iPF8300: Roll paper unrolls when printing from imagePROGRAF plugin in Photoshop CS5.1 x64 on Win10

[lewisje]

I have heard from someone who works with a wide-format printer in my company that for about the past three weeks, whenever he has tried to print something using the Export function (to the imagePROGRAF plugin), the printer keeps unrolling the paper until it reaches the end.

This problem happened several weeks after upgrading to Windows 10 from Windows 7, but we do not suspect that this is the cause; also, it may be relevant that the computer used to control the printer was just selected for the Anniversary Update, which was installed about a day ago (well after our issues started), but we have not yet determined whether the Anniversary Update has fixed our issues. I have been told to post a request for help anyway.

The problem does not occur when printing using the native Print dialog (which is less time-efficient), and it does not occur when printing the Windows Printer Test Page; for this reason, we believe, and our vendor (ARC Document Solutions) has suggested, that the problem is with the imagePROGRAF plugin. The latest version of the plugin that works with Photoshop CS5.1 is 5.21, which is no longer available from Canon's US website but is available elsewhere. So far, we have only tried the 64-bit version of the plugin and of Photoshop, although I have installed the 32-bit plugin for 32-bit Photoshop.

I have also installed every utility available for the iPF8300, including a utility to update the media types, which was able to do so for the printer driver but not for the printer's own control panel. The driver itself is the latest version, 4.31. I am not regularly at the location where the printing is done, so I did not change some settings in the imagePROGRAF plugin that may have needed to be changed (particularly regarding the paper), especially ever since I tried completely uninstalling all Adobe Creative Suite programs, and all Canon-related programs, then running CCleaner to remove all traces of those programs, and re-installing CS5.5 Design Standard and the iPF8300 drivers and utilities.

[Michael]

Hello.

Double check to make sure that the roll paper and paper size options are correct before printing.

If the issue persists, does this issue occur when any item is printed from the Photoshop plugin or with certain items? 

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[lewisje]

I have heard that this problem happens when printing anything with the Photoshop plugin and does not occur when printing with Photoshop's native Print dialog.

[lewisje]

I am currently at the site where the printer is being used, and the person who normally operates the printer noticed that previously, it did not mention such a large length for the roll (it was listed in the printer console as 708.66 inches); our actual rolls are at most 50 feet, or 600 inches, long. I tested a custom paper size that was much shorter, and that short distance is how far the printer actually printed out the image with the imagePROGRAF plugin.

I am about to test the latest imagePROGRAF plugin with a trial version of Photoshop CS6, having found someone who is willing to sell a license key for about $200.

[lewisje]

I have just learned that when using the native Print dialog, the person who normally operates the printer needs to set a custom paper length that is a bit greater than the actual length of the print; this is the same thing we now need to do with the imagePROGRAF plugin, and previously, we did not need to do this, and the printer just printed the cut guideline after each item.

Also, switching to Photoshop CS6 and the latest version of the imagePROGRAF plugin did not fix our issue.

[lewisje · Accepted solution]

It turns out that "No Spaces at Top or Bottom (Conserve Paper)" under Roll Options is exactly what we needed, as I learned when I called Canon's support line. (Maybe that checkbox even exists because some people just print very long images onto whole rolls of paper?)