Printer properties cannot be displayed error

“Help! When I try opening printer properties on the PaperCut Printer, I’m getting an error that the properties can’t be displayed. What causes this and how do I fix it?"

Long story short — this can happen when the PaperCut Hive or Pocket printer client service isn’t running as intended. This article explains what might cause this to help get your user printing again.

About the PaperCut Printer

The PaperCut Printer is created during the Hive or Pocket Client installation process. More specifically, the PaperCut Printer is created during the initial Edge Node installation routine and before the Print Client processes are created and executed. This installation sequence is important, thereby knowing this sequence of events during installation can help you determine the best troubleshooting route to take, if for example, the installation fails or if the PaperCut Printer shows “unavailable” as a status.

The PaperCut Printer has 3 distinct differences when compared to a “traditional” Windows Print Queue:

• Driver: Windows Platforms use the PaperCut Global Postscript Driver
• Port: Windows devices will use an “Internet Port” (IPP) “http://locahost:9265/printers/papercutpocket”
• User Token: Used to validate the print job submitted is a valid “linked” user

So then we can ask…

• What is the host we are trying to reach at http://localhost:9265/printer/papercutpocket?
• How does this IPP Port affect the status of the PaperCut Printer?

When a user has logged on after successful installation, we execute 2 processes for the PaperCut Hive/Pocket Print Client:

1. pc-print-client-service.exe

• Location: “c:\%localappdata%\programs\PaperCut Hive\"
• Description: A process that starts invokes “pc-print-client.exe” and provides restart services if, for some reason, it has stopped.
• Execution: Runs at time after successful installation and at time of user login.

2. pc-print-client.exe

• Location: “c:\%localappdata%\programs\PaperCut Hive\%datestamp%\"
• Description: Is the endpoint for the PaperCut Print port “http://locahost:9265/printers/papercutpocket” and provides comms between the PaperCut Printer and the Edge Mesh as well as the Cloud
• Execution: Is invoked when pc-print-client-service.exe has started.

If, for any reason, the communications with this Web Service is lost, either by port blockage, policy or the pc-print-client.exe stops and cannot be restarted by pc-print-client-service.exe, the PaperCut Printer will become unavailable.

For example, on a Windows device, a common issue is seeing the PaperCut Printer status as “unavailable,” or the user is unable to open the queue or even “Properties” or the Printer.

PaperCut Printer unavailable — potential causes

On the Windows device begin troubleshooting by examining the following:

1. Is the print client running?

Look for the PaperCut “P” icon in the Windows system tray / macOS menu bar. If it is, go to 2. Print Client process is running but error remains below.

Open TaskManager and validate pc-print-client.exe is a running process

If the process is not shown in Task Manager, investigate the potential causes. These might include:

• Print Client: “pc-print-client-.exe” file is missing
  Check for its existence in the c:\%localappdata%\programs\PaperCut Hive\%date_stamp% directory. If the file is not there, then look for the setup Log %date% 001.log file in the c:\“%localappdata%\programs\PaperCut Hive\data\logs directory and examine for errors during the install process.
• Print Client: not running after login
  If pc-print-client.exe exists but is not running, then there might be an issue with pc-print-client-service.exe running at user logon.
  • Linking Process Incomplete: Validate the logged in user trying to use the PaperCut Printer has completed the linking process.
  • Windows Registry Run Key Missing: Validate that the Windows Registry contains the following under the following location: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run contains the following entry:
    Name: Default
    Type: REG_SZ
    Data: C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Programs\PaperCut Hive\pc-print-client-service.exe
• Print Client: “pc-print-client-service.exe” startup was disabled
  Check in the Windows Task Manager Startup tab and look for pc-print-client-service.exe. Ensure startup for this task is set to Enabled.

2. Print Client process is running but error remains

Check if the P icon has a warning icon. If it does, there are 3 potential causes:

• PaperCut: not logged in
  User has to log in
  If you’re using an autolinking script, it might not be working properly. Troubleshoot your autolinking script.
• PaperCut: Limited connection
  The client can’t connect to PaperCut Services. Troubleshoot your network firewalls.
• PaperCut: Client not configured
  The edge node component of the Hive client isn’t running. In most cases this happens when the MDM tool didn’t deploy the edge node component properly. Check the instructions for our MDM tool. For more information, see Bulk deploying edge node software to managed users’ devices.

For more information about PaperCut Hive and Pocket, check out the PaperCut Pocket and Hive Help Center.