Printer Spooler Service Appears to Stop Working

[LloydGill]

Hello,

I hope you can help me out with something:

From time to time, one of our Farm servers will stop printing. It just stops. The server needs restarting to get back to normal. The other servers in the farm carry on printing OK.

Here's the setup:
- 3 Servers in farm.
- All printers are auto-created using the default printer only
- Proper drivers are used, not UPD
- Mostly HP LJ4200, 2420, 2300 and some other HP's

What could cause this?

Thanks,

Lloyd

 

[ascotta]

Can you not restart the spooler ? Some print drivers can do this, have you any client printers?

When you restart the spooler, does it restart? If it doesnt clear the spooler directory and restart, that should do it. Saves you re-booting.

[blue]Arguably the best cat skinner around ! [/blue]

Cheers
Scott

 

[LloydGill]

Scott, thanks for the reply.

I have had instances where the spooler will not restart. Even if it does restart, the printers still do not work. I will try clearing the spooler directory next time.

Thing is, I could really do with it not stopping. Is there any way I can find out which drivers might be the problem?

It only seemed to happen on one of the servers, although today it appears to have happened on another (I was going to do a full re-install on the one problem server - would that fix it?)

I have 40 sites, 2 clients at each, usually one printer autocreated on each.

Thanks, Lloyd

 

[ascotta]

I'd be looking at who was the last to either print or connect. Then seeing what printer driver is being used. It could even be a print job too complicated for that printer to handle that will do this.

Clearing the spooler will at least get you back up and running. I doubt a rebuild will fix this.

[blue]Arguably the best cat skinner around ! [/blue]

Cheers
Scott

 

[LloydGill]

Scott,

where is the spooler directory? And do you clear everything that is in it?

Lloyd

 

[ascotta]

erm...

c:\Windows\system32\spool\printers or c:\winnt\system32\spool\printers you can delete anything with .spl and .shd.

[blue]Arguably the best cat skinner around ! [/blue]

Cheers
Scott

 

[edlcsre]

Hi lloyd,

Agree with Scott completely about clearing the spooler directory before trying to re-start the service (i've had machines where you can't start the service unless this is empty, can't remember if this is a hard and fast rule for all servers but i'd certainly always clear the spool directory before restarting the spooler)

Another possible line of enquiry for you could be to see if a new printer/printer driver has recently been installed on the server. I had this issue last week whereby someone had installed a new printer and printing would just stop as soon as anyone tried to print to that particular printer.

You can take steps to try and prevent this happening in future by checking the Farm settings to only allow specific printer drivers to be used (ideally one's you've been able to test, and are certified for Terminal Server environments) Use of the Citrix universal printer driver where the driver is not on the list will mean most people can still print. It means when John attaches his Canon Bubblejet to his laptop and makes a Citrix connection, you don't suddenly find this driver appearing on the server and causing you no end of grief!

One other thing I'd mention is that I've found some serious issues with Lexmark printer drivers in the past...you said mostly HP printers, are ALL of them HP or could someone have connected something different to their machine?

I think the general principle with printer drivers is trust NOTHING until you've tested it thoroughly yourself. Once you have, install that driver. People with that printer can use the driver, people with different (untested) printers use the UPD, and thats it. Means you've got some level of control, and if anyone requests a new printer you get to test it first.

Its not so bad with Citrix XP, but nothing on 1.8 used to blue screen servers quite like printer drivers!

Sorry, realise the last bit doesn't help specifically with your spooler problem, but maintaining tight controls can help to prevent this happening again too often.

cheers,

Chris

 

[LloydGill]

Scott, Chris,

thanks for all the info.

I think I have the printer drivers tied down pretty well - Citrix will only create the default printer and then only if the driver is installed on the server. I don't use the UPD at all (I found it very slow). I wonder if the problem is the quantity? There will be 20 different printers autocreated (using only 2 or three drivers) per server. Then, lots of printer activity in a short space of time to all printers. What do you think?

Also, would server memory or Virtual Memory usage cause issues? We have 2Gb in each server.
And finally, there is a lexmark printer driver on there. It serves one printer out there in the field. I may get it changed.

Plus, (sorry), I just use the drivers that are supplied from the manufacturers website. eg: HP LJ4200n - I use the PCL 6 driver off the website. Is this good practice?

Many many thanks, I feel I may be getting somewhere.

Lloyd

 

[BadFrog]

Just a shot in the dark here.... Could it be that someone is sending a postscript job to the printer causing it to hang and then stopping the spooler service?