Epson Status Monitor 3 failure in XP
I'm seeing a lot of references to the problem I describe below:
Have 2 Epson inkjet printers, both connected via USB to a Win XP Pro (SP1) PC. Both of these printers, with the appropriate software, worked perfectly under Win98SE.
Downloaded the newest drivers and Status Monitor from Epson's website, and installed the printers. Drivers are ok, but the Status Monitor 3 software isn't showing ink levels, etc. in XP, and each printer job is taking between 5-10 minutes to spool and begin printing the first page. Status monitor always shows "communication problem", but the printers DO eventually print.
Lots of references to similar problems under XP. Does anybody know an actual solution or workaround to this problem? I'm hoping to not be forced to disable this background monitoring, as the ink-level monitoring is pretty important when I'm printing large photos.
Epson's own support team suggests I simply turn off all functions of the monitor, but don't offer ANY explanation or solution to the actual problems (d***heads!).
Any help is welcome...:D
Fixing Communication Error
I finally solved the Communication Error that occurs with Epson Status Monitor 3 on Windows XP. This worked for me and if you have the same situation, it should work for you.
The Problem
I have a print server (PC running XP) with an Epson 1280 attached via USB. The printer is shared on the network. When printing from the server, no problem, status monitor works fine. When printing from any machine on the network, the file prints but Status Monitor 3 shows a Communication Error and you can't see the ink level or printing progress.
The Solution
On the print server machine (the machine with the printer directly connected), open the printer control panel for the Epson printer (Start --> Settings --> Printers & Faxes --> Epson 1280). Select Properties under the Printer menu. From the Properties window, General tab, click on the Printing Preferences button. Select the Utilities tab and click on the Speed & Progress button at the bottom. From the Speed & Progress window click on the Monitoring Preferences button. From the Monitoring Preferences window click the checkbox marked "Allow monitoring of shared printers". Click OK button on all the windows. Now when the status monitor runs on other machines they will be able to monitor the shared printer.
--GaryM