Pharos Blueprint 3.5 Service Pack 1 Hot Fix 5

Pre-install

Installation

This Hot Fix applies to all Blueprint components. It should be run on all Blueprint servers (Collector and Analyst) and any PCs running a standalone Blueprint Administrator, and also distributed to all Tracker workstation and print servers.

Applying Hot Fix to Server Components

To apply and distribute this Hot Fix to Server components in a non-clustered environment:

1. On each Analyst, Collector and Administrator machine:
   • Extract the supplied Blueprint-3.5SP1HF5.zip into a temporary folder.
   • If the server is a Terminal Server run change user /install from a command prompt.
   • Run the contained PharosSystems.Blueprint.Hotfix.exe.
   • If the server is a Terminal Server run change user /execute from a command prompt.
2. Use Blueprint Administrator to create an install or upgrade package containing the new Print Tracker components.
3. Distribute the Tracker package using your usual software distribution mechanism.

Applying Hot Fix to Server Components in a Cluster

Blueprint Enterprise 3.5 Release 2 introduced active/passive cluster support for the Analyst and the Collector. The following section outlines the steps to be carried out when applying this Hot Fix to a clustered 3.5 R2.

To apply and distribute this Hot Fix to a clustered 3.5 Release 2:

1. Extract the supplied Blueprint-3.5SP1HF5.zip into a temporary folder.

2. Using the Cluster Administrator, take the “Blueprint TaskMaster” and “Blueprint ComTaskMaster” resources offline.

3. Run the PharosSystems.Blueprint.Hotfix.exe on the first node (active). When the Server Configuration Tool (SCT) appears, click the Apply button, and then click the Close button.

4. Open the Services Manager on the active node. For both the “Pharos Systems TaskMaster” and “Pharos Systems ComTaskMaster”, set the startup type to “Manual” and configure the services to use the correct domain user account.

5. Fail over the node. Keep the “Blueprint TaskMaster” and “Blueprint ComTaskMaster” resources offline.

6. Run the PharosSystems.Blueprint.Hotfix.exe on the second, now active, node. When the SCT appears, click the Apply button, and then click the Close button.

7. Open the Services Manager on the active node. For both the “Pharos Systems TaskMaster” and “Pharos Systems ComTaskMaster”, set the startup type to “Manual” and configure the services to use the correct domain user account.

8. Using the Cluster Administrator, bring both of the Blueprint resources online.

9. Click the Test button on the Server Configuration Tool.

10. Use Blueprint Administrator to create an install or upgrade package containing the new Print Tracker components.

11. Distribute the Tracker package using your usual software distribution mechanism.

After applying this Hot Fix, the version number of affected components will be 3.6.4690.

Note: After applying this Hot Fix, to uninstall Pharos Blueprint Enterprise it is necessary to first run a special uninstall preparation tool. The required tool, included in this Hot Fix package, is named PharosSystems.Blueprint.Hotfix.UninstallPrepTool.exe.

 Issues Addressed in this Hot Fix

Issues addressed in this Hot Fix:

• If a Collector is unable to contact the Analyst to upload a Collector data file, it will periodically generate additional redundant Collector data files until the Analyst becomes contactable again. After applying this Hot Fix, the Collector will generate a new data file only at the scheduled daily export time.
• Zero size secure print jobs can make it into the secure job store on an Analyst or Collector. After applying this Hot Fix, zero size jobs will be stopped at the secure queue and flagged as being in error.
• The Tracker invokes rundll32.exe once per minute to scan for changes in the host printing system, which in the presence of some versions of McAfee 'Host Intrusion Prevention' can result in system shutdown hangs. After applying this Hot Fix, the Tracker will invoke a Pharos executable (which McAfee doesn't target) to perform the scan once per hour.
• The Server Profiler, one of the Server Tracker components, might hang or crash on a print server that is using the Ricoh Universal Print Driver.
• International characters cannot be entered into the fields on the terminal configuration tab in the Administrator.
• Clearing the replicated data on a Collector fails to clear identifier data.
• Secure queues on a Collector or Analyst may spontaneously stop being secure, i.e. revert to their original port configuration and become paused.
• Tracker installation on Windows Vista succeeds but raises 'Program Compatibility Assistant' dialogs stating that 'this program might not have installed correctly'.

Issues addressed in this and previous Hot Fixes:

