NDPS - printing seems very slow from web browsers

[michigan]

Just setup my first NDPS printing enviornment. We are running Netware 6.6 sbe. All printers have latest firmware upgrades and drivers loaded. All printers have static IPs outside DHCP scope.

When attempting to print web pages, it seems to take over 30 seconds from time of click to display the area where you can select your printer (File --> Print) - if you hit the print icon, it takes the same amount of time. Even web pages that have the "Print this page" button takes same amount of time.

- This is true w/both Firefox 1.5x and IE 6.x - on various XP PCs. Other applications (Word, Excel) seem to see the printers and start printing immediately.

Looking into RM at NDPS health everything appears good with no errors. Is there something I may be over looking? Has anyone else seen this before. Thanks everyone.

 

[terry712]

are you using novell gateway?

 

[yvfwc]

You might look at this Tid:

http://support.novell.com/cgi-bin/search/searchtid.cgi?10073623.htm

Althought it doesn't specifically mention it, we had the same basic problem and the above tid fixed it. After making the change to the shorter name, we did have to reinstall the printers affected.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,
Mark ;-)

 

[michigan]

terry - I'm not sure. How can I tell?

Mark - that was a great find TID. I'm going to try that (it just so happens me trying to be "Mr. Descriptive" may have bit me in the arse. My names are pretty darn long)

Thanks again. I apprecaite it and will let you know.

 

[terry712]

when you create the printers do you use the novell handler

quick way is on the server - the manager will tell you

also if you dont have any other gatways loaded - ie hpgate

 

[michigan]

Thanks for clarifying terry.
I created each from iManager (broker, printmanger and printers) also updated/uploaded each driver from this interface too. I also do not have any other gateways loaded at this time.

Mark - I haven't tried that rename yet this morning, but you know another thing I found (not confirmed but found) is that if you add an entry to your local HOST file, that may speed up each w/no DNS lookup required.

Thanks again.

 

[michigan]

Update - no resolve yet. Things are still slow, however I've started narrowing it down.

After initial Login, NDPS crawls
At first I thought it was w/web browsers only. Now, I've tested w/various PCs and it appears to occur mainly after you log into the network. No matter if you bring up a browser and try to print, MS Word, etc... it will take at least 30 seconds. Sometimes up to a minute or more.

Renamed Printers w/short names
As Mark's suggested TID highlighted, I attempted to rename my printer smaller-4 letters. Same results.

Hosts file entry
Added an entry in the my HOST file. Still slow.

I'm thinking it may be something w/my DNS servers. I grab my DNS servers from my DHCP server. Is it possible it's trying to look to the outside world to resolve my printers location? It definitely appears to be looking somewhere.

Once my staff end up printing - all printers continue to appear as options, and printing seems to operate at normal speed.

Any further ideas would be really great at this time. Thanks all.

 

[yvfwc]

Did you change the "ShortInstallName = " setting in:
\apache2\htdocs\ippdocs\iprint.ini
to something other than "Default"? That was the key in my case, the printer name itself did not make a difference in my case.

If that is what you tried then you could have a DNS or other problem.

Cheers,
Mark ;-)

 

[michigan]

Mark - thanks for the fast reply. I didn't change that setting. I opened that file and it still shows "DEFAULT."

Currently, my NDPS names show UNC:
\\TREE-NNEE\GRRM.NewTown.NNEE
\\TREE-NNEE\SalesHP4100.NewTown.NNEE

Can you all tell me if yours look similar? Again, looking through the broker and manager settings, everything looks correct w/no errors.

Thanks again.

 

[marvhuffaker]

This is more of a general statement not specifically related to Printing.. If you are having slowness issues on your network, a lot of times it is because the workstation has to try one method to resolve a name, wait for it to time out, then try another. The common sense rule of thumb is to eliminate as many unecessary factors as possible. Also make sure that everythign that DOES resolve network names is setup correctly. This would include DNS and SLP. If you don't need IPX, get rid of it. You shouldn't need IPX in todays world.

I also had a client a while back that reported similar problems. Still don't know why, but they had a defective router that was causing probs. Got that fixed and things worked much better. Maybe it was sending them in a routing loop or something. idunno.



Marvin Huffaker, MCNE

http://www.redjuju.com

 

[michigan]

Marvin - thanks for the reply. Yeah, I've pretty much ruled out our switch & router. I'm thinking DNS and SLP (both provided by our DHCP server which happens to reside on one of my older servers) at this point. For all PCs, it's IP only with the option checked to remove IPX if present.