JP6503952B2 - Image forming apparatus and program - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus and a program.

  In an image forming apparatus such as a multifunction peripheral (apparatus having a function as a copier, a printer, a scanner, etc.), help information such as an operation manual or a troubleshooting manual is digitized and stored and displayed on the attached screen. It is In recent years, in order to cope with the increase in help information accompanying the advancement of image forming apparatuses and the addition and update of help information accompanying function addition due to software version upgrade, the help from the server on the Internet to the image forming apparatus Providing information is also done.

  It takes some time to download help information from the server via the Internet, which causes the user to wait. In order to reduce such waiting time, the help information downloaded once is stored in the storage device in the image forming apparatus, and when the same help information is requested, the information in the storage device is displayed. Is also done. In addition, it is also made possible to download new help information from the server by deleting the help information stored in the past and expanding the free space of the storage device.

  For example, in the image forming apparatus help system disclosed in Patent Document 1, when a help request specifying an information type is performed from the display / input device unit of the multifunction machine, the help data corresponding to the specified type is stored as an information It is read out from the cache memory of the department and displayed on the LCD with touch panel and provided, and when the help data does not exist in the cache memory, the help data is requested to the help server connected to the network and transmitted from the help server The stored help data is stored in the cache memory and displayed on the touch panel LCD. The multifunction peripheral erases the help data stored in the cache memory according to a predetermined rule when the free space of the cache memory becomes less than the predetermined capacity.

  Also, when an error (failure) occurs, the image forming apparatus sends error information to the server of the center, and in response, the server provides the image forming apparatus with error handling information to the image forming apparatus, and the image forming apparatus Systems for displaying information are also known.

  For example, the image forming apparatus described in Patent Document 2 transmits its own operation history information and the generated trouble information to the management server. The trouble cause analysis system of the management server extracts related information from the trouble information and analyzes the trouble cause using operation history information of the image forming apparatus. Then, information on a coping method for coping with the trouble is transmitted to the image forming apparatus. The image forming apparatus displays the transmitted information on the coping method, and performs test printing according to the user's selection. When the test print result is good and the user operation for determining the coping method is performed, the apparatus setting is changed according to the coping method determined.

JP 2004-252510 A JP, 2012-163805, A

  According to the present invention, the capacity of the storage means for help information in the image forming apparatus can be effectively used as compared with the case where the help information acquired from the management apparatus is necessarily stored in the storage device in the image forming apparatus. With the goal.

The invention according to claim 1 is a storage means for storing help information, an acquisition means for acquiring help information corresponding to the error from the management apparatus when an error occurs, and after acquiring the help information And storing the help information in the storage means when the error is resolved by performing a countermeasure to the error, and not storing the help information in the storage means when the error is not eliminated. and control means for controlling that, on demand, have a, and providing means for providing the help information stored in the storage means, the control means, the corresponding action is the help information user performs The help information is stored in the storage means in the case where the error indicated in the table and the error is eliminated, but the countermeasure is taken even if the error is eliminated. It does not store the help information in the storage unit when not compatible with the procedures indicated by the serial help information, an image forming apparatus.

In the invention according to claim 2 , in the help information corresponding to the error acquired from the management apparatus, information from a sensor provided in the image forming apparatus as to whether or not the procedure indicated by the help information is correctly executed. includes a program for executing processing for determining the said control means based on, it is an image forming apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the.

The invention according to claim 3 is a computer, storing means for storing help information, acquiring means for acquiring help information corresponding to the error from the management apparatus when an error occurs, and acquiring the help information After that, when the countermeasure to the error is executed and the error is eliminated, the help information is stored in the storage means, and when the error is not eliminated, the help information is not stored in the storage means control means for controlling that, in response to the request, a program for functioning as a providing means, for providing the help information stored in the storage unit, the correspondence executed by the user If the treatment conforms to the procedure indicated by the help information and the error disappears, the help information is stored in the storage means. Does not store the help information in the storage means when the corresponding treatment even if the serial error has been eliminated does not comply with the procedure indicated by the help information, a program.

According to the invention as set forth in claim 1 or 3 , the capacity of the storage means for help information in the image forming apparatus is compared with the system which necessarily stores the help information acquired from the management apparatus in the storage device in the image forming apparatus. Can be used effectively.

In addition , even if the countermeasure performed by the user does not conform to the procedure indicated by the help information, the capacity of the storage means can be used more effectively than the method of storing the help information in the storage means.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, even when new help information unknown to the image forming apparatus is acquired from the management apparatus, the image forming apparatus determines whether or not the procedure of the handling procedure represented by the help information is correctly executed. Can be determined.

