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ZX Spectrum Next Wi-Fi Printer Driver

An installable driver that enables printing directly to your network printer from your ZX Spectrum Next. · By taylorza

Can't get driver to work. Please could you help?

A topic by supineday@hotmail.com created Jul 20, 2024 Views: 81 Replies: 4
Viewing posts 1 to 4
(1 edit)

Please could you help?

I have followed the intsructions cafefully on repeated occasions without success.

The best result I have had is my printer screen stating "printing" on its LED screen, but the paper does'nt move and nothing is printed. 

Please could you answer the following questions.

Do you have to .install wifiprn.drv from any specific directory on your SD Card? 

Does wifiprn.drv have to be in a specific directory to work?

Do you have to install wifiprn.drv every time you do a soft reset? 

Do you have to re-install wifiprn.drv after a hard reset set or power off / on.  If not, how do you uninstall it?

Does your video mode frequency have an impact? I'm using VGA mode 4  at 50 Mhz

My wi-fi is definitely working as I can use ZXDB online to download programs.

My printer is an HP Envy 5546 (wi-fi printer) running on my home EE fibre broaband wi-fi network and works with all my other devices.

My router is a BT Smart Hub 2.

The fact that I get through to my printer sometimes suggests to me that I am at least connecting to it.

I assume the driver only works in standard Next mode.

Are there any settings in the Next config menu that could conflict or need to be changed?

I am using the current official Next distro Firmware v1.43, Core v3.01.10

I have a KS1 Spectrum Next.

Thank you

Paul

Developer (1 edit)

Hi Paul,

You do need to install the driver after any reset, you can use the ".uninstall" to uninstall the driver.  ".INSTALL" and ".UNINSTALL" are standard NextOS utilities to install/uninstall drivers, but the drivers are not permanently installed like they would be on other operating systems.

There are no special requirements for the installation of the driver as long as it installs successfully.
As for the video mode, as long as your Next is joined to the wifi and you are communicating successfully with the wifi module there should not be anything special that needs to be done.

Having said that, there have been some printers that just did not seem to work, I track the reports on the wiki (Home · taylorza/zxn-wifiprn Wiki (github.com)).

Did you try using the WindowsPrinterServer, I wrote that to support printers that are not connected to the wifi, but it will work for wifi printers as well. Testing with that might give us more information. I would be very eager to get to the route of this issue because other than one Canon printer I have not had any reports of the driver not working. 

Other things you can check, make sure your printer has port 9100 enabled. This is the port used by the driver to connect to the printer, most home printers do not block this port, but some higher end printers might have raw printing disabled.

Best Regards,

Chris

Thank you, Chris. I will act on your suggestions as soon as I get the opportunity to sit down with my Next. I have a busy schedule, so probably won't be able to give you an update until late next weekend.

(3 edits)

Hi Chris, not had time to try Windows Printer Server yet, but can confirm on trying wfiprn.drv, the LED screen on my HP Envy 5547 displays "printing" so it appears to be connecting by nothing happens. I wrote a simple BASIC loop that simply keeps repeating the LPRINT "HELLO" command to see what happens and the Printer LED just constantly displays "printing" until I stop the program. I'm not a technical person, but it seems to me that the driver is connecting to the Printer, but for some reason the actual printing does not happen. The printer's status report says "Port 9100 enabled" It also says "WiFi Direct Off" .  I have an SD card with a recent beta Next distro which I tried, just to see. On this  the printer displays the printing message continuously with just a single LPRINT statement. I also tried your server software without a printer cable attached and got the message "HP Smart" ..."connecting" but it did not connect. I also changed my default printer to the actual printer name HP Envy ... and got the same result.




Developer (1 edit)

NOTE: There are at least two PCL 3GUI printers that are reported to work, so the issue might be a little more nuanced. HP OfficeJet Pro 7720 and HP Officejet Pro 8600 N911a are PCL 3GUI printers that have been reported as working.

For others that come along here, it looks like the issue is with printers that use PCL 3GUI. From HP's site

"PCL3GUI remains proprietary. HP uses it in the HP DeskJet series printers and DesignJet larger format printers (plotters)."

HP Developers Portal | HP Printer Command Languages (PCL)