• Secure print jobs with a blank name could not be released. Certain applications print jobs with no job name. The application of this Hot Fix ensures that such jobs can be released, as such jobs are assigned '(blank)' for their job name.
• Large Secure Release Here print jobs could fail to print if they took longer than 30 seconds to send to the printer. The application of this Hot Fix changes the configuration so that secure release jobs no longer time out.
• Secure Release Here print jobs being processed slowly, taking multiple minutes to be page counted, and appear for users to release. Multiple issues caused secure jobs to be processed slowly, including the page counting of large jobs, and also not coping well with the Windows Spooler being restarted. The application of this Hot Fix ensures that secure jobs are processed in a more timely manner. Improvements include more rapid detection of secure jobs, recovering quickly from a spooler restart, and a shorter page counting timeout to not allow large jobs to hold up other user's jobs.
• Secure Release Here print jobs could fail to be released and printed when the printer being released to had its IP address change. This would occur when there was a Blueprint Collector between the device and the Blueprint Analyst. The application of this Hot Fix ensures that the change of device IP address is recorded correctly and made available to the Blueprint Collector when a user chooses to release their print job.
• The Period End close process which prepares data for reporting could fail due to taking too long and timing out. This typically occurred for customers with large volumes of data in the Blueprint database. The application of this Hot Fix ensures that the Period End close process completes quicker and does not cause a timeout failure.
• The Budget Center, Building and Floor Employee Volume reports would not show copy volume assigned to the Unknown Employee when this volume is apportioned during the Period End close process. The application of this Hot Fix ensures that the volume for the Unknown Employee is included in these reports.
• The Blueprint EDI web service could lose its connection to the rest of the Blueprint server during long running sessions. This would cause an error to be displayed to a user the first time they logged into an Omega Terminal or iMFP device after a long delay, such as in the morning following no activity on the device over night. The system would then recover and the user would be able to log on during their next attempt. The application of this Hot Fix ensures that long running sessions are kept alive and do not timeout due to inactivity.
• The upgrade from Blueprint 3.5 to 3.5 SP1 could fail to process and upgrade all the LogicalPrinter records in the database. This could potentially result in a loss of information and the subsequent creation of duplicate devices. The application of this Hot Fix ensures that the missed LogicalPrinter records are upgraded correctly.
• The Normalizer component which is responsible for the automatic creation and mapping of print queues to devices could incorrectly:
  • Attempt to create duplicate IP address connections, resulting in a failure to map a LogicalPrinter to a device, and thus lost transaction volume.
  • Process workstation LogicalPrinters before Print Server LogicalPrinters, thus resulting in duplicate devices being created.
  • Choose an IP address for the server name part of a server share connection, thus resulting in duplicate devices being created.

  The application of this Hot Fix ensures that the Normalizer component correctly handles these cases. Existing connections and LogicalPrinters are corrected, but duplicate devices are not detected and removed.

• The Blueprint Administrator would display an exception dialog when a user attempted to run a second instance. The application of this Hot Fix prevents multiple instances of the Blueprint Administrator from being run under the same account. Multiple instances can run if users are running it from different remote sessions.
• The Normalizer could not recognize the Quickbooks PDF converter as a file based printer. This would result in a new local device being created for such printers. The application of this Hot Fix ensures that Quickbooks PDF converter printers get treated as file based printers rather than local devices.
• The Blueprint EDI web service lacked support for the SSL addressing format ('Pedi_ssl.wsdl') used by HP & Canon iMFPs. A manual step was needed to update the web.config file to add this support. The application of this Hot Fix adds support for this address format.
• The 'Internet Guest Account' and the 'IIS Worker Process Group' did not have the necessary permissions on Blueprint directories to be able to function when access to the 'Everyone' account was removed, say by Group Policy. This could result in permission errors when using the EDI or running the Server Configuration utility tests. The Application of this Hot Fix ensures the necessary permissions are granted.
• Secure print jobs could take a long time to be processed by the Secure Release Here system. This Hot Fix addresses this problem in several key ways:
  • Rather than all secure jobs being processed by a single PharosPort port, PharosPort ports are now pooled, meaning that jobs for different users across different queues can now be processed simultaneously.
  • Previously, secure jobs had to be page counted completely before they would appear in the list of available jobs at a Terminal or iMFP. This Hot Fix changes the processing so that jobs are available for release immediately and are updated with a page count when available.
  • The background page counting of secure jobs is performed by a pool of page counters simultaneously.
  • Print job spool files were previously stored in a compressed format on disk. For large spool files, the compression could take several minutes. After applying this Hot Fix, spool files are stored on disk without any compression, which is significantly faster.
• Secure print jobs could be printed in a different order to that requested by the Terminal. The application of this Hot Fix will ensure that secure jobs are queued for delivery in the order specified by the Terminal.
• This Hot Fix can now upgrade remote databases, avoiding the need to manually patch them. It also removes the 'psbprocs' database and incorporates it into the main 'psbprint' database.
• When a Blueprint server detected another server had a different version (due to a Hot Fix upgrade, for example), that server would be considered permanently offline until the calling Blueprint server was restarted. The application of this Hot Fix changes the offline behaviour so that the Blueprint server treats this case like 'normal' offline behaviour, i.e. it will prevent calls between the servers but periodically check until the remote server's version matches. This also applies to the Blueprint Administrator.
• Renaming a non-virtual secure queue results in the queue becoming unsecured. This is by design. However, marking the queue as secure again using the Blueprint Administrator does not actually re-secure the queue. The application of this Hot Fix ensures the renamed queue is successfully re-secured.
• The Print Release Troubleshooting screen in the Administrator could crash with a fatal error when searching for print jobs, causing the Administrator to shut down. The application of this Hot Fix prevents this problem from occurring.
• The Blueprint Server Configuration utility would fail to enable the automatic logging of errors to file on an install or upgrade. This was intended to aid product support when issues occurred in the field. The application of this Hot Fix ensures that error logging to file is enabled if full file logging was not previously enabled.
• Printer queues on a machine with the Print Server Tracker installed could lose their shares and other properties. If a printer was shared, or a new printer created and then shared, after the 'Pharos Systems ComTaskMaster' service was started, then these shares would be lost whenever the service was stopped or restarted (including the machine rebooting). The application of this Hot Fix ensures that printer shares and other properties are not reset when the 'Pharos Systems ComTaskMaster' service is stopped or restarted.
• Print jobs remain in the 'Printed' state for a long time with the Print Server Tracker installed. Secure jobs also take a long time to appear for release. The Print Server Tracker could lose notifications from the Windows Spooler when the Spooler was restarted. When this happened the Print Server Tracker would fall back on a 2 minute poll for checking for new print jobs to process. The application of this Hot Fix ensures that the Print Server Tracker responds as quickly as possible to new print jobs, regardless of whether the Windows Spooler is restarted.
• The Print Server Tracker could cause corrupt job information to be logged to Blueprint under certain failure conditions, such as reading driver information. This could also result in spool files being left behind, consuming disk space. The application of this Hot Fix ensures that the Print Server Tracker copes better under failure conditions, and cleans up spool files whenever it cannot process a print job.
• Stopping the 'Pharos Systems ComTaskMaster' service on a cluster Print Server Tracker install does not reset the 'Keep Printed Jobs' printer flag. This results is print jobs remaining in the 'Printed' state and consuming disk space. The application of this Hot Fix ensures that 'Keep Printed Jobs' is correctly disabled when the 'Pharos Systems ComTaskMaster' service is stopped on a clustered print server.
• The Workstation Tracker could cause the Windows Spooler service to crash when a user printed who did not have write permissions on the Blueprint spool directory (%APPDATA%\PharosSystems\Blueprint\Spool). The application of this Hot Fix ensures that the Windows Spooler service does not crash in this situation.
• The Workstation and Print Server Trackers could fail to track print jobs for users without write permissions on the Blueprint spool directory (%APPDATA%\PharosSystems\Blueprint\Spool). The application of this Hot Fix ensures that such jobs will be tracked. The 'Everyone' group is granted full control to the Blueprint spool directory.
• The Workstation and Print Server Trackers would fail to recognize N-Up and booklet printing and would thus over count the number of pages in a print job. The application of this Hot Fix introduces experimental support for N-Up and booklet detection. This support has been tested with the following drivers:
  • Lexmark Universal Driver (x86, x64)
  • HP Universal Driver (x86, x64)

