XPRINT closing program ?

[Fred Buffington]

I've got a main module that calls a print program (in a dll) that writes the report to a file. The dll then calls the preview/print dll.
There it's previewed/and or printed using graphics and xprint.

The printer is local to my XP and Shared on my local network.

When i print on the xp after previewing it, it closes the main program.
This is not supposed to happen.

When I print on my WinME using the shared printer (same printer), everything
works fine. It prints and goes back to the main module.

If I preview the report on the XP machine then cancel (before printing), it goes back to the main program just fine.

I've looked to see if there's an abort variable that would somehow get back to the main module and close it but i cant find anything. Plus I have put several
msgbox statements to catch it to see if i can find the problem but none get displayed when i print although the ones that should get displayed if i cancel the print (before actual printing) do get displayed.

It's strange.
Now there is a mixture of versions here. The main module is written in pbdll60
the xprint/graphic preview print is written in pbwin8.04

But like i said, it works perfectly on the ME. It's like some xprint command is closing my main module dialog (a menu program).

Sometimes talking about it, makes the difference. Frustrated. I will continue to test.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Oh there was one other thing. I had the following
XPRINT ATTACH PrtNam$
XPRINT GET CLIENT TO xWidth!,xHeight!
XPRINT GET MARGIN TO xLeft!, xTop!, xRight!, xBottom!
XPRINT GET PPI TO x&,y&
XPRINT CANCEL
to get my page parameters and it would not cancel the xprint but tried to print (spool it) and had to cancel the print through the printer spooler and force the main module to end because it hung up. So I REMMED those statements out
and put in values for the variables. This was on the XP again whereas on the ME it worked fine and came back with the
page values from the above statements. This may be a related problem.

The printer is an HP Deskjet.

[Michael Mattias]

The main module is written in pbdll60 the xprint/graphic preview print is written in pbwin8.04

If you are passing an array of UDTs between modules and that array is REDIMed, that won't work with multiple versions because of an undocumented change in the array descriptor between 6x and 7x. If you are doing this and not testing for errors, you could be corrupting your memory which could cause all manner of weird things.

Or, perhaps the XPRINT commands don't work across modules, just like DDT commands don't.

Or, you could have the 'general' problem of inadequate error testing "somewhere" resulting in the same memory corruption leading to the same weird things.

That your problem exhibits itself on Win/XP but not Win/ME leads me to believe you have a programming error which is forgiven in ME but not in XP... this is a relatively common occurrence, as each version of Windows has enforced the rules more more strictly than the prior version.

But other than telling you to find your programming error, there is just not enough info provided here to give you any more detailed direction.

MCM

[Fred Buffington]

Thanks Michael.

1) Im not passing any UDT's.
The arguments passed to the print preview/print routine are:
prtnam$ (printer name)
Preview$ (Y or N)
PTP& (pages to print)
C$ (company directory path)

I put in an on error goto with no results and it doesnt happen until the last print line is processed. I will look at it again. I was sure it was working
earlier last month.
I'll keep looking

[Michael Mattias]

>a print program (in a dll) that writes the report to a file.

Are you executing (ShellExecture[Ex], CreatePrcess, SHELL) a separate program somewhere? That might be resulting in some kind of permissions issue on the report file, which is only caught by the newer O/S... or maybe because of permissions settings on the other box.

Please show p-code structure, eg

   MAIN MODULE  
      DO 
        something 
        CAll CreateReport function in DLL1 
        IF condtion
           EXIT DO
        ENDIF
      ENDDO 

DLL1
  FUNCTION CreateReport
     get File name 
     Create report  to file 
     CAll PrintPreview function (file, other params)  
   END FUNCTION

DLL2 
   FUNCTION PrintPreview (file, other params) 
       whatever
   END FUNCTION

It sounds something like this.

[Fred Buffington]

Michael, yes that's the idea (your framework depiction), but i fixed it.

I deleted the printer and reinstalled it and all is fine so apparently the printer driver got messed up some how even though the report always printed fine
even when it was closing the main program.

Thanks for the help. I am truly thankful to you and the rest of the experts for your unselfish help.

To answer your Question about Shellexec,createprocess,shell. I simply write the report to an ascii file with a command script
of my own that the preview/print reads and interprets. I've mentioned it before. I use a 4 character 'command' within square
brackets. i.e. [PRIN]THIS is A test
which preview interprets as GRAPHIC PRINT THIS is A test
and the print routine interprets as XPRINT THIS is A test
some others are
[SPOS]x!,y!
preview issues GRAPHIC SET POS (x!,y!)
print issues XPRINT SET POS (x!,y!)
[FEED]
XPRINT FORMFEED
ignored for graphic except to know it's the end of the page
etc.

Oh deleting and reinstalling also fixed the problem of not being able to do get the margins and papersize too.