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Digging In To QuickBooks PDF Issues

http://www.sleeter.com/blog/2013/04/digging-in-to-quickbooks-pdf-issues/

Fixing PDF Problems

Here’s a quick rundown on how to fix PDF problems in QuickBooks:

  1. Make sure you have the most current revision of your year of QuickBooks, as earlier revisions are more likely to have problems. For example, QuickBooks 2013 R6 has at least 7 fixes that directly relate to correcting PDF problems in various circumstances
  2. Try the the PDF Repair Utility from Intuit, which works through a number of different issues with the various drivers and Windows settings. This works for MOST cases.
  3. Make sure you have proper access permissions to the “temp” folder in Windows (details for how to do this are in my article on QuickBooks/Windows 8 PDF problems, which has a few additional tips).
  4. If this is QuickBooks 2011 or older, check the outline below.
  5. If all else fails, try the Intuit support site for PDF problems, which has some other things to try.

The PDF Repair Utility is updated from time to time, and it runs through a number of common fixes that you may have seen listed in other articles.

Here is an outline that explains what it does for QuickBooks 2011 and later installations, more or less in sequence, as far as I’m aware (no promises that this is entirely accurate, as the tool evolves over time).

  1. It ends the QB related process running in the background.
  2. It will rename the QBPrint files (so that QB can create new ones, which gets away from many printing-related issues).
  3. MSXML4 & MSXML6 DLL’s are un-registered, then re-registered (MSXML is Microsoft XML Core Services, a collection of tools used in programming with Microsoft tools).
  4. The Windows Print Spooler is stopped.
  5. Temporary print spooler files are deleted. This clears out any files that got stuck in the print queue.
  6. The Windows Print Spooler is restarted.
  7. Reboot.bat is run (re-registers a long list of QuickBooks components)
    From this point on, the steps depend on the version of QuickBooks you are using.
  8. For Windows XP , Vista and 7: Adds the XPS printer driver with the XPSPort.
  9. For Windows 8: Adds the XPS printer driver with the PORTPROMPT port.

For pre-2011 versions the utility will do the first seven steps above, plus:

  • Rename (thereby removing from use) the Amyuni 300 and 400 DLL’s.
  • Remove the Amyuni registry values.
  • Remove the QuickBooks PDF Converter printer drivers and reinstall them.
  • Looks to see if this is a 64 bit version of Windows, and if so it fixes an issue that relates to Microsoft Office OneNote and how it interferes with the PDF system.
Amyuni’s Check List

Although they don’t have to, the Amyuni technical support staff have been trying to provide support to QuickBooks customers who contact them with problems. The company has pride in their product and they want to see that it works for people, even though QuickBooks customers don’t buy it directly from them. Here is a slightly modified version of the checklist that Amyuni support uses (with thanks to Dany Amiouny). These apply to QuickBooks versions older than 2012.

  1. Check the version number of Quickbooks:
    • Quickbooks 2010 -> “Quickbooks PDF Printer” or “Quickbooks PDF Printer v2”. This is version 3.0 of Amyuni Document Converter
    • Quickbooks 2011 -> “Quickbooks PDF Printer v3”. This is version 4.0.0.7 of Amyuni Document Converter
    • Quickbooks 2012 -> No PDF printer installed. The Amyuni library is hidden behind the Microsoft XPS Printer driver. Redirect user to Intuit customer support.
    • Quickbooks 2013 -> ABS PDF Printer installed. Not used for sending emails or converting invoices to PDF. Our library is hidden behind the Microsoft XPS Printer driver. Redirect user to Intuit customer support.
  2. Check the Operating System version, determine if it is 32 or 64-bit.
  3. Open the printers’ panel, check that the printer is installed. Check the port to which the printer is attached.

