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....

 

[Guest_imported]

Hi,

I am also on at a site running novell and Mcafee and we have the same problem...

Win9x
Novell 3.3 to 3.1 + sp client
Groupwise 5 + sp
Virus Scan V.4.51 SP1

Just had a look on the Novell web site (5th time lucky)...

New article from the 4Jan2002.. suggest that it could be NDPS (completly remove it?) or try changing the default protocol of the PC from IPX to IP or IP to IPX...

 

[dstuben]

My site has a pair of Win98 clients printing to an HPLJ4 and Samsung ML-6060. HP shared from an NT4.0 box and the Samsung on a Win98. No Novell at all. Only these two Win98 clients are having the problem.

Printing to either printer often freezes the printing app, thus making printers disappear. Like others in this thread, a reboot is necessary to get them back. We also suffered the Nimda a while back, but frankly, the problem didn't start until more recently, when we added the Samsung to replace an HPLJ4P.

I'm just starting to troubleshoot, but have already noticed that certain changes to spooling options drastically affect error rate.

 

[Guest_imported]

Final solution to this problem:

Look at December 22nd on the following thread...

http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,,0x62a2e7e60861d511abcd0090277a778c,00.html

On Win98, replace SPOOLSS.DLL from WinME version. Don't use on WIN95.

Murph

 

[Guest_imported]

SPOOL32 ERROR RESOLUTION !!

SPOOL32 ERROR RESOLUTION !! !!

I resolved this problem with older laser printers by adjusting the amount of memory in the driver properties to correspond with the amount of memory installed in the laser printer.

Here’s How:

1.) Print a test page on the laser printer you are working with

2.) Look at that test page for the amount of memory installed

3.) Adjust your printer driver accordingly. If this is a network setup, you will need to do this on all networked machines individually that print to that printer.


Back in the old days when laser printers were expensive and memory upgrades were also expensive, they didn’t come with much built in memory. As you know, a laser must build the image in memory before it’s printed and for many large companies this standard amount wasn’t enough so they would upgrade to 5-10Meg or so. The printer driver is usually set to the default to the standard amount supplied by the vendor (this is usually 1 – 2 meg)

As time goes on computers were replaced but the laser printers weren’t…the drivers also default to that standard amount of built-in memory. If the driver is thinking it only has 1 Meg of ram to work with – that’s just not enough for most documents today, especially if graphics are involved.

Back in the Windows 3.1 days you’ll remember receiving the “Out of Memory” messages…now days it’s Spool32.

Glad to help… don’t miss my virus removal help pages at

http://www.antivirusebook.com/database/tek-tipscom

they’ll save you time and headaches dealing with them.

Steve

 

[thomman]

Well! I am back to see the status of my post and find that everybody keep talking about the problem saying "I have faced this problem...........I have this with NT......" rather than talking about the solution. I think Jovah is shedding some light in the right direction. I will check this out and see if the problem reoccurs.

It is very strange, but we kept track of users who were facing this problem and found out that, only when certain users login to Novell, this problem occurs on the said machines, whereas for some others it never happens.

 

[Guest_imported]

I had this problem on a win98SE environment. Strangely it happened right of soon after I installed a smc Barricade router with built-in print server. Originally, the printer ( xerox workcentre 385) was attached to one computer's parallel port and it was shared throughout the home network. Obviously, it had "file and print sharing enabled". That was the only thing that had changed substantially and so I disabled " I want to be able to allow others to print to my printers" and that was the magic thing for me the print sharing service will not load and the spooler will not crash, does it makes sense?
Walter.

 

[Guest_imported]

Has anyone noticed this problem happening on a network with many shared printers. Mostly, HP's, but with one Brother.. and a reference to a bi-di.386 file?

 

[Jovah]

kejkej,
It sounds like disabling "bi-directional printing" might eliminate that particular reference; as for the problem at large, I had fantastic success by manipulating the exclusion list w/in our antivirus program (check the link to HP above, posted by smitee on Nov. 26th) I think the Win98 spooler is just kinda sensitive (to be kind.) Good luck!

 

[rbirt]

I am haveing the same problem only on an NT 4.0 domain. But it is only happening on one server, our DB server, which has network printers installed useing HP Jetdirect, all printers are HP's. The printers vanish and on rebooting the server they reapear. This problem has been occurring for about two month's and getting worse. Please help I am at a lose right now.

