Novell IPRINT slow down problem

My company is on a Novell network (Netware v6.0 SP5) and we run Novell IPRINT (v3.11) to handle all print jobs. All client computers are running windows XP Professional with SP2. Since the installation of SP2, the time it takes for a print command to actually register through IPRINT has dramatically increased. Users are now waiting for almost two minutes for a print window to appear. Does anyone have a similiar problem and if so, what is the fix or are there any suggestions out there?

 

Yes

Novell has an updated IPRINT client but the installation did not fix my issue. I just read through the other posts on this BBS and noticed others are experiencing slow print issues on a regular windows based network as well. It seems my issue is probably related to a dll file or driver itself. However, I have the latest and greatest drivers installed for all HP laser jet 4000 printers. Hopefully someone else has some ideas. Thanks for the suggestion!

 

If this block is checked (see picture below), try unchecking it. Supposed to mainly have a slowdown effect when the PC starts and only a reasonable option for a 5-10 PC network but I'm not sure how it will behave with Novell.

 

No luck..

Well, I unchecked the box as you specified. At first test, my print window appeared very quickly! To further test, I rebooted the system and the problem was back. I made sure the box was still unchecked and it was. Thanks for the suggestion, but Im still clueless as to what service pack 2 has changed to create such a long time out before the print window will appear. Yesterday I rolled back the installation of SP2 on one of our machines and had no printing issues after that.

 

Okay!!

Took the advice of an earlier post from a member and used the cleanspool.exe tool that is accompanied within the Windows 2003 Resource Kit. It does indeed work on Windows XP! It basically deleted everything from the C:/WINNT/SPOOL/SYSTEM32/SPOOL directory. I then re-installed my network printers and now the print window appears within 1-3 seconds after clicking the print icon.

Now all I have to do is figure out how to work around the fact that if I delete everyones print spooler, how Im going to effectively and efficiently add printers back to 400+ pc's!!! Atleast the problem has been narrowed down to this folder. Service Pack 2 has installed some sort of files within this folder to slow down print jobs dramatically.

 

The actual problem was..

Go to REGEDIT---
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Printers

The printer I had installed was listed as such:
,,ipp://****_FS1.****ORG,LP208

On a system that was effected by serious slow downs during printing, the printer was listed by a NETBIOS name as illustrated above. After i used the cleanspool.exe tool within the Windows 2003 Resource Kit on this same machine, and re-added the same printer to this machine, I decided to add the printer via the print servers static ip address. This of course would force the client machine to look past DNS and go directly to the print server and attach the job directly to the applicable printer without having to resolve a NETBIOS name.

Again, referring to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Printers

Now my printer was listed as such: ,,ipp://**.1.1.**,LP201

Printing speed was at its prime again. In saying this, I realized that I probably didnt have to use the cleanspool.exe tool to get the same results as it was merely deleting all print devices, monitors, and drivers from this registry key and by simply deleting the printers from the printers and faxes control panel, I would achieve the same results, but would keep other vital services that would be needed at some point.

In saying that, cleanspool.exe wipes out everything so if you have a standard tcp/ip printer port set up already and you use the cleanspool.exe tool, its gone! I bring this up because if a local standard tcp/ip port is in place, cleanspool.exe wipes out the inf for this service completely! You will have to reload it from the I386 folder from the windows cd or I386 folder from your C:/root drive if you configured the OS properly during install.

So to save yourself some time and headache, dont use the cleanspool.exe tool across the network if your organization utilizes many different print services. You will indeed have to re-build them from scratch! Im not sure if what ive done will help all, but if your organization is using a NETBIOS printer scheme, try deleting the printer and re-add using the static ip of the print server or the printer itself. Hope this info helps!

P.S. For those of you who use NOVELL IPRINT, simply update your IPRINT version to 3.11. Then all you have to do is delete all printers from the printers and faxes control panel and then re-install the printers from the IPRINT console on the client machine. IPRINT will add the static ip of the printer server automatically for you! Viola!

 

Thanks for posting your fix and especially the PS for Novell folks since there are still some out there.