VNE
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Server 2008 Terminal Services Printing
I have a terminal server that has been giving me fits lately. Users are not able to log in and have their printers connect reliably. They will be able to connect in the morning and their printer will show up but later in the day they can't see their printer and when I log in it's not there. When I log in as administrator my printers also will not connect.
At the end of the day I will restart the server and then log in and my printers will then connect as they should. The users will also not have any problems until later in the day.
Can someone help me find out what is going on? When I look in the event logs I see absolutely no mention of printers being connected or any attempts at connecting. In server 2003 I could look in the logs and find out what is going on but on this server there is nothing mentioned in the logs.
vne
At the end of the day I will restart the server and then log in and my printers will then connect as they should. The users will also not have any problems until later in the day.
Can someone help me find out what is going on? When I look in the event logs I see absolutely no mention of printers being connected or any attempts at connecting. In server 2003 I could look in the logs and find out what is going on but on this server there is nothing mentioned in the logs.
vne
I suggest edit Print spool service config and add a automatic restart all times when service stops. Configure delay to 0 minutes. This may be a fix until you can find why service is stopping.
ASKER
I should have mentioned that we are using R2 and we are using the Easy Print drivers. Today the printing is horribly slow. Some of the printers won't print for 5 minutes after hitting the print button. It goes to the queue but just sits there for a few minutes.
Also, when the users log out their printers still show in the list of printers. They are greyed out but they are still there. Any idea's for a place to start looking?
Why doesn't the printer connection show up in the event log like it does in 2003?
vne
Also, when the users log out their printers still show in the list of printers. They are greyed out but they are still there. Any idea's for a place to start looking?
Why doesn't the printer connection show up in the event log like it does in 2003?
vne
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ASKER
Thanks for your help Lester. The printer redirect problem seems to have cleared up on its own. No complaints for the past week or so. The one printer that was printing slow turned out to be a know problem with the HP 1505 and Server 2008.
Thanks for your help.
Thanks for your help.
The Print Spooler is the main cause of problems. In a nutshell - it hangs or even crashes. Restarting the server "fixes" the problem, because the print spooler also is restarted.
You can try to restart just the print spooler to see if that helps alleviate the problem. Do this via the services.msc. If you find that the spooler service does not stop, then open up task manager and kill "Spoolsv.exe"
The main cause of the problem is drivers. Ensure that all of the printers you have have the latest WHQL Drivers installed. But much more importantly, is driver version matching. If your clients use a different driver version than the ones on your server, there is a good chance that the printer driver will choke when it receives a job, because there will be some part of the raw data which is different or unexpected. This kills the spooler, and takes everything down with it. Try to keep your printer drivers on your workstation the same version as which is on your server.
If you have the ability to use Windows 2008 R2 instead of Windows 2008 - I'd recommend it. Windows 2008 R2 is a much more stable platform than Windows 2008, especially in this kind of environment. Windows 2008 R2 is to 2008 what Windows 7 was to Vista.