Problematic print functionality

[picklespeach]

Server info: Windows 2003 Build 3790
Citrix info: Metaframe XP 1.00 Build 1467 SP3/FR3
Client info: Windows 2000 and Windows XP
Printer info: various HP, Lexmark and Dells all on wide area network

Printing via Citrix is the bane of my existence. Everything will be merrily chugging along for 3-4 days and then all of a sudden my users start calling up saying nothing will print. Sometimes it will be isolated to one physical location only (I have 5 different sites on the WAN), sometimes it will be all locations. Sometimes it will be only one or two PCs at a particular location. The symptoms are always the same....

1. the application appears to print, but doesn't
2. the printer has been auto-created on the server and no documents are showing in the print que
3. the eventlog will be filled with eventID 1107 errors

When I'm lucky I can simply stop and restart the print spooler and that resolves the problem. However, most of the time I end up having to reboot the Citrix server. I'm at my wits end. I have no training whatsoever with Citrix admin, so I don't really have the knowledge or experience to troubleshoot this. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

(BTW, I've read all the related threads on here that I could find with no resolution still to my problem.)

 

[ascotta]

Here is a probable workaround.

Stop spooler
delete everything in system32/spool/printers directory. Bu hold fire on that till I check in the morning.

This sounds like users not allowing prints to finnish before logging off. THe printer will not auto delete as it should and what you end up with is an orphaned printer. It looks like it is there but the user is actually not connected to it.



[blue] Oh you know, just doing what I do.[/blue]

Cheers
Scott

 

[ascotta]

One way to really tell is to log the user off and see if the printer still exisits, it it does delete it and then get the user to log back on, it should work again.

[blue] Oh you know, just doing what I do.[/blue]

Cheers
Scott

 

[bmclean2]

You may also have some printer driver problems. Are the auto-created printers using the Universal Print Driver (UPD)? Some vendor drivers also cause printing problems in Citrix. There is a lot of good information on printing at this site:

http://www.dabcc.com/DABCC/WebAppli...VCENN1NFB1av7R3wJ6xbp1OR5/CEIifxRyjsZrOKOS1tf

Let me know if that helps you out...

Brian
-Always Learning...

 

[sonic02]

Not sure if this will help or not, but my company was having similar probelms and found the solution in a third party peice of software. Check out tricerat software and their product Screwdrivers 4.0. It fixed all of my problems.

Best of luck

 

[picklespeach]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. I am still troubleshooting the latest fiasco. ascotta and bmclean2, your ideas were helpful, but unfortunately have not resolved the issue. sonic02, interesting software. I'll have my network admin check it out.

I'll update here if I ever actually get this problem resolved.