Check If A Network Printer Is Available

[Vincent Bourbeau]

Hi,

Before printing I want to know if the printer is online, if not I'll print elswhere. But I don't know how to to that... The thing that come to mind it's a dos ping query, but I don't find any way to capture a ping information.

Thank you for your help.

 

[Rob Fitzpatrick]

While I can't offer a different solution, I wouldn't use ping. Ping is extremely useful for some scenarios, like proving in a simple way that you still have end-to-end connectivity to some network endpoint that you could previously ping, showing packet loss and round-trip time, etc.

But:

• a network host, like a printer, can be connected to the network and responsive at the network layer (responding to ping) but still be unavailable to the application (out of paper/toner, tray open, offline, etc.);
• ping uses ICMP whereas IP printing uses TCP; an intervening firewall or other network device may route one and block the other.

So ping success doesn't mean that the printer is online and ping failure doesn't mean that it isn't.

 

[Vincent Bourbeau]

While I can't offer a different solution, I wouldn't use ping. Ping is extremely useful for some scenarios, like proving in a simple way that you still have end-to-end connectivity to some network endpoint that you could previously ping, showing packet loss and round-trip time, etc.

But:

• a network host, like a printer, can be connected to the network and responsive at the network layer (responding to ping) but still be unavailable to the application (out of paper/toner, tray open, offline, etc.);
• ping uses ICMP whereas IP printing uses TCP; an intervening firewall or other network device may route one and block the other.

So ping success doesn't mean that the printer is online and ping failure doesn't mean that it isn't.

Do you have any suggestion for me?

 

[TheMadDBA]

This KB should give you a starting point....

Progress KB - 4GL: How to get the information of all currently connected network printers?

There are other windows api calls to check more information about printers but this should show you the general path to take.

 

[Vincent Bourbeau]

This KB should give you a starting point....

Progress KB - 4GL: How to get the information of all currently connected network printers?

There are other windows api calls to check more information about printers but this should show you the general path to take.

Ok I'll try it
Thank you