Symptom 1: Quickbooks hangs when saving an invoice to PDF

  • 64-bit Operating System: The printer should be attached to a port named “NUL:”, in general this is done automatically upon installation. Microsoft Office 2007 and later create a lower-case “nul:” port which prevents our installer from creating a NUL: port.
    1. Attach the Quickbooks PDF printer to the nul: port created by Office
    2. Remove any pending print jobs from all printers
    3. Delete any 0KB PDF file that might be found in the output folder
    4. If the 0KB file cannot be deleted, the spooler has to be restarted (“net stop spooler”, “net start spooler”) or the system rebooted
  • 32-bit Operating system or the 64-bit resolution doesn’t work: We need to check where the output file is going. Open Regedit, go to HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG\Software\Quickbooks PDF Printer. Check the registry values for “File Name” and “GeneratedFile”.
    1. Make sure the user has access to the file indicated by “File Name”
    2. If the file already exists, delete it
    3. If the file cannot be deleted, the spooler has to be restarted (“net stop spooler”, “net start spooler”) or the system rebooted
    4. Remove any pending print jobs from all printers

Symptom 2: Error code -20 when saving an invoice to PDF

  • Problem started to occur after the user upgraded their version of Windows or Quickbooks (shouldn’t happen on a clean installation.)
    1. You need to fix the security settings on the registry. Follow the instructions outlined in this Amyuni Support Document

Symptom 3: Error code -30 when saving an invoice to PDF

  • User might not have full access to the registry
    1. You need to fix the security settings on the registry. Follow the instructions outlined in this Amyuni Support Document
  • Quickbooks 2011 using version 4.0.0.7 of Amyuni Document Converter. Problem occurs if user has other applications installed that also use the Amyuni Document Converter.
    1. Remove any pending print jobs from all printers
    2. Close Quickbooks and reboot the system to make sure printer driver is cleared from memory (this is optional by recommended)
    3. Update the Quickbooks PDF printer to 4.0.1.2 through Windows update
    4. Check that the right printer driver version shows in the About box of the printer
    5. Copy the CDintf400.dll from c:\windows\system32\spool\drivers\x86\3 to the Intuit Quickbooks folder under Program Files

Symptom 3: Error code -41 when saving an invoice to PDF

  • This is an indication that the version of Quickbooks does not match the version of the PDF printer driver
    1. Close Quickbooks and reboot the system to make sure printer driver is cleared from memory (this is optional by recommended)
    2. Quickbooks 2010: Update the Quickbooks PDF printer to version 3.0.x.x through Windows update
    3. Quickbooks 2011: Update the Quickbooks PDF printer to version 4.0.1.2 through Windows update

Exchange Server 2007 Transport: 452 4.3.1 Insufficient system resources

 

http://exchangepedia.com/2007/03/exchange-server-2007-transport-452-4-3-1-insufficient-system-resources.html

 

xchange Server 2007 Transport: 452 4.3.1 Insufficient system resources

by Bharat Suneja on March 25, 2007

In my hotel room in Orlando, getting ready for an Exchange 2007 transport presentation tomorrow morning at TechMentor. When trying to telnet to the SMTP port of an Exchange 2007 Hub Transport server, I got the following error:

452 4.3.1 Insufficient system resources

Not a good thing the night before a presentation – Murphy’s law at work again!

The Application Event Log has Event ID 15002 from MSExchangeTransport saying “The resource pressure is constant at High. Statistics… “. The event goes on to tell you that inbound mail submission has stopped, and it’s due to disk space being low on the volume where the queue database is located.

Figure 1: Event ID 15002 logged by MSExchangeTransport

Exchange Server 2007 transport queues are not the familiar .eml files you see in Exchange Server 2003/2000, which reside in the \mailroot\vsi <1>\queue folder (<1> is the instance number of the SMTP virtual server) on the file system. Yes, transport queues have been moved to a JET database of its own.

What’s Back Pressure?

In Exchange Server 2007, the Transport service monitors system resources such as disk space and memory on Transport servers (the Hub Transport and the Edge Transport servers), and stops message submission if it’s running low on these resources. It continues to deliver existing messages in the queue. When resource utilization returns to normal, it resumes message submission. The feature is called Back Pressure.

In this case, Exchange required 4 Gigs of free disk space on the volume where the Queue database was located – I had about 3.95 Gigs. 🙂

Changes to Back Pressure settings in Exchange Server 2007 SP1

The Back Pressure settings in Exchange Server 2007 RTM stop inbound mailflow if free disk space is below 4 Gigs. This static threshold has been lowered in SP1 to a more realistic 500 MB.

