God knows how many hours later and Studio is working again…
Updated the Java environment, cleaned out the registry a few times to remove all traces of Studio and the network plugin after deinstalling.
Tried 4 different Studio versions that previously worked.
So what fixed Studio and made it send print jobs again ? Reddit did…
Specifically a guy who had a rant on the rotten and forced integrations of the Internet Explorer and Edge in Windows.
Search engine found after I included more detailed search terms.
Anyway…
Couldn’t find any mentioning of it on the help pages so I thought I do it here for those encountering the same issue.
Studio is pretty much helpless without a certain level of internet access AND something to show certain web content.
I don’t like the MS browsers and their constant tracking, so I forcefully disabled most of their functions and only left active what Windows might need for updates and internal functions.
Many programmers, including those at Bambu rely on certain Windows libraries, DLL files and functions, like some security functions for wireless things.
Sadly a tiny part of this is handled through the libraries for IE/Edge.
While I was trying to fix the problem of Studio constantly loosing the access code for my printer I disabled the TSSL encryption in the config file.
Bad mistake as it turned out over a day later…
From what I could work out from logs and other things the disaster went like this:
Studio and printer rely on security tokens and keys to communicate.
Windows does similar to authenticate users and devices in the network.
And I GUESS this is where hickups started.
I made those changes but did not reboot Windows as I only changed things for Studio, did not restart the printer either as it was busy printing.
Somewhere between shutting the computer down over night and restarting the printer after a it got a good clean something got lost.
With SSL encryption suddenly gone while the printer (as it seems) only works with it active Studio failed to negotiate the file transfer.
Seems this stupid case wasn’t covered by any meaningful error routine and so Studio had no other option than to call it a severe enough violation that justifies instant shutdown.
What lessons were learned ?
- Don’t mess with Studio’s SSL and TSSL stuff, just because it can be disabled does not mean it works.
- Like it or not it is a total pain to properly restrict IE and EDGE while keeping all vital functions a program might need active.
Unless you have issues like I have with MS just leave IE and Edge active in full.