Printers Disappearing from the Printers Folder... 1

[thomman]

We are working under novell netware 4.2 with workstations running win95/98 OS. We have enabled file & printer sharing on all the computers. suddenly when we try to print to a network printer the printers folder doesnot come up and the application from which we try to print freezes. when we go to the printers folder and check the printers all the printers are found to be missing.

In fact i was able to print around 5 minutes back and then suddenly i am not able to. This happens very eratically and i cannot predict when this is happenning or what is causing this peculiar problem.

Pls. advice asap....

 

[theripper]

thomman -

Had the same thing a while back. Since the problem would happen only 1/2 the time, it was hard to tell if a "setting change" actually fixed any of the visible issues.

Ended up completly deleting the PrintQ, PrintServer & object in NDS. Started from scratch and rebuilt them all.

I wish I would have done that from the start. It would have saved me hours of trouble-shooting NIC's, Drivers, timeoutsettings, HUB/Switch configs, CSMA-CD/CA connection issues, etc. . . .

Good Luck ~

 

[MikeT]

The same thing is happening to me, but we use NT4 servers.
I uninstalled and reinstalled the printers, but this problem always comes back eventually.

Any Ideas?

 

[AMacdonald]

Do you run McAfee Virusscan 4.5.1? We are having identical problems since we upgraded to 4.5.1.No fix yet, I'm afraid.

 

[Jovah]

Ah yes, my friends, you are not alone! We have a mix of NT4/Win2k servers and also have intermittant printer disappearances EXACTLY as described by Thomman. I've tried all of the above w/ little success...when we reboot, everything's back to normal....until the next time.

Up until last week we were running McAfee VirusScan v4.0.2 but just switched to Norton AntiVirus Corp Ed. v 7.51; I've been told that the wrong NIC drivers might cause this but switching them didn't work for us...next step is trying known good NICs, see if that helps.

Somebody please help us!

 

[dragon99]

come on all the clever people what is the solution for this problems it is driving me crazy i dont think this is a mcafe problems i run fsecure

 

[dragon99]

dont think it is the virus program im running fprot

 

[Jovah]

Dragon99,

I've been pondering this quite a bit.....question: is your print server an independent server or is it also a file server? Also, are all your printers installed on one server or multiple? I'm trying to determine if it's a network problem (i.e., reinstalling the os/hardware/print drivers on the workstations wouldn't work, which it hasn't) or if the individual machines have a glitch of some type...it only affects Win98 machines thus far. Since it happens infrequently, troubleshooting it has been especially difficult....can you (or anyone else w/ this problem but no answer) give me detailed info on the setup you've got? There has to be something common to these situations....

 

[MikeT]

Our print server also acts as a file server and internet server (small office). It does seem to only affect 98 machines. Our users do not run McAfee. It seems to happen most when an important system file (user.exe, rundll32, explorer.dll) crashes, but not always.

 

[dragon99]

we are not using a print server just normal print sharing on the pc,s this site has two pc,s .what is strange that the local lpt disappears and the network printing also. all that is left is the add printer icon ,after a reboot everything ia back to normal

 

[Jovah]

The lpt port disappearing really complicates things; a network issue/NIC problem shouldn't cause that. And of course, a reboot brings it all back. I took one of our affected workstations and formatted it, reinstalled all software, service packs, and drivers yet the same problem still returns. Short of reassembling the network entirely from the ground up.....there has to be another solution. I'm going to contact Microsoft, HP, and Compaq to see if they might have any ideas.....

 

[goway]

What type of printers are you using?? Some printers will cause this problem - they don't share well over a network - with win95.98 or ME.

 

[dragon99]

nothing to do with the printer using a mix of hp and oki printers

 

[Jovah]

I don't think it's the printers here either...we use a mix of HP products, notably laserjet 5s, 4050s, a 4100, a 4500c....strangely, only some of our Win98 users are affected, not all.

 

[dragon99]

isnt this perhaps a spool error

 

[jlfiller]

I think there are too many other variables for this to be anything but a Microsoft Windows problem.

I have experienced this problem too -- on about 5 of our 800 desktops. We use Norton Antivirus r4, mostly. Usually HP printers, printing through WinNT 4.0 servers (more often) or sometimes Netware 4.11 (only one problem). Sometimes, the user will get a spool32 error and sometimes, the application just returns a general printer error. I can't find anything unique about the workstations experiencing this problem versus ones which don't experience it.

When the workstation reboots, the printers always come back and everything is fine for a while (sometimes even weeks!). Sigh.....

I have spent some time looking through Microsoft's site, but found nothing useful. JL Filler,Wilton Public Schools, Wilton CT

 

[Jovah]

The fact that this VERY specific problem affects only one operating system (Win98se) sporadically while other OS on the same network are unaffected indicates that yeah, it's a Microsoft thing. Nothing else is common to all but that - maybe HP is a factor, but my money's on Microsoft. Time to upgrade!

 

[Florchita]

We have the same problem, with NT Server (one Print server) and clients W95.
We have McAfee VS, but this happened with versions 4.0.2, 4.5.0 and 4.5.1; and all our printers are HP.
When users calls for this problem, the only thing I have to do is tell them to reset their pcs.
Is there any technical solution for this issue?

 

[CWBarton]

I work for a Law Firm (Senior Technical Support, MCSE) with about 400 users. Mixed NT40/Novell, multiple print servers, WAN over 14 locations. We are using McAfee 4.5.0 (mostly), and Win98se OS. This problem has just recently started happening (within the last 2 or 3 months). We are running the Microsoft NDS client, we have various model printers, but all HP. The problem seems to follow an illegal operation error but not specific to one. It seems to happen more often after an illegal operation concerning a Web link, Web operation or interaction with the Web or IE. We are using a mix of IE 5.0/5.5&6.0 We were able to duplicate it once when following a link to a Word Perfect document shared on our Intranet.

We are also fighting the Hanging at Shutdown problem if anyone has any insite there. (Tried all the suggestions found on the Microsoft Web site - except for upgrading to XP, which is their suggested fix.) ;-)

 

[Jovah]

CWBarton,

If you haven't already, goto the McAfee site for info on the shutdown issue; they may have some insight for you. We use Symantec's Norton Utilities which are famous for Win98 shutdown problems; they have detailed info on the problem at their site. If you can, try disabling the scan-floppy-on-shutdown feature in McAfee. Have you tried all three Microsoft Win98 shutdown patches?