FeedIgnoreInitial Not Always Honored on HIS 2000 Print Sessions (289658)

SYMPTOMS

Print jobs printed through the host print service on Host Integration Server (HIS) 2000 may print an extra, blank page at the beginning of the print job. The blank page is printed when the print job includes a form feed (0x0C) at the beginning of the print job even though the FEEDIGNOREINITIAL option is set to Yes for the HIS 2000 print session.

CAUSE

The FeedIgnoreInitial option is not honored by the print service that is included with HIS 2000 for one of the following reasons:

If the print session is configured to use a printer definition table (PDT), the print session sends a Hewlett Packard Printer Control Language (PCL) sequence to the printer. This PCL sequence is treated as real print data being sent to the printer, which causes the FeedIgnoreInitial option to be ignored by the host print service. -or-
The HIS 2000 print service honors all EBCDIC characters under "0x40" by default. This causes the FeedIgnoreInitial option to be ignored unless the No Space After FF option is selected in the Print Service Properties dialog box in SNA Manager.

RESOLUTION

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Host Integration Server 2000. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

328152 How to Obtain the Latest Host Integration Server 2000 Service Pack

The English version of this fix should have the following file attributes or later:

File name	Date	Time
Ppd3270.dll	02/15/2001	9:43AM
Winvprt.dll	02/15/2001	9:43AM

NOTE: Because of file dependencies, the most recent fix that contains the preceding files may also contain additional files.

WORKAROUND

If the print session is not using a PDT and an extra blank page is being printed at the beginning of the job with FeedIgnoreInitial=Yes, one of the following configuration changes should correct the problem:

Select the No Space After FF option in the Print Service Properies dialog box in SNA Manager. -or-
Select the Ignore Characters 3F and Under option in the Print Service Properies dialog box in SNA Manager.

The configuration of either of these options may affect the output of the print job, so you should examine the output to make sure the desired affect is achieved. The effect of these options can vary depending on the content of the actual print data sent by the host application.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article. This problem was first corrected in Host Integration Server 2000 Service Pack 1.

MORE INFORMATION

The following Microsoft Knowledge Base article describes another problem related to the FeedIgnoreInitial option with HIS 2000 (as well as SNA Server 4.0 SP3 and SP4):

286157 Blank Page May Be Printed at the Start Of Host Print Jobs

The FEEDIGNOREINITIAL configuration option is described in more detail in the following Knowledge Base article:

185676 FEEDIGNOREINITIAL Option Not Working in Snaprint