The Resolution

Many configuration options for transport servers are saved in an XML file named EdgeTransport.exe.config (it’s the same file name on both server roles— Edge Transport and Hub Transport) located in \Exchange Server\Bin\.

To get transport to resume submissions, you can use any of the following methods. All of the following require you to edit the EdgeTransport.exe.config file.

  1. Disable BackPressure: Although Microsoft doesn’t recommend it, it does provide a way to Disable Back Pressure
  2. Tweak BackPressure thresholds: Modify BackPressure parameters to more accurately define what’s high utilization for your deployment or server configurations, as explained in the above docs.
  3. Move the queue database to another volume: Another resolution, and the one I used in this case, was to move the queue database to another volume with ample of free space, using the following procedure:
    1. Add the following key in the <AppSettings> section in EdgeTransport.exe.config, as documented in “How to Change the Location of the Queue Database“:

      <add key=“QueueDatabasePath” value=”D:\Queue\QueueDB” />

    2. Save the file and restart the Microsoft Exchange Transport service from the Services console or by using the Restart-Service cmdlet (Restart-Service MSExchangeTransport).

Message submission resumes.

Interesting Quickbooks Utilities

http://www.q2q.us/index.htm

 

1. Data Transfer Utility – transfers transactions between QuickBooks files.
2. Beginning Balance Transfer Utility – transfers beginning trial balance, a/r, a/p and inventory.
3. Check Transfer Utility – transfers payroll checks.
4. Data Remover – deletes list names and transactions.

5. Merge Customers – merges customers with no sales in a user entered date range.
6. Report Combiner – produces consolidated financial statements from multiple QuickBooks files.
7. Custom Financial Reporter – produces presentation quality financial statements and budget comparisons.
8. Weekly Financial Reporter – produces weekly comparative statements. (4-4-5, 13 weeks, 52/53)

9 . Invoice Duplicator – create one invoice and send it to multiple customers. Useful for HOA’s.

10. Customer Payment Analyzer – shows your customers payment patterns.

11. Mark Invoices – mark or unmark invoices to be printed or to be emailed with a few mouse clicks.

12. Intercompany Transfer Utility – transfers intercompany charges from a Parent to multiple Subsidiaries.

13. Dues Billing System – Invoice all of you customers at once with a different amount per customer.

14. Inventory Turnover – Calculate inventory turnover by item. Helps identify excess inventory.

15. Sales By Ship To Address – Creates Summary and Detail Sales reports based on Ship To address.

16. Gross Profit Analyzer – Creates summary and detail gross profit reports by customer, sales rep and item.

17. Drop Multicurrency – Transfers data from a multicurrency file to a non multicurrency file.

18. Bank Draft Creator – Creates checks on your customers bank accounts. These checks are faster and cheaper than credit cards and other payment methods because you can deposit them the same day that you create them and there are no fees for depositing the checks.

19. Job Cost Reporter – Create job reports that include unbilled cost, open purchase orders, unbilled time, unpaid time and quantities.

20. Update Custom Fields – Items – Allows you to compare sales price and average cost on items.

21. Invoice To Bill – Allows vendors to send Invoice data, using the Cloud, to Customers who can download and import the data as Bills.

22. Electronic Order Transfer – Transfers Purchase Orders to Vendors and imports them as Sales Orders.

23. Recover Deleted Transactions – If you accidentally delete transactions from your current file, this program can recover them from any backup that contains those transactions.

24. Mass Updater – Mass update many different fields on transactions.

How to correct Windows 8 app stuck on pending

2 ways to address this that I’ve seen.

The first requires you open a command line with Administrator Priveleges and type in the following:

  1. net stop wuauserv
  2. rename c:\windows\SoftwareDistribution softwaredistribution.old
  3. net start wuauserv

The second is the open Services.msc and stop the Windows Update service (same as using the commands above, use this if that doesn’t work).

