Almost without exception, this printing problem is caused by working on a session that has no default printer configured.

There are usually three sessions set up for you, (G0 G1 G2) so if your workstation ID shows G3 or higher, you most likely no longer have a default printer.

How do you get a default printer? When you launch a GOLD icon for the first time on a new workstation, it creates a "virtual device" on the AS/400 system here at CU*Answers. It is a newborn device and doesn't know where to print; CU*Answers staff goes in and configures a default printer ID for it and that is where things like screen shots, histories, and totals print.

Things can happen that will cause that virtual device session to shut down - a communications bounce while you are working, for instance, or a password error will cause the session to "vary off," or close down. When that happens, it will not reopen on its own. It needs to be varied on by a CU*Answers systems staff member.

What has this got to do with your print jobs? The next time you launch the GOLD software, the system will look to the first virtual session that was created and discover that it is varied off and then it will automatically create a new one. The newly generated session again does not know where to print because as we said, newly created virtual devices don't have default printers!

In practice you don't see this too much because we actually create spares that will pick up where one fails, and we occasionally go in and reopen failed virtual sessions. But once in a while you may run out of spares or vary off a string of sessions accidentally. That's when you need to call into CU*Answers and have your sessions varied on and the default printer for the session checked.