Spooler service stops on WF 1.8 SP6

[thomaskrag]

Up to 1 or 2 times per hour the spooler-service stops.<br>No errors logged anywhere. Any solutions?<br>

 

[Guest_imported]

We are on SP5/MetaFrame 1.8.&nbsp;&nbsp;A few weeks ago we had to reload everything due to corrupt system files.&nbsp;&nbsp;All was well for a week or so but now spooler stops occassionally.&nbsp;&nbsp;Can go a couple of days without problems, then sometimes twice in one day the spooler stops.&nbsp;&nbsp;Restart it and everything runs ok.&nbsp;&nbsp;We don't get any hits in system or app event log.&nbsp;&nbsp;I have looked all over Citrix, MS, and Thinplanet and found nothing that references this problem. <br>Have you had any responses or found a fix?&nbsp;&nbsp;Thanks.

 

[thomaskrag]

I found this on ntfaq.com, and have been using it for 14 days now, without problems, but still hope to find the real solution.<br>If you are using HP4000 printers I know there is a driverupdate solving a memoryleak-problem. I haven't used this.<br><br>Use a batch file, for example (we use the SC.EXE and SLEEP.EXE resource kit utilities):<br><br>:start<br>sc query spooler &gt; state.txt<br>find &quot;STOPPED&quot; state.txt<br>if %errorlevel% EQU 0 goto error<br>sleep 300<br>goto start<br><br>:error<br>sc start spooler<br>sleep 5<br>goto start<br><br>You could add a server name, e.g. sc \\server query etc. if you want to check a remote system. Basically the above checks every 5 minutes but you can change and check multiple services if you like.<br><br>

 

[masai]

Microsoft says that the

 

[masai]

Microsoft says that the &quot;Spooler Service may leak private bytes as well as handles attempting to close a remote printer. If the remote procedure call (RPC) request to close a remote printer fails, the spooler service may leak an RPC binding handle, spooler handle, and a printer handle.&quot; As the RPC (Remote Procedure Call) protocol is handled by the SERVICES.EXE (and SPOOLSS.EXE service is one thread activated by SERVICES.EXE) and most of printers are LPR ports, there is a big possibility that some disconnections are causing the SPOOLSS.EXE service to hung, stopping it.
1. Check if you have logs on RPC errors
2. If you use home directory mappings. you probably have already lots of RPC trheads. Using the server to spool printing jobs loads it even more
3. A good solution is Having a Domain controller (not the Metaframe server) that handles logon, printing and home directories. The printers could be loaded to the users through logon script. No more spooling in the metaframe servers. Remember that NT 4.0 is not a &quot;Native&quot; multiuser OS and it offers several limitations for the environment, even on Terminal server edition.