At a Run lines, type in services.msc

  1. Stop Windows Update service
  2. Browse to c:\windows\SoftwareDistribution and rename the folder to softwaredistribution.old
  3. Start Windows Update service

Restart Exchange 2007 Services From Powershell

Restart Exchange 2007 Services From Powershell

http://windowsserveradministration.blogspot.com/2011/03/restart-exchange-2007-services-from.html

If you are troubleshooting Exchange Server 2007 than it will be good to have a look at the Services on which Exchange Server 2007 depends.
Cut-Paste the following code in Powershell to RESTART Exchange Server 2007 services on your Exchange Server.
Stop-Service MSExchangeAdTopology
Stop-Service MSExchangeAntiSpamUpdate
Stop-Service MSExchangeEdgeSync
Stop-Service MSExchangeFDS
Stop-Service MSExchangeIMAP4
Stop-Service MSExchangeIS
Stop-Service MSExchangeMailSubmission
Stop-Service MSExchangeMailboxAssistants
Stop-Service MSExchangeMonitoring
Stop-Service MSExchangePOP3
Stop-Service MSExchangeRepl
Stop-Service MSExchangeSearch
Stop-Service MSExchangeServiceHost
Stop-Service MSExchangeSA
Stop-Service MSExchangeTransport
Stop-Service MSExchangeTransportLogSearch
Stop-Service msftesql-Exchange -Force
Start-Service MSExchangeAdTopology
Start-Service MSExchangeAntiSpamUpdate
Start-Service MSExchangeEdgeSync
Start-Service MSExchangeFDS
Start-Service MSExchangeIMAP4
Start-Service MSExchangeIS
Start-Service MSExchangeMailSubmission
Start-Service MSExchangeMailboxAssistants
Start-Service MSExchangeMonitoring
Start-Service MSExchangePOP3
Start-Service MSExchangeRepl
Start-Service MSExchangeSearch
Start-Service MSExchangeServiceHost
Start-Service MSExchangeSA
Start-Service MSExchangeTransport
Start-Service MSExchangeTransportLogSearch
Start-Service msftesql-Exchange

You do not have to start the services highlighted in GREEN if you are not using POP3 or IMAP4.

After running the above code give it a 30 seconds for all the services to come up.
————————————————————————————————-
YOU CAN DO THIS WAY TOO !!

Restart-Service MSExchangeAdTopology  -Force

Restart-Service MSExchangeAntiSpamUpdate  -Force
Restart-Service MSExchangeEdgeSync  -Force
Restart-Service MSExchangeFDS  -Force
Restart-Service MSExchangeIMAP4  -Force
Restart-Service MSExchangeIS  -Force
Restart-Service MSExchangeMailSubmission  -Force
Restart-Service MSExchangeMailboxAssistants  -Force
Restart-Service MSExchangeMonitoring  -Force
Restart-Service MSExchangePOP3  -Force
Restart-Service MSExchangeRepl  -Force
Restart-Service MSExchangeSearch  -Force
Restart-Service MSExchangeServiceHost  -Force
Restart-Service MSExchangeSA  -Force
Restart-Service MSExchangeTransport  -Force
Restart-Service MSExchangeTransportLogSearch  -Force
Restart-Service msftesql-Exchange -Force  -Force


———————————————————————————————————–

IF YOUR EXCHANGE SERVER IS UNSTABLE AFTER RESTARTING SERVICE THAN THIS CMDLET WILL MAKE SURE THAT ALL THE REQUIRED SERVICES ARE RUNNING


Test-ServiceHealth | Select-Object -Expand ServicesNotRunning | Start-Service

Time to go PST hunting with the new PST Capture 2.0

 

http://blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2013/02/22/time-to-go-pst-hunting-with-the-new-pst-capture-2-0.aspx

Ahoy, Exchange Ninjas! It’s time to buckle up and go PST hunting again with the new PST Capture 2.0!

Earlier this week, we released a brand new version of the free PST Capture tool that allows you to hunt down PST files on client computers across your network. After it finds PST files on users’ computers, the tool consolidates the PST files to a central location, and then easily injects PST data to primary or archive mailboxes on your on-premises Exchange Servers or Exchange Online.

