Print Preview not working

[HealthyB1]

Hi there,
I have a long running home grown invoicing system with a backend data base and two front end Access apps that link to it.
One of the Access front ends runs on Windows 10 the other runs on Windows 11.
Both the apps produce a print preview screen. Once I obtain same I then either print or email the invoice using outlook.

The Win 11 application for whatever reason overnight refuses to produce a print preview screen. A form opens but it is blank.
The other Win10 system works flawlessly as usual. See attachment.

As the system is used every day, I suspect perhaps a Win11 of some other system S/W upgrade occurred over night which may have caused the problem. The Win11 based front end system was working ok last night.
I have restarted the system with no change in behavior. i.e. I get the same empty form.
I have also tried running backup copies of the front end and get the same result with the blank form.
There are two other preview buttons for parts 'Parts Preview', 'Detail Labour preview' and 'Preview Quote' All open a blank preview form as shown in the attachment.
If I open the linked forms in Design mode they display as expected.

Has anyone have a suggestion on where to look or how to troubleshoot same?

 

[Gasman]

Have you checked the windows updates?
I presume the Access version is the same on both PCs?
Does the report open print preview from design view?

 

[GPGeorge]

Hi there,
I have a long running home grown invoicing system with a backend data base and two front end Access apps that link to it.
One of the Access front ends runs on Windows 10 the other runs on Windows 11.
Both the apps produce a print preview screen. Once I obtain same I then either print or email the invoice using outlook.

The Win 11 application for whatever reason overnight refuses to produce a print preview screen. A form opens but it is blank.
The other Win10 system works flawlessly as usual. See attachment.

As the system is used every day, I suspect perhaps a Win11 of some other system S/W upgrade occurred over night which may have caused the problem. The Win11 based front end system was working ok last night.
I have restarted the system with no change in behavior. i.e. I get the same empty form.
I have also tried running backup copies of the front end and get the same result with the blank form.
There are two other preview buttons for parts 'Parts Preview', 'Detail Labour preview' and 'Preview Quote' All open a blank preview form as shown in the attachment.
If I open the linked forms in Design mode they display as expected.

Has anyone have a suggestion on where to look or how to troubleshoot same?

What version of Access is running on each computer? Are they the same?

Do both computers use the same printer definition for this report? Is there a shared printer?

 

[HealthyB1]

What version of Access is running on each computer? Are they the same?

Do both computers use the same printer definition for this report? Is there a shared printer?

Hi George thank you for your response and suggestions. My son rang this morning to advise that WIN 11 based system hosting the Access front end is working perfectly this morning.
Re your suggestions:-
I shall not be onsite to check out your suggestions for another 5-6 hours.
The Access on both systems has been the same for the past 3 years. Nothing has changed.
The printer is networked and both systems use it. Although the Win 10 based system was working flawlessly the WIN 11 system did not want to work using parts of the ACCESS application that used the print-preview function. Normal print jobs from the same Access application, Word, excel worked and printed ok. The issue seemed to be the Print-Preview function in ACCESS.
I did notice that on the WIN10 based system patch Tuesday from Microsoft came and went yesterday without any flaws or problems on that system.
I am wondering if a patch to WIN 11 or OFFICE 365 was applied and reversed or updated yesterday?
Where do I need to look on the WIN 11 system to discover which prior Operating system and Office 365 upgrades/patches have been applied and when? I am assuming that there is a log of these changes somewhere??
Thanks in advance.

 

[HealthyB1]

Have you checked the windows updates?
I presume the Access version is the same on both PCs?
Does the report open print preview from design view?

Will do check in 5-6 hours
I will check Access versions when i get on site.
Yes it does open Print preview from Design view

 

[Mark_]

Not a solution for preview, but do you have a Print to PDF option? If so, does it still output your report accurately?

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Where do I need to look on the WIN 11 system to discover which prior Operating system and Office 365 upgrades/patches have been applied and when?

Win Start >> Settings >> Updates >> Update History ... for the O/S. They will be listed with most recent at the top of the list.

Win Start >> Settings >> Apps >> Uninstall Updates ... for the apps. They will be listed by some ID number related to a Knowledge Base number.

As to other updates that aren't KB numbers or system files, I'm not sure about the history. Might be in the system event logs.

 

[HealthyB1]

Win Start >> Settings >> Updates >> Update History ... for the O/S. They will be listed with most recent at the top of the list.

Win Start >> Settings >> Apps >> Uninstall Updates ... for the apps. They will be listed by some ID number related to a Knowledge Base number.

