable CUPS debug on the affected Mac and share those logs with us along with the Mobility Print server logs .

Windows Client Problems

Is the printing problem only affecting Windows clients?

‘Test Page failed to print’ error - We’ve heard of print jobs disappearing for Windows clients when Group Policy is configured to block IPP Printing. In that case, sending a test page from a Windows workstation will fail with an error “Test Page failed to print”. If that sounds like your situation, have a look at our article: “Test Page failed to print” error with Mobility Print and PaperCut Pocket/Hive .

Another printing problem - This is unlikely to happen, but if the job is only affecting Windows clients, then we will ask you share the Windows Printing Event Logs from an affected computer along with the Mobility Print server logs .

Check PaperCut NG/MF settings

Some settings in PaperCut NG and MF like Filters & Restrictions still apply when printing through Mobility Print, which can pause or cancel print jobs.

These are some expected scenarios where a job might not print…

The Print Provider service isn’t running on the Mobility Print server
The user account is restricted and out of balance
A setting is turned on that requires the user to be running the client
- Account selection
- Print Scripting
- Unauthenticated Printing
The job is being denied because of settings in Filters & Restrictions

Check the Logs → Application Logs section in the PaperCut NG/MF Admin Interface to see if a job is being denied for a reason.

Is the Print Provider running?

Check if the Print Provider service on the Mobility Print server running

It should be. An eager sysadmin might restart the Print Spooler service while troubleshooting, and forget to resume the Print Provider service afterwards. Open services.msc and make sure that both the Windows Print Spooler and PaperCut Print Provider services are running.

Is account selection enabled?

If account selection is turned on for a user, that will send a pop-up to the PaperCut User Client on the user’s workstation. Disable account selection to see if the job will print using the user’s personal account. This test will determine if there is a problem with account selection.

In PaperCut NG/MF, go to Users > Username > Details.
Change Account Selection to Automatically charge to personal account, or have the user log into the Mobile web client to select any shared account.

Here are some options if the print job is being held up because of the account selection requirement:

Set up an identical print queue to publish with Mobility Print where Override user-level settings is enabled, and Do not show account popups and allocate jobs to: ‘user’s personal account is checked.
Follow the steps on Print Scripting with Mobility Print to set up a Print Script with Mobility Print that can automatically charge to the user’s personal account.
Have a look at our article Configure cost allocation with Mobility Print to see our recommendations on how to implement this feature.

Are print scripts in use?

Is Print Scripting enabled on this printer, and is PaperCut NG/MF waiting for the user to respond to a pop-up in the PaperCut User Client?

In the PaperCut NG/MF Admin web interface, navigate to Printers > Printer List.
Select a printer; then click the Scripting tab.
Check if the Enable print script checkbox is checked.

Here are some options if the print job is being held up because of Print Scripting:

Clear the Enable print script checkbox.
Edit the script so that it times out without a response.
Set up an identical print queue to publish with Mobility Print with print scripting disabled.
Have the user log into the Mobile Web Client to acknowledge the popup message.
Or follow the steps in Print Scripting with Mobility Print to ignore Mobility Print jobs in your script.

Are filters or restrictions in use?

Is the printer in PaperCut NG/MF configured to deny any jobs based on Filters & Restrictions?

If the PaperCut NG/MF server has canceled a Mobility Print job, the user will not see a notification but an event will appear in the Job Log.

Go to PaperCut NG/MF Admin console, Printers > Printer List.
Select a printer; then click the Filters & Restrictions tab.
- Are certain groups denied from printing?
- Are any types of jobs being denied?

These restrictions will still apply to jobs sent via Mobility Print. Disable or adjust the restrictions as necessary.

Unauthenticated printing

Is the user or printer configured in PaperCut NG or MF for Unauthenticated Printing? This is a setting that causes PaperCut to send a prompt to the PaperCut user client asking users to input credentials.

This is unnecessary with Mobility Print because users already authenticate when they connect to printers.

If the printer is configured in PaperCut NG or MF for unauthenticated printing, then here are some options:

If users will only be printing through Mobility Print, consider turning off unauthenticated printing
Have the user run the PaperCut User Client and enter their credentials when prompted.
Set up separate print queues for Mobility Print. In PaperCut NG or MF on the Printers tab, select the printer, then enable Override user-level settings, and check Do not show account popups and allocate jobs to: ‘user’s personal account’.

More on disappearing print jobs

There are other reasons why print jobs might fail to print from a Mobility Print server in a PaperCut NG/MF environment.

Jobs are tracked as the wrong user

Customers with shared Windows workstations have reached out to let us know that jobs are being tracked as the user who installed the print queue, rather than the user who printed the job.

This is expected behavior. The Windows Mobility Print client should not be used on shared workstations. From our article on Print Authentication Mode :

“Per job authentication is not supported on Windows devices. Windows devices will request authentication only once upon installation and this authentication will be applied to all user profiles on the PC.

For this situation, we recommend implementing PaperCut Print Deploy which can handle authenticating multiple users on shared workstations.

Jobs are tracked as the user ‘SYSTEM’

Another situation we’ve seen where the job owner is incorrect happens when printing to a queue with a Canon print driver. In that case, the job owner is recorded as ‘SYSTEM’. To resolve, see our article When printing to Canon drivers, the print job owner name is SYSTEM .