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating an example of the configuration of an image forming apparatus of an embodiment and a system including the image forming apparatus. FIG. 7 is a diagram showing an example of processing procedures executed by the image forming apparatus 100 and the management apparatus 200 when an error occurs.

  An image forming apparatus according to the present invention and a system for providing help information thereto will be described with reference to FIG.

  The system shown in FIG. 1 includes one or more image forming apparatuses 100, and a management apparatus 200 that can communicate with the image forming apparatuses 100 via the Internet 300.

  The image forming apparatus 100 is a printer, a scanner, a copier, a facsimile machine, or a multifunction machine having one or more of them. In the illustrated example, the image forming apparatus 100 includes a print mechanism 130 for printing and a scan mechanism 140 for optical reading of a document, and by using these mechanisms, printing, scanning, copying, etc. Do the processing. However, this is merely an example, and the method of the present embodiment is applicable to a single-function image forming apparatus such as printing only or scanning only. The image forming apparatus 100 is connected to the Internet 300 via an in-house local area network or a mobile telephone network.

  The management apparatus 200 provides the help information to the image forming apparatus 100. The “provision” of the help information may be provision of a push method actively provided by the management apparatus 200 even without a request from the image forming apparatus 100, an HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) request, etc. Alternatively, the image forming apparatus 100 may provide a pull system in response to a request from the image forming apparatus 100. A method suitable for an environment such as a network in which the image forming apparatus 100 or the like is installed may be used. The help information to be provided includes, for example, explanatory information on various operation methods of the image forming apparatus 100, information for explaining how to cope with various failures (errors), and the like. The management apparatus 200 acquires, from the image forming apparatus 100, management information indicating a use state of the image forming apparatus 100, information on an error generated in the image forming apparatus 100, and the like. Then, in accordance with the acquired information, help information that is likely to be useful to the image forming apparatus 100 is identified, and the identified help information is provided to the image forming apparatus 100.

  Note that information such as management information of the image forming apparatus 100 and error information, which the management apparatus 200 uses to specify the help information to be provided, is common to the information acquired by the server from the image forming apparatus 100 for remote maintenance. There are many things. Therefore, the server performing remote maintenance may also have the function of the management apparatus 200 of the present embodiment that provides the help information.

  The management apparatus 200 and the image forming apparatus 100 will be described in more detail below.

  The management device 200 includes a help DB (database) 210, a periodic notification processing unit 220, an error notification processing unit 230, and a provided help management unit 240.

  The help DB 210 is a database that holds help information. The help DB 210 stores a large number of help information items. Each help information item includes a help ID uniquely identifying the item and a help content which is the content of the help information for the item. The help content is the content of help information corresponding to the topic of the help information item, and is, for example, a description of an operation method for a specific operation of the image forming apparatus 100 or a description of a countermeasure for a specific error. .

  The figure exemplarily shows the configuration of the help information item indicating the error handling method. As illustrated, the help information items for each error include a help ID, an error code indicating the error, a help content including a description of a procedure for coping with the error (action method), and a check program. It is. Here, the check program is a program that describes processing for checking whether the error handling method indicated in the help content has been correctly executed and whether the error has been eliminated by the execution. The check program is provided to the image forming apparatus 100 and executed by the control unit 110 of the image forming apparatus 100. The help information item on the operation method does not include an error code or a check program.

  In addition, the help DB 210 may include table-of-contents information representing a table of contents of the entire help, search index information for searching individual help information items, and the like. Each heading included in the table of contents is linked with a help information item corresponding to the heading, and the help information item can be called up by selecting the heading. Further, by using the search index information, it is also possible to search for help information items corresponding to the keywords inputted by the user. When the management apparatus 200 corresponds to the image forming apparatuses 100 of a plurality of models, the help DB 210 stores, for each model, help index information and a help information item group of the help corresponding to the model.

  The periodic notification processing unit 220 processes the management information of the image forming apparatus 100 periodically notified from the periodic notification unit 112 of the image forming apparatus 100, and is used for the image forming apparatus 100 at the time of the notification. Identify likely help information items.

