CANNOT PRINT TO SHARED PRINTER

[Kiriray]

hi,
we have a user who lost the capability to print to a shared printer. The network configuratio is a peer-to-peer network. This user is the only one who prints to a shared printer, everyone else has his/her own printer.
He was able to print to the printer called "HP" until a couple of days ago. Now when he tries to print, it looks like it's printing but nothing would come out of the printer. It prints locally, though. We also tried adding another shared printer but that would not print either. We've tried removing and reinstalling the printer, shutdown and restart all involved systems (computers and printers) but nothing works. We've also tried reinstalling the drivers. It's what could be the cause of this?
They're all using Windows 98.

thanks!

 

[mainegeek]

Is the print sharing enabled on the host? Is the printer set to default on the client?

 

[Kiriray]

YES. The setup was working perfectly until about a couple of days ago when it stopped producing prints.

 

[mainegeek]

Check printer setup to see what it is set to print to
ie: file, lpt1....etc..

 

[cdogg]

Try capturing the printer to a different printer port - LPT4 for example on the user's pc.
~cdogg

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
- A. Einstein

 

[Kiriray]

we've tried capturing, checked other settings, tried changing file formats (EMF, RAW)... nothing.

thanks.

 

[mainegeek]

Under printers is it still showing the "out reached hand"
icon on the printer icon?

 

[Kiriray]

printer is still shared-- it still has the hand. we can browse for it thru' network 'hood.

 

[cdogg]

So, you tried capturing the path (\\computername\sharedprintername) to another LPT port?

- where computername is the name of the Win98 pc that's sharing the printer, and sharedprintername is the name of the printer as it appears in Net 'hood
~cdogg

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
- A. Einstein

 

[Kiriray]

yup, tried that too, cdogg...
it acts like it prints -- we would see the printer icon show up but no document would show in the queue.
and nothing would print. but we're not getting any error message either so it's really hard to diagnose.

 

[isons]

Dear Kiriray ,

Tell me what exactly you want to print and what software you are using i.e. MSOFFICE, Photoshop or what.

isons

 

[Kiriray]

isons,
it would not print anything. even if we just send a test print, nothing would come out...

hmmm...???

 

[rthrashe]

When you send a print job, does anything show in the print
queue?

 

[cdogg]

rthrashe,

FYI...Kiriray said in one of the last posts that "we would see the printer icon show up but no document would show in the queue"
~cdogg

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
- A. Einstein

 

[hchman]

Are you spooling the job or going directly to the printer?

 

[Kiriray]

tried all settings --
print directly to printer
spool
-- last page
-- start immediately
and still nothing. we're wondering maybe we should just reinstall windows... ?

 

[cdogg]

Are there at least 3 pc's on this peer-2-peer network? You mentioned they all have Win98. Can you try adding one of the shared printers to a different pc (one that already has a local printer). Does the print job make it to the shared printer from there?

Also, if you right-click the printer, make sure "Use Printer Offline" is not checked...
~cdogg

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
- A. Einstein