Journal Printer Level causes an annoying delay

[Mountazar]

Dear sirs,

Our NCR ATM's JRNL LVL is set to [3] (highest level), whenever we insert a card into the reader it is taking around 2-3 seconds before the ATM displays the first screen (language selection in our case). The problem comes from the fact that the ATM is waiting for the Journal Printer to finish printing the following lines:

--------------------------------------

*976*10/07/2013*16:50*
*TRANSACTION START*
CARD INSERTED
CARD: *************4007
DATE 07-10-13 TIME 16:50:17
--------------------------------------

"before" it displays the language selection screen. Ads screens remain on display for 2-3 seconds after card insertion before the Language Selection screen appears.

Would you please check from your side if there is a way to let the journal printer work be done in asynchronous/parallel mode, so that the cardholder is prompted with the language selection screen immediately after the card reaches its insertion position ?
Please note that it is not desirable fr our institution to lower the level of journalling (currently set to 3) on behalf of a performance gain like this one.

Thanks and regards,

Mountazar

[Dan]

I think

is a way to let the journal printer work be done in asynchronous/parallel mode

depends of scenario from host/processing.

[Mountazar]

Hello Dan,
the host has nothing to do at this stage. The delay is happening between the moment the card is inserted [State A] and the next state to [state A]. Nothing is exchanged with the host at this stage.
If I lower the Journalling Level to [0] (less details), the performance is acceptable i.e. the ATM immediately displays the language selection screen. The problem is that our institution does not want to lower the journalling verbose level. Thus I'm asking if there is a config option somewhere to tell ATRA to write to the Journal printer in the background i.e. to avoid waiting until the complete traces are physically written to the journal paper before going to the state immediately following state A.
Please advise,
Mountazar

[Dan]

I don't know where is the problem.
Did you set journaling both on printer and hard disk?
Maybe trying to change settings to both or " only to printer" will solve the problem?
What kind of ATM do you have? And wich Aptra?

[Mountazar]

NCR: 6332/6334
APTRA ADVANCE: 3.4.2

Journalling is set to DUAL mode(Both EJ + Paper) [This is required]
Journal Level is set to 3 (highest) [This is required]

Th problem is that with the above settings, there is a delay of 2-3 seconds between the moment a card is inserted and the moment the first selection screen appears and this is caused by the fact that with Journal Level set to highest, around 5 lines should be written to paper "before" the first selection screen is displayed. In other words APTRA ADVANCE writes to the Journal paper in synchronous mode (i.e. it waits until all data sent to the printer to be printed before it continue its program logic).
My aim is to have APTRA writing to the Journal to be made in the background i.e. let it immediately show the first selection screen once a card is inserted and launch "in the background - in parallel" the writing of the following traces lines:
--------------------------------------
*976*10/07/2013*16:50*
*TRANSACTION START*
CARD INSERTED
CARD: *************4007
DATE 07-10-13 TIME 16:50:17
--------------------------------------

In other words, it should not delay the display of the first selection screen until the above lines are physically printed on paper. In our case, the cardholder still sees the ADs images even after inserting his card until all the above lines are printed to paper (2-3 seconds delay).
If we set the journal level to 0 (lowest) then only 2 lines are printed instead of 5-6 lines and thus the first selection screen is shown almost immediately after card insertion (printing 2 lines needs much less time than printing 5 lines).

I hope the problem is described clearly.

[Dan]

Hi Mountazar
I want to ask you, if on others ATM's is the same trouble with journal printer, or only on Aptra 3.4.1 ?
Maybe, somewhere in registers exists something about delay between card insertion and first screen?

[Mountazar]

Hello Dan,
we have only APTRA 3.4.2 on all machines and the same hardware (all ATMs bought in one contract). The same problem appears on any of these.
As I said, the delay comes from the fact that APTRA waits for the journal printer to write all traces on card insertion before APTRA decides to go to next state (language selection in our case). If I lower the journal level to [0 - lowest] (instead of [3 - highest]) then less lines will be printed on card insertion (2 lines when journal level is 0, instead of 5 lines when journal level is 3), then in that case there is almost no delay between card insertion [NDC State A] and switching to next state.