  In this process, the periodic notification processing unit 220 performs an event such as an error (eg, toner out, paper jam, photosensitivity) which is likely to occur in the near future in the image forming apparatus 100 according to the value of each item of the notified management information. Determine the body drum replacement time). This determination may be performed using a conventional technique that predicts the occurrence of an error in the image forming apparatus or detects a sign of the occurrence of an error. This determination may be performed taking into consideration not only the management information notified at that time, but also the management information notified in the past. Next, the periodic notification processing unit 220 may be useful to the image forming apparatus 100 for the help information item corresponding to each event determined to be highly likely to occur in the near future in the image forming apparatus 100. Identify as high quality help information items. The correspondence relationship between the event and the help information item is registered in advance in a database in the management apparatus 200, and the periodic notification processing unit 220 refers to this database and determines that the possibility of occurrence in the near future is high. Identify the help information item that corresponds to the event. Then, the periodic notification processing unit 220 associates the identified help information item group (for example, the help ID of each help information item) with the identification information of the image forming apparatus 100 (referred to as apparatus ID), and provides the provided help management. Register in section 240.

  Based on the error information notified from the error notification unit 114 of the image forming apparatus 100, the error notification processing unit 230 specifies a help information item indicating a method for coping with the error indicated by the error information. Then, the identified help information item is registered in the provided help management unit 240 in association with the device ID of the image forming apparatus 100.

  The provided help management unit 240 is a functional module that manages the help information item group provided to each image forming apparatus 100. The provided help management unit 240 associates identification information (help ID) of the help information item specified for the image forming apparatus 100 by the periodic notification processing unit 220 or the error notification processing unit 230 with the device ID of the image forming apparatus 100. keeping. Further, when the provided help management unit 240 receives a help acquisition request from the help acquisition unit 116 of the image forming apparatus 100, the help information item corresponding to each help ID held in association with the apparatus ID of the image forming apparatus 100. Are read from the help DB 210. Then, the read help information item group is transmitted to the image forming apparatus 100 as a response to the help acquisition request. The provided help managing unit 240 deletes the device ID of the image forming apparatus 100 and the help ID of the help information item from the provided help managing unit 240 for the help information item transmitted to the image forming apparatus 100.

  Although not shown, the management apparatus 200 has a user interface (UI) function for an operator (human) who responds to an inquiry from a user of the image forming apparatus 100 through a telephone call or a chat. The UI function is provided to the operator via a display device attached to the management apparatus 200 and a computer on a network accessible to the management apparatus 200. The operator answers the inquiry from the user and registers the help information item useful for the inquiry in the provided help management unit 240 in association with the device ID of the image forming apparatus 100 by using the UI function. The registered help information item is transmitted from the provided help management unit 240 to the image forming apparatus 100 when a help acquisition request comes from the image forming apparatus 100.

  Further, the management apparatus 200 may have a function of creating customized index information for each image forming apparatus 100 and providing the corresponding image forming apparatus 100 with the information. As the index information customized for the image forming apparatus 100, for example, the heading of the help information item held in the help cache 120 of the image forming apparatus 100 is arranged at the beginning, and thereafter the help information not in the help cache 120 The table of contents information etc. where the heading of the item was arranged can be considered. For this purpose, for example, the management apparatus 200 may record help information items provided to the image forming apparatus 100 and customize the table of contents information based on the recording. As another example, the image forming apparatus 100 transmits a list of help information items in the help cache 120 to the management apparatus 200 as one item of periodic notification by the periodic notification unit 112, for example, and the management apparatus 200 displays the list. You may create customized TOC information according to.

  In addition, when a function is added to the image forming apparatus 100 by upgrading the version of software for controlling the image forming apparatus 100, a help information item about the function is added to the help DB 210. Then, along with this, the index information and the search index information of the help corresponding to the image forming apparatus 100 are updated to those reflecting the added help information item. When such an update is performed, the updated index information and search index information are registered in the provided help management unit 240 in association with the device ID of each image forming apparatus 100 of the corresponding model. Thereafter, when a help acquisition request comes from the image forming apparatus 100, when the index information etc. is registered in association with the apparatus ID of the image forming apparatus 100, the registered index information etc. Send to

  Next, the image forming apparatus 100 will be described in detail.

  The image forming apparatus 100 includes a control unit 110, a print mechanism 130, and a scan mechanism 140.

  The printing mechanism 130 is a mechanical mechanism for printing an image on a medium by ink or toner. The scanning mechanism 140 is a mechanism that optically reads an original and generates an electrical image signal.

  The control unit 110 is an information processing apparatus that controls the image forming apparatus 100. The control unit 110 has various functions for control of the print mechanism 130 and the scan mechanism 140, UI (user interface) processing using an input / output device such as a touch panel, and the like. It shows functions (periodic notification unit 112 to help UI unit 122) related to management.