What’s new in PST Capture 2.0?

PST Capture 2.0 includes the following improvements:

  • Support for Microsoft Exchange Server 2013
  • Updated profile generation code to use Outlook Anywhere (RPC over HTTP).
  • Fixed Exchange Online import failure issue when PST Capture is not installed on an Exchange server.
  • Removed User Interface limit of 1,000 users when performing an import to Exchange Online.
  • General performance improvements

Download PST Capture 2.0 from the Download Center (aka.ms/getpstcapture), check out the PST Capture documentation (aka.ms/pstcapture) and then go get those PSTs!

Exchange Team

SBS – Setup a Public Folders Shared Calendar

http://blog.mpecsinc.ca/2007/07/sbs-setup-public-folders-shared.html

 

This is our method for setting up a shared calendar, contacts list, task list, etc. at the root of the Exchange Public Folders.

  1. Start your web browser on any workstation or the SBS server.
  2. Open: https://mysbsserver/public
  3. Logon as the domain admin
  4. Right click on Public Folders and click New Folder
    Name it and select Appointment Items under the "This folder contains:"
  5. Click OK
  6. Log off of OWA.

We do this because adding the folder via Exchange Management does not give us the ability to share any content. It is strictly a storage folder.
We move on to:

  1. Log onto the SBS server as domain admin.
  2. Under the Server Management Console:
  3. Advanced Management
  4. Right click on First Organization (Exchange) and click on Properties
  5. Put a tick beside both "Display …."
  6. Click Apply and OK. (You may be warned to close the console)
  7. Close the Server Management Console.
  8. Open it again.
  9. Again, under Advanced Management:
  10. Expand the Exchange organization–>Administrative Groups–>first administrative group–>Folders
  11. Right Click on the above created folder and click on Properties.
  12. Click the Limits tab if you want to set limits to the folder.
  13. Click the Permissions tab.
  14. Click the Client permissions button.
  15. Add and set permissions for those users who need access to this folder.

Now we continue on to configure Outlook.
The process is quite straight forward for adding the new folder to Outlook:

  1. Open Outlook.
  2. Click on the Folders View button.
  3. Navigate to Public Folders–>All Public Folders.
  4. Right click on the folder created above, and "Add to Favorites".
  5. Name the Favorite and click ADD.
  6. Click on the Calendar button in Outlook.

You will now see the newly added calendar under "Other Calendars" in Outlook.
The user will be able to click on it and work with their own calendar and the shared calendar side by side.
Permissions on the folder can be quite granular. Be very careful about giving people Delete permissions on ALL items other than their own. Only a couple of key people who understand the process should have that permission.
It is also important to let the users know that updates to the shared calendar will not necessarily be reflected at the other workstations that are connected to it right away. It sometimes takes a bit of time before updates are shown across the organization.
This process is essentially the same for all types of Exchange Public Folders shared items.
For larger organizations, adding folders at the root may make sense for organizing their content.

Our Largest Disaster Recovery Navigated Successfully To Date

http://blog.mpecsinc.ca/2013/03/our-largest-disaster-recovery-navigated.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MpecsIncBlog+%28MPECS+Inc.+Blog%29

 

The first heart stopping, cold hands inducing, and sinking stomach moment:

  • (SBS, ShadowProtect, and an Event ID 55 NTFS Error …)

The second heart stopping, cold hands inducing, and sinking stomach moment where server death was now known to be immanent:

  • (Images No Good … Catastrophic SBS Failure … Down What?!?)

Now, becoming less and less relevant but having a second DC on an SBS STD network can be a killer when recovering:

SBS – Exchange Information Store is Corrupt? Recreating the Store

  • Once we were down the line from point of recovery we still had issues with the Exchange databases we forklifted into place. This post outlines all of the steps to get content out of Exchange, create a new database set, and merge it back in. Exchange 2003.

SBS & ShadowProtect – Some Hardware Independent Restore considerations

  • This post is relevant for any full bare metal or hypervisor restore of a server.

SBS Disaster Recovery – Finished