WHFC - Frequently Asked Questions.

Except of the written documentation there is mostly no support, because i have suspended development due to lack of time and lack of a development system. However, there is a lot of documentation available which should answer most of the questions.

Normaly the exit button in the main window ist for exiting the application. If you don't like this behavoir simply write a wrapper script, which restarts whfc.

For example

:restart
start /WAIT /MIN  C:\\whfc.exe
GOTO :restart

Also check that in the system preference dialog "Stay in Taskbar" is enabled. This text is somewhat misleading and means, that WHFC is displayed in the systray when minimized.

If you get this message or WHFC hangs, first try to telnet to your HylaFAX server on port 4559 from the Windows PC on which WHFC is running. Normaly you should see a message "220 host.domain server (HylaFAX (tm ..". If your DNS setup works not properly HylaFAX can not reverse map your hostname and closes the connection.

Also this could happen when there is more that one network interface configured or if you have a packet filter between the client and server.

The HylaFAX protocol is an extended FTP Protocol (see RFC 959), which uses port 4559 as control port and like the normal ftp a random port for data transmission. So if you have to configure a packet filter, please make sure that you have understood the basics of the ftp protocol. (Note if WHFC simply hangs with your packet filter, then you haven't understood what ICMP is for. Please read a good book about firewalls e.g. Building Internet Firewalls from O'Reilly).

WHFC binds to one interface. The interface will be selected by the OS (depending on Murpheys law, this is the interface which is not reachable by the HylaFAX server). This address will then be sent to HylaFAX server, so that the HylaFAX server can build a connection for data transfer. If one of the interfaces is not reachable or wrong configured, then HylaFAX can not build a data connection. Solution : Configure the routing correctly, so that both interfaces on the Windows PC are reachable by the HylaFAX server. Test from the HylaFAX server if you can ping both interfaces.

Also since WHFC 1.0.9 you can enable passive mode, see the installation instruction. On WHFC 1.2 you can enable passive mode in the system settings dialog. This may help also with dump packet filters.

Microsoft has made some changes on the look and feel of windows 2000/XP. See www.winguides.com/registry/display.php/540/ for more info.

Use the XP Viewer by entering rundll32.exe C:\WINDOWS\System32\shimgvw.dll,ImageView_Fullscreen %s in the "Program and arguments for viewing received faxes" field of the system settings dialog.

WHFC 1.0.9 uses the same cover page like HylaFAX 4.0. The newer cover pages from HylaFAX 4.1 does not work there. WHFC 1.2 can also use the cover pages of HylaFAX 4.1. Make sure that you have choosen the correct coverpage version in the system settings dialog.

There are several packages for creating cover pages on the web

• Latex-Cover Create custom coverpages via latex.
• make_faxcover.tar.Z A script for creating faxcovers, requires tgif
• The original cover template from HylaFAX 4.0.

That's a known problem of the HylaFAX server, have a look at http://www.hylafax.org/archive/2003-09/msg00176.html for more infos.

Not directly within WHFC. Maybe create a macro which merges all this documents into a single document and use the WHFC OLE calls for sending the fax.

Thats mostly a problem of the reverse DNS mapping of the client's ip address in conjunction with a bug in WHFC 1.0. Version 1.2 should fix this. Please read also the following topic.

WHFC up to version 1.0.9 does not work with terminal servers. Use version 1.2 on terminal servers.

Whfc requires at minumum HylaFAX 4.0, because it uses the new HylaFAX protocol. Also make sure that you have an actual version of ghostscript installed on the HylaFAX server

This is not possible with whfc up to version 1.0.9, but WHFC 1.2 supports sorting of the queues

Due to a lot of internal changes on the spooler of Windows 2000/XP (the spooler runs now with a different user id), WHFC can not be automatically started. So start WHFC from the autostart group on Windows 2000/XP.