  The periodic notification unit 112 periodically notifies the management apparatus 200 of management information of the image forming apparatus 100, such as once a day or once a week. The management information to be notified is information that is used to manage the image forming apparatus 100 and that represents the use state of the image forming apparatus 100 and the like. The management information is a collection of one or more information items representing the use history and current status of the image forming apparatus 100 or consumables (toner cartridges etc.) or replacement parts (photosensitive drums etc.) attached thereto. It is. Management information includes, for example, charging meter information (for example, a counter value representing the number of printed sheets of each item such as black and white or color), information on operation counters for each service, consumables information (remaining amount of toner etc.) Items such as usage frequency information (for example, usage amount of the photosensitive drum), failure history information, operation information of the print mechanism 130, and the like are included. These information items may be the same items as the information periodically notified to the maintenance center by the image forming apparatus 100 for remote maintenance.

  The error notification unit 114 notifies the management apparatus 200 of information (error information) related to an error that has occurred in the image forming apparatus 100. This error information includes, for example, an error code that uniquely identifies the type of error that has occurred. Also, the error information may include more detailed information on the content of the error. The error information that the error notification unit 114 sends to the management apparatus 200 may be similar to the error information that the image forming apparatus 100 notifies the maintenance center for remote maintenance. The notification of the error information from the error notification unit 114 to the management apparatus 200 may be automatically executed when an error occurs, or triggered by the user receiving an instruction to acquire help information for the generated error from the user. It may be executed.

  The help acquisition unit 116 acquires help information from the management device 200. The help acquisition unit 116 has a “normal” mode which is a mode when an error does not occur in the image forming apparatus 100 and an “at error” mode which is a mode when an error occurs.

  In the normal mode, the help acquisition unit 116 acquires the help information item obtained by the management apparatus 200 in response to the periodic notification of the periodic notification unit 112. The help acquisition process in the normal mode is performed, for example, at the same frequency as the notification of the periodic notification unit 112. In one example, the help acquisition unit 116 acquires the help information item from the management apparatus 200 at a timing that is a predetermined time after the timing at which the periodic notification unit 112 periodically notifies. In a specific example, the periodic notification unit 112 is scheduled to notify the management apparatus 200 every weekday at 9 am, and the help acquisition unit 116 manages the management apparatus 200 15 minutes after that, that is, every weekday at 9:15 am Are scheduled to obtain a help information item group by polling the The time difference between the notification of the periodic notification unit 112 and the help acquisition of the help acquisition unit 116 according to the notification is that the management apparatus 200 specifies an appropriate help information item for the image forming apparatus 100 based on periodically notified information. It should be determined in consideration of the time required for

  In the error mode, the help acquisition unit 116 acquires the help information item obtained by the management apparatus 200 in response to the notification of the error information from the error notification unit 114. When an error occurs in the image forming apparatus 100 and the error notification unit 114 notifies the management apparatus 200 of error information in response to this, the help acquisition unit 116 switches from the normal mode to the error mode. When the help information item corresponding to the error is acquired from the management apparatus 200 in the error mode, the mode of the help acquisition unit 116 returns to the normal mode.

  The polling interval of the help information is a long interval (for example, one day) corresponding to the notification interval of the periodic notification unit 112 in the normal mode, while in the error mode, the help information item corresponding to the error information is In order to obtain as fast as possible, the interval is set short, for example, every minute.

  In addition, when the help information item designated to be displayed by the user (or a program for performing UI processing at the time of error, etc.) is not in the help cache 120, the help acquisition unit 116 acquires the help information item from the management device 200. Do.

  The help information acquired by the help acquisition unit 116 from the management apparatus 200 is passed to the cache management unit 118.

  The cache management unit 118 manages the help cache 120. More specifically, the cache managing unit 118 performs a process of storing the help information item acquired by the help acquiring unit 116 in the help cache 120 and a process of deleting the help information item from the help cache 120 in order to expand the free space. In particular, in the present embodiment, the cache management unit 118 determines whether the help information item for coping with errors is worth storing in the help cache 120 and does not store in the help cache 120 those that are not worth storing. Control. That is, when the cache management unit 118 displays the help contents of the help information item of the error handling method, whether the error handling method indicated in the help contents is correctly executed by executing the check program included in the item And whether or not the error has been resolved. And if one of those two items is a negative judgment result (ie, the error handling method was not correctly executed or the error was not resolved), the help information item was not useful. Therefore, it is not stored in the help cache 120. Conversely, if the determination results of the two items are both preferable, the help information item is stored in the help cache 120. By doing this, it is possible to prevent the capacity of the help cache 120 from being used by non-useful information.

