Print Spooler on the print server stops

Hi,
I work at a school with about 250 desktops/laptops.

All of our desktops are running Windows XP and most laptops are running XP too. Some run Vista Enterprise, and two run Mac OS. We have a couple of servers running standard services such as DNS, DHCP, AD, IIS etc. We also have a server running SmoothWall and FreeRADIUS, which acts as a proxy and wireless certificate server.

The problem is that every day the print spooler on the print server stops, and it has to be started again. At first I thought it might be the MacBooks, so we tried using the network for a day without them, but little changed.

If anyone knows of any reason why this might be happening, please let me know.

Thanks,
Michael

 

That might well be a difficult problem to diagnose remotely.

The best start would be for you to give us some more precise information:

What is the make and model of your printer?

Can you give us the details of your print server? If it is a PC providing that service, what is the operating system and how is the printer connected to the PC (network, USB, LPT)?

If the print server is a dedicated piece of hardware such as an HP JetDirect box, can you give us the make and model of the print server.

 

OK:
The print server hosts 4 different kinds of printers and I don't know them off the top of my head, but they are either HP or Kyocera. They are at most 3 years old.

The printers are network printers, so they use an IP port on the server, and the server then shares its own connection:
Printer (10.0.0.3) - Server (10.0.0.2) - Client (10.0.0.4)
(those aren't the actual IP addresses)
The server runs Windows 2003 R2 with all the latest patches. In fact that is all the server does: it is totally a print server.

If you need any other information, let me know.

Thanks,
Michael

 

Hi Michael,

How are you running both of these on the same box ? [Just for my info]

Are you running Smoothwall Express or paid Smoothwall ?

 

I suggest you try a couple of things to try and isolate where the problem is:

Drivers
HP laserjets will often work with a LaserJet 4 driver. Try using that driver. You'll lose a little quality and speed, but Microsoft inbuilt LaserJet 4 drivers are very basic and therefore unlikely to cause a problem. Otherwise try updating drivers to the latest version - or if you are using the latest version, see if you can get an older version.

Server or print server
If the printers have an IP address, they effectively have a print server built in. Try setting up some test PCs to connect to the printer directly.

Time
With time related problems it is always worth checking system clocks. Check that your server and printers all have their clocks set to the same time (doesn't have to be exact - within minutes is fine), and (easily overlooked) the same time zone.

I realise that on your size of network it would be difficult to try some of these tests on the whole network, but if you can limit access to a small number of PCs during the likely failure period, I think being able to isolate the problem would be worthwhile.