As to other updates that aren't KB numbers or system files, I'm not sure about the history. Might be in the system event logs.

I checked and it would appear that there were cumulative upgrades installed by Microsoft for both Win 11 and .NET framework today 10-Oct-24.
Likewise for the Office 365.
The problem has now disappeared. I shall wait a day or so and if it doesn't re-occur I will close this Thread. Thanks for all your help as it is greatly appreciated.

 

[GPGeorge]

I checked and it would appear that there were cumulative upgrades installed by Microsoft for both Win 11 and .NET framework today 10-Oct-24.
Likewise for the Office 365.
The problem has now disappeared. I shall wait a day or so and if it doesn't re-occur I will close this Thread. Thanks for all your help as it is greatly appreciated.

Thanks for being so thorough in reviewing the environment. To be honest, sometimes it can be difficult to troubleshoot problems because of a lack of information.

It could very well be that the updates on Tuesday of this week addressed a problem. It could also have been a transient problem. Things like that do occur. The old saw, "Did you reboot?" attained a mythical status because it still actually works reasonably often.

 

[HealthyB1]

Thanks for being so thorough in reviewing the environment. To be honest, sometimes it can be difficult to troubleshoot problems because of a lack of information.

It could very well be that the updates on Tuesday of this week addressed a problem. It could also have been a transient problem. Things like that do occur. The old saw, "Did you reboot?" attained a mythical status because it still actually works reasonably often.

Hi George,
I spent many years as a Computer technician on SINGER, NCR and DEC equipment (PDP 10's and PDP 11's etc). "If all else fails reboot" was used as a last resort, as you may not be able to reproduce the problem for hours, days or weeks. However in this case, YES I did try rebooting and resetting PC several times before logging this case.
The WINDOWS 11 system was left running so we could keep logging the parts and labour for the invoices. As the backend database resides on this PC.
I used the second and 3rd WIN 10 PC's to access the backend and produce the invoices yesterday. So we were not down it was just inconvenient that the WIN11 PC was not working as expected. The WIN 11 PC was left running overnight with the ACCESS database running. This morning my Son decided to try previewing an invoice on the WIN11 PC which resides on his desk and low and behold it worked and still is functioning now.

As we had changed nothing at all at our end and as it is a production system I looked for external changes. When I went to turn off the WIN 10 based system last night it said it had Patch Tuesday upgrades to run. Did I want to apply them and power down or simply reset the PC. I elected to perform the RESET option and PC was working ok. Later still
I powered it off before going home. The WIN 11 PC was left running overnight.

Trying to resolve the issue in my mind, I then started to wonder whether the WIN11 based system had been automatically patched.
Hence the question of you as to how to ascertain Patch levels.
Once again thanks for all you help and suggestions. Apologies for my long-winded reply.

 

[GPGeorge]

Hi George,
I spent many years as a Computer technician on SINGER, NCR and DEC equipment (PDP 10's and PDP 11's etc). "If all else fails reboot" was used as a last resort, as you may not be able to reproduce the problem for hours, days or weeks. However in this case, YES I did try rebooting and resetting PC several times before logging this case.
The WINDOWS 11 system was left running so we could keep logging the parts and labour for the invoices. As the backend database resides on this PC.
I used the second and 3rd WIN 10 PC's to access the backend and produce the invoices yesterday. So we were not down it was just inconvenient that the WIN11 PC was not working as expected. The WIN 11 PC was left running overnight with the ACCESS database running. This morning my Son decided to try previewing an invoice on the WIN11 PC which resides on his desk and low and behold it worked and still is functioning now.

As we had changed nothing at all at our end and as it is a production system I looked for external changes. When I went to turn off the WIN 10 based system last night it said it had Patch Tuesday upgrades to run. Did I want to apply them and power down or simply reset the PC. I elected to perform the RESET option and PC was working ok. Later still
I powered it off before going home. The WIN 11 PC was left running overnight.

Trying to resolve the issue in my mind, I then started to wonder whether the WIN11 based system had been automatically patched.
Hence the question of you as to how to ascertain Patch levels.
Once again thanks for all you help and suggestions. Apologies for my long-winded reply.

Again, it's refreshing to read through a well-thought out, logical process of trouble-shooting. I probably should have qualified my comment about rebooting by way of suggesting that things can, and do, occur transiently, and that the act of rebooting, while it can clear problems, is probably not causal in every case, but merely concurrent.

In Windows 11, you should be able to see an update history through Windows Update > Update History

It's presented a little different in Win10, but the same information is available.

For Access updates, you can see the update history under File>Account> Update Options>View Updates