 

[rbirt]

I am haveing the same problem only on an NT 4.0 domain. But it is only happening on one server, our DB server, which has network printers installed useing HP Jetdirect, all printers are HP's. The printers vanish and on rebooting the server they reapear. This problem has been occurring for about two month's and getting worse. Please help I am at a lose right now. We also were hit by NIMDA.

 

[Jovah]

rbirt, what sort of antivirus software are you running on that server? Try excluding all print-related files, folders, and *.dlls from being scanned by the antivirus program. If that doesn't fix it, you can go to the HP site, they have a similar message board that discusses this issue in more detail:

http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,,0x62a2e7e60861d511abcd0090277a778c,00.html

Post back to let us know what you try (have tried) and what the results are....good luck.

 

[rbirt]

I am running norton antivirus, and I am also running a virus scan useing Veritas Backup Exec 8.5, prior to doing any backups on this server. The only thing that I don't understand is that my other print server has never lost any printers, just this one server. They are both running the same version of anti-virus software as well as the backup software. But I will try exempting these *.dll files for printing. I will definately let everyone know how it goes. ThanksB-)

 

[Jovah]

I've heard from a few sources that running multiple virus scans simultaneously can cause problems; if all else fails, that could be a factor. Make sure you do the exclusion thing in Veritas as well (if it's an option.)

 

[TH555]

We have several users that have also had a problem similar to this. The user will try to print and get a Spool32 error and the system locks. We are running Windows 98SE with a Novell server (Netware 5, Client 3.X). We also have users that are printing locally with this problem. And today a user who is not on a Novell network call with the problem.

I have tried every angle I can think of. I looked on Microsoft's web site with no real answer. Then I looked on Novell's site (search for spool32) and got an answer that seems to work (at least the systems don't crash anymore).

Try diabling the spooler for the print drivers (on the properties of the print driver, under details, select "Print directly to printer&quot. This may not answer WHY this is happening, but the systems work, at least.

This has been a recent occurance for us, within the last month or so. I don't recall any network or configuration changes.

I hope this helps.


Todd :>


Todd Hutchins
Microcomputer Specialist II
El Dorado County Office of Education

 

[Jovah]

Yes, disabling the spooler will eliminate the problem. However, that solution isn't optimal (your computer does nothing else while it prints - ok for 1 page, bad for many.)
I know I'm a broken record on this, but seriously: check the exclusions for all files and folders related to the spooler. The HP website has some good insights into this (thanks smitee):

http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,,0x62a2e7e60861d511abcd0090277a778c,00.html

And if that fails ya, try swapping out the spoolSS.dll from Win98 w/ the one from WinME (thanks to MurphyHelper):

http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,,0x62a2e7e60861d511abcd0090277a778c,00.html

I've got a friend who tried EVERY single suggestion from this posting w/ no luck, only to try the WinME .dll thing w/ 100% success. There's probably no one answer for everyone
but if you try all the suggestions listed above, you might get lucky.

 

[rbirt]

I excluded all printer associated *.dll's and folder as discribed about, and it has worked so far. I will let everyone know if I have anymore problems. Thanks to everyone for their input and support.s-)

 

[tracyw]

We HAD this problem, but we very rarely do now.
Copy from the C:\windows\system directory, the file called spool32.exe and paste a copy of it, not a shortcut, into the startup folder.
To get to startup folder:
(Right click on the start button, click open, then double click the programs folder, then double click the startup folder)

Reboot the pc. This has worked for 90% of our users with this problem.
Most have win98 and printers are HP.

Try it.
Good Luck.

Tracy W.

 

[fedto]

We had the problem where I used to work just over a year ago. Win 98 (both) would have an illegal op in spooler32 when the users went to print. We noticed that the printer folder was empty before we went to pring.
NT 4.0 sp6 domain with NT 4.0 print servers running Mcafee VS 4.5
The fix that was implimented by network ops was to set the print server to NOT scan the related spool.*** files as well as on the clinet machines. It was a pain for us on the helpdesk. Telling people to reboot before printing was not going over well.

 

[mjkr]

PROBLEM: printers disappear from win98 & win2k clients.
FIX: reboot client machine. PITA (PAIN IN THE A$$!)
SPECS:
NT4.0/WIN2K Network; 100 clients.
Our print server = win2k server.
Standalone print server.
Netshield (Mcafee) 4.5.1 running on it.
PLEASE HELP! Don't want to reboot as fix - such an incovenience to users
TKS!!!

 

[rbirt]

Try to exclude all files and folders and *.dll's associated with printing from being scanned by your antivirus. I did this almost two month's ago and haven't had any problems since.