I would recommend the "Apple LaserWriter 16/600 PS" postscript driver (On Windows 95 this driver is called "Apple LaserWriter"). Make sure that the postscript options are set to "optimize for portability" (In the german version of Windows 95 it's called "Optimale Portierung"). And set the papersize to A4. Some problems are reported with Microsoft Word and the Apple Laser Writer driver. In this case use the HP 4/4M Postscript driver.

On Windows Vista try out "HP LaserJet 5200 PS" or "Xerox DocuPrint 135 EPS PS3"

Make sure that your hosts file of your hylafax server is configured properly. This hosts file has nothing to do with the /etc/hosts file !. For further information see "man 5f hosts (this man - page may be on an other section so you could search this page also with "man -a hosts". See also client access problems on the HylaFAX troubleshooting page

You have installed WHFC with the language supplement, which installs the german language dll. Deinstall the language supplement or simply remove whfclang.ger from the windows system directory.

Enter all the fax numbers in the fax number dialog, separated by the character (usually a colon ), defined in the System Settings dialog as Phonebook separator (Phonebook separator is a bit misleading, I will rename this in a later version to Faxnumber separator).
You can also enter Faxnumbers separated by this character in the phonebook. So you can define faxgroups.

This can have many reasons. First try to send a fax from the HylaFAX server directly. If this fails, then it's a problem of the HylaFAX server and not of WHFC. In this case please check your logs and read the trouble shooting section of HylaFAX carefully.
If you can send faxes from the HylaFAX server, then it's a WHFC problem. In most cases the problem is the used postscript printer, which send some stuff before the normal postscript code begins, or sends some "strange" postscript (this seems to happen specially with Office 97 [i don't want to know whats happens on Office 2000 but probably 1903 more problems] ). In this case you should experiment a bit with different printer drivers. See also the next question, which is also related to this question.

This is a typical printer or ghostscript problem. First make sure that you have an actual version of Ghostscript installed on your HylaFAX server. Then you should try out some different postscript printer drivers. Also test the postscript printer driver from Adobe (specially when using Windows 98)

Update to ghostscript 5.10 or try the following (excerpt from an e-mail which Alan Sparks posted some time ago about this).
Go into the server's spool/bin/ps2fax script, and:
* Make sure the pagewidth variable is set to 1728; and
* Make the last line of the script look something like:

$CAT $fil | $PS -q \
    -sDEVICE=$device \
    -dNOPAUSE \
    -dSAFER=true \
    -sPAPERSIZE=$paper \
    -dFIXEDMEDIA \
    -r204x$vres \
    "-sOutputFile=$out" \
    -

In my case, that was an addition of the -dFIXEDMEDIA parameter... versions of gs at least from 4.x on I think supports this. This will make ghostscript rescale the image on the fly to the right size.

Because of the new phonebook whfc uses ODBC. So you must install an odbc driver. Use the text driver if you haven't a database on your computer. For more infos or downloading the odbc drivers see http://www.microsoft.com/data/download.htm.Check there the FAQ specially the first question and then follow the links to the download page. On the download page also check for additional components, which may be required for Win 95/98.

Yes, since WHFC is now under the GPL.

This is not a problem of WHFC or HylaFAX. To solve this have a look at the FAQ (Q430) of HylaFAX

Maybe there is/was an other fax program installed. If you have connected a printer with the fax port, connect this printer with an other port. Close the printer dialog. Then unregister the WHFC portmonitor with regmon.exe. Open the printer dialog and remove all fax ports with the "Delete Port" button (German users have a look at picture arrow 3). Don't choose the fax port before pressing the remove port button, because you get a different dialog for removing ports.

Maybe there is/was an other fax program installed or an older version of whfc. If you have connected a printer with the fax port, connect this printer with an other port. Close the printer dialog. Then unregister the WHFC portmonitor with regmon.exe. Open the printer dialog and remove all fax ports with the "Delete Port" button. Don't choose the fax port before pressing the remove port button, because you get a different dialog for removing ports. Then remove whfcmon.dll from the windows directory. Restart windows. After the restart copy whfcmon.dll from the actual distribution of WHFC to the windows directory. Then copy regmon.exe to an empty directory and run regmon.exe from this directory.