Hello all. We developed a customisation to scan barcode into Baan that behaves in a way that is not good.

The barcode scanner is programmed to do
Ctl-S (save) - Ctl-N (add) - <the barcode> - Tab.
A form with many lines is filled by the scannings. In the lines appears also baan data which is a result of the barcode data, e.g. Order and Item.

The idea is that the previous barcode is saved into the db when the subsequent is scanned.

The program contains after.field section on the barcode field, which gets baan data and does some updates. And check.input section on the barcode, which is applied after the input plus when the save is done.

The problem is that, intermittently, the second barcode comes not in right. The leading characters are cut off. As if the inputing itself starts with a delay, like Baan is not ready to take input when it comes from the scanner. It can look like this after the second scan (the barcode is ABCDEF plus some digits):
barcode-------order---item
ABCDEF12345 Order1 Item1
EF12346 (error message: baan data not found)

We have experimented with delays in the scanner, also maximum delays in the scanner, but the problem still arrives.

The environment is
Worktop on SSA LN FP2 on MS-SQL on Windows.

Is the Baan session doing anything between scans that could be the cause of it not being ready to accept input? Could it be the barcode itself(weak, faded or incorrect)?

When I set-up our scanners I only change two or three things and none of them are with the delays. On our scantek scanners I set it to 3 of 9 extended and that it is. The tags that need a tab have the tab in the barcode - I keep it as simple as possible with the scanners and have had no problems so far. The worst problem I run into is when our tag printers start printing weak or faded barcodes.

I am not an expert by far, but maybe if you posted more info on the scanners, the barcode type and setup someone else might see something.

The scanner is Intermec Sabre 1440 1400 or 1600
Iso128 is the barcode type
The people directly involved in the scanning think the quality of the barcode is good. I believe them. From the same barcode-tag it can chop one, two , three, etc, characters when scanning the same tag at different times.

Yes something happens in Baan between the barcodes. Or, to be more precise, just before the barcode as such is inputted in the input field. Since the scanner is programmed to do Ctl-S (save) and Ctl-N (new record), the actions programmed in the application program for these events will be done.

I could of course disable the input until the Ctl-S Ctl-N actions are done but I am sure the barcode would vanish into nowhere if I did that. No way to go.

Just another description on how it looks from the user's view:

Monday, tuesday all works fine. Wednesday at 11.00 we get problems, Most scannings will have the problem. On some one char is chopped, on some more than one char are chopped. At 14.00 and onwards, all works fine.

What I am into now is to try to compensate by
option 1: Change the barcode print by adding , say , ))))))))))))))) in the beginning of the barcode and change the barcode read to handle only what is found after the last )-character as real input.
option 2: Change the barcode print by adding 15 backspace-characters in the beginning. The advantage compare to option 1 is that I only have to change the printing, not the read.

BUT WHAT IS THE CHARACTER FOR 'BACKSPACE'??? I looked in B Dittmar's table but saw nothing.