A Tale of Ghost Prints

Hello everyone, this is quite a different post. We are having what I like to call, “Ghost Prints” or “Phantom Printing”. A user prints out a Bill of Material report last week, then today at 4:10am, that report is printed again. We are also getting Payroll Reports, Laser Reports, Job Travelers, you name it. We cannot find the source of the “Phantom”. He seems to creep around from user to user, report to report.

We are currently on 10.2.500.16, ICE 3.2.500.16, Task Agent is 3.2.500.0.

The prints go away from time to time, but always seem to come back. It isn’t always on the same day, so weekly updates and reboots don’t seem to be the issue.

To date, we have rebuilt the admin console, moved everyone from one server to the other, and turned off scheduled tasks.

Any help with this would be GREATLY appreciated. We are wasting so many printer materials.

You don’t happen to have a second system on a separate server and you added a new task agent to?

Perhaps, you have multiple records in your ice.ExtServiceRegistration table, but you only have one task agent installed and prints are being triggered from the other system.

Another thought, if you do have other environments (Pilot, Test, Development) have company names been changed to ensure you can tell where print jobs are coming from, if that’s the case.

Perhaps someone is just messing with you and scheduling reports to be run, check to see if there are any reports that have been scheduled that maybe the might be the cause. Or simply a mistake, they have realized the issue and performed an immediate print, but did not delete the job from system monitor in the scheduled tasks.

You might want to open system monitor and take a look at the Actions->Display all tasks. To check that.

Take a look at your ice.SysAgentxxx tables to see what’s going on to dive deeper.

Sorry for the dump, just thinking what comes to mind.

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I will reply line by line here.

We do have a second app server, but all the task agents are on one server.

In the ICE. ExtServiceRegistration table, I only have one line of records.

We do have multiple environments, but people rarely use them and they are using Live.

I have thought that someone may be messing with me before, but I doubt that is the case. I thought maybe it was the former person in my position. HAHA! The scheduled tasks are all normal from what I can tell.

I have also looked at the system monitor and to me it just looks like the user printed it again, but I know they didn’t, because it was at 9pm or 4am or whatever. Our offices are closed during those times.

The ICE.SysAgentxxx tables are pretty foreign to me, but it all looks normal from what I can tell.

I have a call with our Managed ERP vendor to see if we can finally get this figured out. They have been aware of the situation for a while and they are still not able to figure it out either.

I will reply here when I get something. Thanks for the suggestions!

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A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, we were having some issues with an Epicor report that UserA would run popping up on UserB’s computer (if they were logged into Epicor). I learned that it was best to set the Company Maintenance - Print Options - Work Station Method to “Machine Name + Domain User”. This kept the reports that UserA would run from popping up on another user’s Epicor session. It’s been so long ago I don’t remember if the report would show up twice in the System Monitor or under UserB’s System monitor list?

But I wonder if it’s possible that something similar is happening for you? Except the report is being sent to the printer instead of to the monitor. I don’t think the reports would pop up right away either…sometimes it would happen right after a user would log into Epicor.

I’ve also had to clean up the System Monitor table before because it was causing some strange issues for us. Epicor guided me on how to do this but I still have my script :wink: .

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I absolutely LOVED seeing this! Thank you for the laugh on a Friday. I have attached a screen shot of what I have just to see if I need to change anything.
Screenshot 2023-02-24 at 9.39.44 AM

Uuuh, which part are you laughing at?? :smile: Just making sure… :thinking: LOL

I wouldn’t think you would want Work Station Method blank… I wonder if you set it to the appropriate setting (for us it is Machine Name + Domain User) if that might make all your problems DIssssaaaaapppppeeeeaaaaarrrr… :rainbow: :butterfly:

LOL Just kidding…it’s probably something else but that might help… :person_shrugging:

I was definitely laughing at the Star Wars intro. Really made me chuckle here! :rofl: It is hard to tell what the “appropriate” setting would be for Work Station Method. I can try different settings just to see what happens. I will keep you updated! Thank you for all your help so far.

Whew! :sweat_smile:

Great! Keeping my fingers crossed that helps! :crossed_fingers: Gotta Bust them Ghosts every now and then! Just don’t cross the streams! :wink: :ghost:

image

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HAHA! Thank you for the movie references today. Quick question though, what is the difference between Client Printing Only, and Client and Server Printing?

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This post might be good to read to best answer that question. I wonder too if that setting might be a problem depending on how you have other items, mentioned in the article below (like Printer Maintenance), setup…

Oh boy. I better go get some coffee for this read! Thank you very much and I will keep you updated on what the solution is/was, if we ever find it. :mag:

archer supervisor GIF

Total Protonic Reversal

side note: I was looking for an image to go with it, this was too good not to share:

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@hmwillett LMBO! :rofl:

@klincecum

HA!!!
image

I went ahead and added the appropriate tag to the thread.

Dumpster fire sounds about right. Welcome to IT.
Screenshot 2023-02-24 at 11.08.05 AM

Oh good… You don’t want anyone to miss this one :fire:

image

You’re gonna be busy, there’s a LOT more posts that need that tag.

music video 80s GIF by Apple Music

Seems like I’m not the only one that likes a good story :slight_smile:

Story?
Isn’t that a documentary??

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