Print spooler crash, how to find reason ?

[pontusn]

This morning I had a printer spooler crashing on a citrix server, causing the whole server to perform really badly until I restarted it.

The system log said:
Application popup: spoolsv.exe - Application Error : The instruction at "0x77e87e4d" referenced memory at "0x005c0054". The memory could not be "read".

Is this most likely due to dodgy print drivers or maybe because we are not frequently rebooting the server ?
Any ideas ?

Thanks

 

[polymath5]

It's Citrix's recommendation that Terminal Servers be rebooted daily. Not doing it can cause problems, similar to not rebooting workstations.

If you haven't recently installed any new printers that coinside with the start of your error, I would start with doing daily reboots and see if the problems abate.

 

[CitrixEngineer]

Just to expand a little on what polmath5 is saying, imagine a Windows 9x PC that had been left on and in constant use for 50 days.

It is, of course, a very unlikely scenario. It would probably crash after a day or two.

Now imagine a single NT server with 50 users logging in simultaneously. It's essentially the same thing, because all 50 users are running applications, using resources etc.

That's why Terminal Servers should be rebooted regularly - and what makes them so different to other servers, like DCs, proxies or file servers.

I hope this helps