What are some troubleshooting steps for print scripts?

What Problems Does This Guide Actually Solve?

We’ve all had that moment: you hit “Print” (or run your script), expect a smooth hum from the printer, and… nothing. Or worse, garbled text, missing pages, or no output at all. This guide is here for anyone who's been tasked with supporting business operations—be it for customs, logistics, or accounting—where print scripts connect digital records to the real, physical world. Whether the script’s written in Python, Bash, Powershell, or is a legacy bit someone left behind in the company for ages, the steps here cover practical, real-life fixes. Based on the WCO's WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement technical guidelines (source), print outputs (like invoices or certificates of origin) often have to match strict formats—so making sure your script prints as intended isn’t just a tech issue, it can be a compliance one.

Troubleshooting Print Scripts: My Personal Checklist

Step 1: “Is It the Script or the Printer?”

This is usually my first question. I've been burned before by overthinking the script, when the physical printer cable was unplugged—or the printer itself had jammed. Try these: - Run the script and redirect output to the terminal or a file. E.g. in Bash: If you don’t see your expected content there, the issue is probably with the script logic, not the printer. - Print a test page manually from the system. If this fails, it’s a hardware or driver problem.

Step 2: Check the Script’s Output Destination

Sometimes the printer is fine, but the script sends stuff to the wrong device. In Linux, print scripts often use lp or lpr: Check your script to see *which* printer is set as default, or whether it’s hard-coded to send to a defunct device. In Windows, open Printer Preferences and see which device is “Ready”—I once found people printing order forms to a disconnected label printer three desks over.

Step 3: Debug With Logs and Verbose Mode

Many print utilities have a verbose or debug flag (e.g., lpstat, cupsd -f). Some scripts dump logs, some don’t. If yours doesn’t, add one! For example, in Python: Or dump status/error codes after running the command: Sometimes error logs fill up quickly—my workaround is a “tail -f” in another terminal as I test, to watch new entries as they appear.

Step 4: Input File Format and Encoding Mismatches

You’d be surprised how often weird characters or missing pages are due to encoding mismatches. For trade documentation—where printouts like “Certificate of Origin” must adhere to WCO or local Customs rules—you usually need plain UTF-8 or specific codepages. In one customs brokerage I worked with, PDFs generated on an overseas server looked fine, but Chinese characters went blank on the local POS printer. Turned out the script hadn’t declared the right encoding. Quick fix? Convert your test file using:

Step 5: Test With Minimal Input

Strip the script down to its minimal form and run it—no fancy loops, no data from the ERP. That isolates whether the input data is breaking the format, or if the script’s basic structure is sound. Whenever I was onboarding a new bonded warehouse for international shipments, this step saved a ton of grief: I’d cut the database calls and hard-code sample document values in the script.

Step 6: Permissions and Network Issues

This is a classic with enterprise printers and shared print queues. - On Linux, printing as root sometimes works, regular user accounts… not so much. - On Windows, you might hit “permission denied” if your account’s not allowed to use the network printer. - Print servers can get stuck, especially after a few thousand jobs. In WCO’s 2018 “Guide to Customs Transit Procedures” (source), even the server logging date mismatches can freeze output. So always do a quick check: can you print from Word or Notepad? If not, calling IT support is quicker than rewriting the script.

Case Example: Cross-Border Document Printing Failures

A while ago, a logistics company had trouble printing EUR1 certificates for shipments between France and Turkey. The Python script worked fine in the Paris office, but Turkish customs reported missing fields on receipts. After some low-level log scanning, we found the French system was using A4 format, while the Turkish printer defaulted to Letter. Expert tip from Lisa Z., regional operations lead (quoted with permission): “Never trust a print script until you’ve seen the actual outputs from both ends. We standardized page size and forced encoding, and the customs headaches stopped.” Just a couple of lines in the script—explicitly setting paper size and charset—fixed the mismatches across both borders.

Official Reference: Verified Trade Standards Comparison

It’s not only about getting the print to look right; if your script produces customs docs, it must match local “verified trade” requirements. Here’s a table I compiled based on official documents and industry best practice discussions (shoutout to trade compliance Slack for some of the anecdotes):

Country	Standard Name	Legal Basis	Authority	Sample Requirement
USA	C-TPAT (Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism)	19 CFR Part 146	U.S. Customs (USTR)	Electronic data + signed paper docs
EU	AEO (Authorised Economic Operator)	EU Regulation No 952/2013	National Customs Authorities	PDF prints with QR code, tamperproof
China	Advanced Manifest System	GACC Order No. 56	General Administration of Customs	Chinese-language + verified digital signature
Turkey	Authorized Economic Operator (Onaylanmış Kişi Statü Belgesi)	Turkish Customs Regulation 4458	Ministry of Trade	Paper + XML file submission

Industry Expert Hot-Take

A print support veteran I met at the World Customs Organization’s tech forum summed it up perfectly (paraphrased): “No matter how bulletproof a print script looks on your machine, the true test is whether it meets both the compliance requirements and the human ones—can you actually hand that paper to a customs officer and have them accept it? This is where standards like those in the WTO TFA or local certifications matter just as much as the code.”

Final Thoughts & Recommendations

Looking back, so many print-script bugs boiled down to something simple—wrong printer, missed encoding step, or a tiny permissions hiccup—rather than wild code errors. For any critical business or trade scenario, I now always: - Print a real page before “signing off” new scripts, on the exact device and paper format the end-user will use. - Compare the printed result to the regulatory sample output, referencing the official agency (like USTR, WCO, or China GACC). - Leave debugging logs uncommented until go-live, because “just one more tweak” is never the last. If you’re stuck, start with the basics: hardware, output destination, logging. If the problem’s deeper (compliance print format, international character sets), check both your code and the official documents—there’s usually more detail there than you expect. And for those in the compliance world: different countries have different requirements. Always keep a table like the one above handy—your future self (and your international trade partners) will thank you.