  The help cache 120 is a storage unit that stores help information. The help cache 120 stores help information item groups acquired from the management apparatus 200, index information, search index information, and the like. As an example of the information stored in the help cache 120, FIG. 1 exemplifies a help information item group relating to an error handling method. Each help information item includes a help ID, an error code, a help content, and a check program.

  The help UI unit 122 performs UI processing for displaying or printing help information for the user. For example, the help UI unit 122 displays the index information of the help on the screen of the image forming apparatus 100. When the user selects a heading of an item for which the user wants to see detailed information from the displayed table of contents, the help UI unit 122 searches the help cache 120 for a help information item corresponding to the selected heading. If the desired help information item is found in the help cache 120, the help content of the help information item is displayed on the screen. If not found, the help information item is requested from the management apparatus 200, and the help content of the help information item provided in response to the request is displayed on the screen and saved in the help cache 120. The help UI unit 122 may print out the help contents instead of or in addition to displaying the help contents on the screen according to the user's instruction.

  Further, when an error occurs in the image forming apparatus 100, the help UI unit 122 displays a help information item on the error on the screen. If the help information item corresponding to the error code of the error that occurred is in the help cache 120, the help UI unit 122 displays the help information item; otherwise, the help information item corresponding to the error code from the management apparatus 200 Get and display. This display may be automatically performed without the user's confirmation, or may be displayed when the user asks whether the display is necessary or not and the display needs to be answered.

  Next, with reference to FIG. 2, an example of processing procedures executed by the image forming apparatus 100 and the management apparatus 200 when an error occurs will be described.

  In this example, when an error occurs, the help UI unit 122 displays a screen notifying the occurrence of the error on the touch panel of the image forming apparatus 100, and a GUI for instructing acquisition of help information on the error is displayed in the screen. Assume that a graphical user interface) button is included. In this example, when it is detected that the user has pressed this button (S10), the error notification unit 114 notifies the management apparatus 200 of error information on the error (S12). In response to this, the help acquisition unit 116 polls the management apparatus 200 for help information at short time intervals in the error mode (S14).

  On the other hand, in the management apparatus 200 that has received the error information from the image forming apparatus 100 (S30), the error notification processing unit 230 analyzes the error information (S32), and based on the analysis result, the error indicated by the error information The help information item corresponding to is identified (S34). As described above, this analysis and specific processing may be performed using a technique for detecting a sign such as a failure of the image forming apparatus. Then, the error notification processing unit 230 registers the help ID of the identified help information item in the provided help management unit 240 in association with the device ID of the image forming apparatus 100 (S36).

  After the registration, when the help acquisition unit 116 of the image forming apparatus 100 polls the help information (S14), the provided help management unit 240 registers the help information item corresponding to the error. An information item can be acquired (S16). The help UI unit 122 displays the help contents of the help information item acquired by the help acquisition unit 116 on the screen of the image forming apparatus 100 (S18). In addition, the cache management unit 118 monitors the execution status of the error handling operation by the user by executing the check program included in the help information item (S20).

  The check program to be executed includes, for example, (a) a process of determining whether the procedure of the error handling method represented by the help content is correctly executed, and (b) whether the error corresponding to the help content has been eliminated And the process of determining Among them, in the process (a), for example, whether or not an event that occurs when the procedure of the error handling method is executed occurs in the correct order, controls the sensor signal provided in each part of the image forming apparatus 100 and the control unit 110 It may be determined from data of program execution status. With regard to the process (i), a known determination may be made as to whether the error has been eliminated.

  From the result of monitoring in S20, it is determined whether the correct error handling operation as indicated by the help content has been made (S22) and whether the error has been eliminated (S24), and the results of these two determinations are both positive (Yes) If there is, the cache management unit 118 stores the data of the help information item acquired in S16 in the help cache 120 (S26), and proceeds to S28.

  On the other hand, if at least one of the determination results in S22 and S24 is negative (No), the process proceeds to S28 without storing the help information item in the help cache 120. For example, when the error handling work is not performed as indicated in the help information item (S22 is No), even if the error is eliminated, the help information item is not useful, so the help information item is It does not cache. Also, even if the error handling work is performed as indicated in the help information item, it is not cached because the help information item is not useful if the error is not eliminated in the first place.

