9303 slow display with connect key software

[PartTimeGeek]

Problem persists with the new ColorQube 9303, as I kind of expected.

Our business workflow relies heavily on many people at the office using Scan to Email and Workflow scanning with OCR.

As I have followed this thread and, in particular, Fabio's posts, I started paying attention to the number of scan jobs and the number of pages per job usage as it correlates to the eventual freezing of the machine. I don't have any hard data logging enabled, but my feeling (I sit in a cubicle where I am looking at the printer) is that the number of pages and complexity of OCR scan jobs and the number of said jobs seems to have an effect on how soon the slowdown and freezing behavior comes on.

I just read Fabio's last post, and I hope that perhaps our specific issue is caused by the same code that has been bugfixed in the upgoming firmware release.

Crossing my fingers.

And thank you all for joining the thread, Good to know it wasnt just two of us out here having an esoteric problem that might not ever make it up the Xerox Development triage tree.

Thank You, fabio for your posts!

[Fabio]

there will be a new r16-04 release soon (20/05)

with this fix : Problem Summary: MC is running slow, then freezes

[Fabio]

hi, bad news :(

with 2 gb net memory installed, machine freezed a few minutes ago

it was no lag this time, just freezed at the email screen, could not use machine anymore

webui was still working, CWW , but the buttons (GUI) was not funtional anymore

needed todo a reboot through CWW to make the machine functional again

we are running 072.180.186.02590 engeneering release with 829106v2 debug patch , to make special debug logs for xerox

uploaded logs to xerox, lets wait for there response now

but we are facing this issue already a year ...

[Fabio]

will do, i have more feedback by the end of this week or next week, since issue only occurs at peak times

but indeed the memory upgrade makes sense, since this device is the only connectkey device with less hardware

we also did altboot 100 times, replaced all hardware that could be replaced

diagnostics logs always came back to page allocation and memory issues

so fingers crossed now

[KWilliamsCorona]

Please do! This would make sense if it fixes the problem.

[Fabio]

hi,

we had the same issues on our 93xx machines, already loaded with SPAR version that Joe replied earlier in this thread

we even got a newer engineering releases

indeed at peak times, there is an extreme lag, it can take up from 20 sec to sometimes 2 minutes to take changes of the screen

reboot resolves for a few days

the 93xx is an older type of device in the connectkey family,  xerox now suggested to remove the 1 GB ram , and replace it by a 2 GB module (officially not supported) , we are now in testing fase

if you do thos yourself, be sure to change the correct 1 GB ram module , since there are 2 x 1 GB rams, but only 1 needs to be replaced

there is one for the system memory , one needs to be replaced the other 1 GB is for EPC memory , doesnt need to be replaced

normally this should solve the issue, because other connectkey models all have the 2 GB ram

the 93xx with 1 GB , is just running into memore leaks/memory dumps

when we are out of testing, and the issues doesnt comes back, ill post it here ...

[PartTimeGeek]

Network Controller Board replaced.

Set the whole thing up from scratch again.

Problem persisted.

Resorted to rebooting the machine (login as admin and do software reset) each morning so there would be no disruptions, just to get us through the impending quarterly reporting cycle.

That lasted a few weeks.

The last straw was unrelated, we got an error indicating that the print head wiper was malfunctioning.

xerox tech came

there was a little plastic pulley, with a rubber belt which threaded over it which comprised part of the printhead wiper mechanism.

The pulley was partially seized up on it's tiny axle. The tech tried lubricant first, but that did not work.

After that he tried removing the C shaped retaining ring holding the pulley to it's axle. The axle snapped off.

The axle is connected to the printer's chassis essentially as a RIVET.....

That one point of failure, being that it went through the entire chassis sheet metal in the printer, and being a rivet, made it not a "spareable" part.

So, either they would need to cannibalize another colorqube somewhere and completely disassemble our printer onsite and replace the whole chassis or somesuch, or.... we call the vendor to inform him of the journey we have been on.

We did just that.

The vendor is a stand up bunch of guys and got us approval on a brand new 9303.

They got us a loaner B/W Workcentre 5955 so we could have high volume printing and workflow scanning the next morning too.

The Xerox tech spoke to his field engineering team and they came up with a McGuyver solution involving a washer and some fastener and that is now officially going to be a repair kit, apparently :) He got it working again, but the new 9303 was on the way.

At present, we have the new 9303 onsite, I have configured it pretty much exactly the same as the one it replaced, and we will see if the problem comes up again. If so,. I will be mirroring the switch port that feeds the printer and will do some wireshark capture at that point, and see what the traffic to and from the device looks like.

[PartTimeGeek]

The most recent software update was done multiple times and two times they were full alt boots with no retention of any previous system setings or data. Like pulling the hard drive on your PC and slapping in a new blank one, and resetting your bios settings to factory defaults. kinda.

Anyway, we had the RAM and Hard Drive replaced on the last visit last thursday, I configured all the settings and scan profiles etc totally from scratch yet again, and the problem resurfaced the next day.

The tech kept the ticket open, and had the last hardware replacement option (network controller board) sent to us, arrived today.

He will be installing the new board, and likely altboot installing the whole system software again and I will likely be doing a full setup from scratch again.

We shall see.

[js983e]

i had the exact same issue with running connectkey on our 9300's. The most recent software update solved the problem for me.

we did have one machine that continued to run sluggish, after digging around i noticed in Extensible Services that Xerox Secure Access was enabled, since we dont use that service i disabled it and the machine ran great after. although that is 100% theory, might be worth a shot to see if your machine is attempting to run services that its not configured to run. all else fails put in a service ticket :)

[PartTimeGeek]

Would love to hear what you find when you approach Xerox.

regarding the power switch, the GUI would not register that it had been thrown until the lockup of the GUI released itself, sometimes 30 min or more later. I realize it is a soft switch, and yes, I also am convinced it is a software problem.

We are also concerned that if we got a brand new unit it also would exhibit the behavior. But for now, the hardware swaps rule out at least two variables.

I am surprised I did not find more people with the problem while searching on it. Have you found other links to people exhibiting the issue?

I realize that this is a flagship printer for this tier, so perhaps the user base is smaller, but CERTAINLY others must be having this problem who have posted to forums? Or suffering in silence, i suppose?

Will post our experiences going forward.

Good luck.