PaperCut 8.3 (Build 5959)

New features:

• New set of “Environmental Impact” reports summarizing the impact of user printing.
• Users with access to “Shared Account” can now view balances under their end-user web login.
• Administrators can set a custom message that displays on login screen.
• Native support for IPv6 networks (Yes! We have some University customers that have made the move.).
• New report options allow reports to be run over ranges defined down to the second.
• Added search to the online help documentation.

Performance and Scalability:

This release includes significant performance and scalability improvements, particularly for sites with a large number of users:

• Significantly reduced the memory required to import a large number of users. It is now possible to import hundreds of thousands of users on a machine with limited memory.
• Optimized adding new users on demand (i.e. when a user first prints). PaperCut would previously use too much memory and CPU resources when adding a new user on systems with thousands of users.
• Reworked the database locking code resulting in improved performance under very high load.
• Large speed improvements and reduced CPU usage (up to 1000% on large networks) when retrieving a large number of users from Active Directory.
• Improved speed of admin login and display of the user list screen.
• New SQL Server driver configuration that removes Unicode overhead and allows more effective use of indexes.
• Large speed improvements when performing initial user import on a SQL Server database. The import process was modified to allow SQL Server to dynamically create index statistics, resulting in improved import speed.
• Optimized “Bulk User Actions” when adjusting/setting user balances which improves performance by 30%.
• Optimized the “batch-import-user-card-id-numbers” server-command to improve performance when updating large batches of users.
• Reduced the thread priority of report generation. This ensures that running large reports do not impact on other parts of the system.

Enhancements:

• Improved reliability of print popup notifications and message delivery to the user client on systems with multiple network interfaces and IP addresses (multi-homed systems).
• New paper size filter option added to the print logs screen.
• Option to copy printer color detection settings between printers.
• Added a new “noquit” command-line and config file option that prevents users closing/quitting the client.
• Improved audit logging records actions such as when:
  • TopUp/Prepaid card batches are deleted or expired.
  • Configuration settings are changed using the “Config Editor”.
• Added more filters to the user list screen and reports (e.g. min/max balance, restriction, office, department and notes).
• Added short-cut keys to the software Release Station which provides improved accessibility to vision impaired users.
• Intelligently shorten the printer names in the printer usage charts so that long printer names are not truncated.
• Added improved support for creating TopUp/Prepaid card with Office 2007.
• Increased the bulk user import file size limit to 100MB, to allow for large imports.
• Added an option to always use the “Global email suffix”, even when the user record already has an email address defined.
• Net Control: Improved algorithm for checking if sites are in the ignored domains list. Some customers populated the ignored domains list with 50,000+ hosts and this caused the Internet Control service to run at 100% CPU. The new algorithm can handle this number of hosts with minimal CPU usage.
• Additional information is displayed in the user client task tray tool tip.
• Upgraded to the latest version of the internal Apache Derby database. This release improves performance on multi-processor systems and provides improved reliability.
• Running “db-tools init-db -f” when using the internal database will backup and re-create the database from scratch.
• Various documentation improvements including more sections to assist administrators with producing their own handouts to educate users about Topup/Prepaid cards, print refunds and using release stations.
• Updated translations for Portuguese, Chinese, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Czech, and Swedish.

Fixes:

• Improved the display of the user client balance window when the display is configured for “Large Fonts (120 dpi)” on Windows.
• We have seen a number of cases of duplicate users/printers appearing in the databases. We have made a number of changes to prevent this from occurring. If duplicate users are detected they are handled gracefully and automatically removed.
• The user client balance window is displayed when the user can select “Shared Accounts” but printing costs are deducted from their personal balance.
• Fixed problem normalizing usernames that come from external systems like Novell print queues.
• Fixed error that could occur drawing the user’s balance history graph in some circumstances.
• Mac: Fixed auto-restart of the user client on OS X 10.5 (Leopard).
• When the license expires administrators can now access the “Options” section so they can perform limited administration tasks (e.g. backups, reduce user counts, etc).
• Improved how TopUp/Prepaid card numbers are generated to ensure no “bad” words can be produced.
• Improved sorting of groups displayed from an external source (like Active Directory). This makes it easier to find groups when there are thousands in the list.
• When “Print All” is selected in the release station, no jobs will print unless the user has credit for all jobs.
• Improved compatibility with Opera web browser.
• Linux: Improved reliability of installation of CUPS integration components.
• Net Control: Improved Microsoft ISA log processing for SSL/HTTPS traffic. Previously SSL/HTTPS downloads would be charged even if the site was in the “ignored hosts” list.
• Improved reliability of importing ChargeBack 6.x and earlier account databases.

Printer compatibility improvements:

• Improved color detection for HP Business Inkjet 1200.
• Added Apple Mac support for the EPSON Stylus Pro 4880C (and other drivers using the CUPS raster format).
• Fixed standard mode color detection for the HP Designjet T610.
• Improved support for the Apple Mac Gutenprint drivers.
• Improved page size detection for the Xerox Workcentre M24 Postscript drivers for Mac.
• Improved page count detection for Canon LBP5900 LIPSLX driver.
• Improved page count detection reported with recent Xerox Phaser 7400DN Postscript drivers when printing from Adobe applications.