  This feature is enabled by default. To disable N-Up and booklet detection a database setting can be set at each Collector. Contact Pharos Support for instructions. Also, the following Registry value can be set on each Tracker machine to override the default behavior:

  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\PharosSystems\OutputManagement\PrintTracker\PrintProfiler\OverrideQueryJobAttributes = {0 or 1}

   

• The 64-bit Workstation Tracker would fail to read the fault tolerance settings from the Registry. This would cause it not to check certain conditions such as low disk space and disable itself to prevent further disk space usage. The application of this Hot Fix ensures that the Registry is read correctly and fault checking occurs.
• The 'Pharos Systems ComTaskMaster' service would crash on startup with an exception in the PCInfo.dll component. This was caused by not handling the reading of the BIOS serial number properly for certain OS and motherboard combinations. The application of this Hot Fix ensures that the BIOS serial number is read correctly, and when it can't be it doesn't cause the service to crash.
• The Blueprint DiagTool utility could only switch a Workstation Tracker to a Print Server Tracker, but not vice versa. The application of this Hot Fix allows the DiagTool to switch from a Print Server Tracker to a Workstation Tracker. This is achieved by specifying the '/Workstation' option on the command line.
• The Tracker could fail to be replaced properly when upgrading from Blueprint 3.5 to 3.5 SP1 due to files being in use during the upgrade. This could potentially result in the double counting of jobs submitted to print queues on a server, or the failure to track jobs at all, or the unsecuring of secure queues. The application of this Hot Fix ensures any older version of the Tracker still installed is removed and updated.
• A corrupted version of Blueprint 3.2 Hot Fix 3 was released which could result in the PrintTracker component being given a build number of '9999' in the Registry. This meant that no future version of the Tracker could upgrade from this state. The application of this Hot Fix ensures that the Tracker can be upgraded even if the corrupted Blueprint 3.2 Hot Fix 3 had been applied.
• Several job name filters introduced in Blueprint 3.5 SP1 were incorrect. These would cause some jobs from Citrix clients not to be recorded or submitted for Secure Release. The application of this Hot Fix removes these job name filters. The Hot Fix also does not re-add filters manually removed.
• Previously, the Workstation and Print Server Trackers would attempt to perform a reverse DNS lookup on printer IP addresses if they were configured to print directly via IP. This can often fail or produce unreliable results, especially for static IP addresses. This failure could take approximately 5 seconds to happen, holding up job processing. The application of this Hot Fix removes reverse DNS lookup on printer IP addresses.