Wierd printing problem in Terminal Server

[bleblond]

Hello,

I have a Win 2000 server with terminal server installed. I have users that access this server from various different locations, including some out of state. Everything works fine except one printing problem. All users have local printers setup (on the lpt1 port) and when they log into terminal server, their local default printer becomes their default printer in TS.

This is where the problem happens. Those users are able to print test pages and smaller documents, but larger documents start to queue then error out. The error message is not specific as to why the print job errors out. I have tried adjusting settings on the printer like no spooling and such, but to no avail. I have tried many different solutions to fix this and I am now stumped. Any ideas on this annoying problem.

 

[tracihill]

Sounds like they users don't have enough bandwidth available for the larger print jobs.

 

[aco636]

If clients are not Win2K are the drivers for these machines available on the TS server? I.E. as if you were installing a shared printer on a 2K server and also installing older os drivers for the share.
Regards ACO

 

[bleblond]

The clients are Windows XP. I am sure the drivers are fine. I am starting to wonder about the printers themselves. Is it possible for printers to not be compatible with TS. The printers in question are Brother 1140. Any help is much appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[bguerra904]

Have you checked the disk space.

 

[bleblond]

I checked disk space, no problems there. Just to clarify, I have the printer setup through the LPT1 port. The user opens TS, the printer is carried over to TS, then the user tries printing a document and it errors out. I have spent many hours with this user configuring different settings, but to no avail. I am able to print a test page, but that is about it. Any more ideas?

 

[aco636]

What Win2K Service Pack and Citrix FR, I beleive tbere is a problem with SP4 and FR3, there are some hot fixes available. Take a look at some of the threads in "Citrix Solutions" this site. I am runing FR2 and used to have problems with the spooler hanging with SP2 but since SP3 things seem to be OK for me

 

[Donkey1]

We had endless problems with TS and printing for our remote users. Same sort of problem, small jobs - fine, big jobs - no chance! I spent weeks on it trying all different ways to configure the printing, all to no avail. In the end we switched to a product called ThinPrint which is a client-server product which does not reply on the print drivers being installed on the TS.

Since we made the switch we have had no printing problems. Try downloading a trial version of it off their site and see if it works for you.

Andy.

 

[bleblond]

Thank you Andy, I will give that a try. I'm glad to see that I am not the only one with this problem.

Brian

 

[AV0]

I ran into a similar problem as this on a 2003 Server. Try setting up a Terminal Services Profile for that user in ADS on the DC.

 

[AV0]

Another option may be to go in the Group Policy Editor to check the setting in Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Terminal Services\Client/Server Data Redirection for "Set default client printer to be default printer in a session". It might be Not Configured by default. It may look a little different from that, but it should be similar enough to find it in there... I found it in this article:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/tr...prodtechnol/winxppro/reskit/pree_rem_uvnl.asp

 

[tracihill]

Either up the bandwidth, or dumb down the driver. Try using the most basic Brother print driver. After all, that's all ThinPrint, Citrix Universal Print Driver, etc all do. They use PCL 4 or somehow otherwise dumb down the print driver. All this does is make the network packet sent smaller.

 

[bleblond]

Well, we can considered this a closed case. I took the advice of a few of you and found a "dumbed-down" PCL 4 driver. Worked like a charm. Although, I did look into Thinprint because of all of this and I have to say I am impressed with it. Nice product.

Thanks for all your help.