  At S28, the control unit 110 associates the information of the monitoring results of S20 to S24 with the device ID of the image forming apparatus 100, and sends the information to the management device 200 (S28).

  The management apparatus 200 having received the monitoring result (S38) displays the data of the monitoring result on the screen of the PC operated by the customer service operator (S39). For example, when the result that the error is not resolved although the work is performed according to the help is displayed on the screen, the operator supports the administrator of the image forming apparatus 100 by telephone or the like.

  By this procedure, the help information item of the error handling method stored in the help cache 120 is read from the help cache 120 and displayed on the screen of the image forming apparatus 100 when the same error occurs later. That is, in this case, it is not necessary to acquire the help information item from the management apparatus 200 via the Internet 300.

  In the above example, two determinations are performed, the determination of (a) above (whether the procedure of the error handling method represented by the help content is correctly executed) and the determination of (i) (whether the error has been eliminated). If both determination results are positive, the help information item is stored in the help cache 120, but this is merely an example. For example, the help information item may be stored in the help cache 120 if the result of the determination of (i) is affirmative (the error is eliminated). However, the effectiveness of the help information item can be more appropriately performed by adding the determination of (A).

  Further, in the above example, the image forming apparatus 100 automatically determines the determination of (i) (whether or not the error is eliminated) based on the information of the sensor or the like, but this determination may be entrusted to the user. For example, a screen may be displayed on the display device of the image forming apparatus 100 asking whether the error has been eliminated, and the determination may be performed based on the answer input by the user on the screen.

  The control unit 110 and the management apparatus 200 of the image forming apparatus 100 exemplified above are realized by causing a general-purpose computer to execute a program representing processing of each functional module of the apparatus. Here, the computer is, for example, a hardware such as a microprocessor such as a CPU, a memory (primary storage) such as a random access memory (RAM) and a read only memory (ROM), an HDD controller for controlling an HDD (hard disk drive), For example, various I / O (input / output) interfaces, a network interface that performs control for connection to a network such as a local area network, and the like have a circuit configuration connected via a bus, for example. In addition, portable nonvolatile recording of various standards such as a disk drive for reading and / or writing to a portable disk recording medium such as a CD or a DVD via the I / O interface to the bus, flash memory, etc. A memory reader / writer for reading and / or writing to a medium may be connected. A program in which the processing content of each functional module illustrated above is described is stored in a fixed storage device such as a hard disk drive or the like via a recording medium such as a CD or DVD or via communication means such as a network. Will be installed. The program stored in the fixed storage device is read out to the RAM and executed by a microprocessor such as a CPU, whereby the functional module group exemplified above is realized.

Reference Signs List 100 image forming apparatus 110 control unit 112 periodic notification unit 114 error notification unit 116 help acquisition unit 118 cache management unit 120 help cache 120 help cache 122 help UI unit 130 print mechanism 140 scan mechanism 200 management device 210 Help DB, 220 Regular notification processing unit, 230 Error notification processing unit, 240 Providing help management unit, 300 Internet.

Claims (3)

Storage means for storing help information;
Acquisition means for acquiring help information corresponding to the error from the management device when an error occurs;
After acquiring the help information, when the countermeasure to the error is executed and the error is resolved, the help information is stored in the storage means, and when the error is not resolved, the help information is Control means for performing control not to store in the storage means;
On demand, and providing means for providing the help information stored in the storage means,
I have a,
The control means stores the help information in the storage means when the action taken by the user conforms to the procedure indicated by the help information and the error is resolved, but the error is eliminated. Even in this case, the image forming apparatus does not store the help information in the storage unit if the countermeasure does not conform to the procedure indicated by the help information . In the help information corresponding to the error acquired from the management apparatus, processing for determining whether the procedure indicated by the help information has been correctly executed is performed based on information from a sensor provided in the image forming apparatus. Contains a program to be executed by the control means,
The image forming apparatus according to claim 1 , Computer,
Storage means for storing help information,
Acquisition means for acquiring help information corresponding to the error from the management device when an error occurs;
After acquiring the help information, when the countermeasure to the error is executed and the error is resolved, the help information is stored in the storage means, and when the error is not resolved, the help information is Control means for performing control not to store in the storage means,
In response to the request, providing means for providing the help information stored in the storage means,
A program for functioning as,
The control means stores the help information in the storage means when the action taken by the user conforms to the procedure indicated by the help information and the error is resolved, but the error is eliminated. Even in the program, the help information is not stored in the storage means when the countermeasure does not conform to the procedure indicated by the help information .

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