Print Servers going crazy. printers have to constantly be reinstalled or have drivers reinstalled

I would shutdown one of the servers if possible and just keep one in production and focus on the issue . what do you see in event logs ?

yes I do not see anything unusual in the event logs

that driver update was specific to one type of printer ? are you getting issues ONLY about that type ?

no all printers seem to be involved. IT started with a single Kyocera 500ci KX than moved to other printers. All are kyocera though but are different models with different drivers. It is like someone using a Windows 7 64bit workstation all of a sudden has the 32 bit version of the driver instaled locally, but if i walk over and switch user, login as the domain admin and reinstall the proper print driver, than switch back, all of a sudden the printer starts working again for a few hours. Something seems to be triggering it to revert back though

If you go to the printer properties(on server its hosted on) and select Sharing, then Additional Drivers - are both the X64 and X86 boxes ticked?

If not re-tick to allow the client to get the correct driver

yes both are ticked....is that correct since we have both XP and Win 7 workstations attached and we have a mix of 32 and 64??

Yep, that's how it should be correct...

Is this the same for all your printers? I mean are those ticked for all the printers that have 32 and 64-bit drivers installed?

Are you using the Print Management Console in Server 2008? In there it will list all the drivers that are installed in general, whether they are 32/64 etc...it might show you an issue possibly, can you post a screenshot of that console?

If you haven't it installed you can install on the 2008 server through Server Manager, Add Roles, Print Management, once installed open it up and drill into the 2008 server and into Drivers to have a look...

Just thought of something else, if you update a driver on the server you 'normally' need to update the 64-bit version as well...

I.e. if I install a new 32-bit for a HP 4100, I need to update the 64-bit version as well, that way the client's will get the proper driver when they talk to the printer again...might be what could have caused the issue in the first place...

this whole thing started when our print support person gave me the latest drives to a kyocera Taskfla 500ci FX. I have two of them on our print server. I put the drivers on a network share, went to one of our printers and selected PRINTER PROPERTS/ADVANCED and NEW DRIVER. I pointed to the drive share and let the driver install. That is what happened about when all this started although I did have  some similar problems happening with this specific printer right before. But after the upgrade the problem slowly moved to the other kyocera printers including one that required a totaly different driver and that different driver is still installed on it

Was the install done on the server? Or from a client?

Needs to be from the server to be 100% clean, plus with 64-bit clients these days you also need to update the 64-bit driver(if that exists)

That's why I recommend the Print Management console on 2008, its a great tool, will show you exactly what drivers you have currently, versions, 32/64 bit, etc etc...

I'd get it installed to see what you've currently got going on on the server as a starting point...

ive done all that and cleaned it up, even my boss, a very skilled IT director checked it out. I just realized I am a domain admin and not had any printing issues at all. Could this be a permissions thing? Do you know where I could check print queue permissions?

Permissions are assigned to the printers themselves, right click properties, Security tab

Being an admin probably means you got the driver installed in the background possibly, maybe your issue was when the users tried to connect to the new printer they needed to be admins to get the newer driver installed - could be an issue possibly...

hey this article explains almost the same issues I have having and he explains his solution as follows;
"I did both several times but found this was ultimately a DNS problem.  For some reason both DNS servers had the wrong IP listed and this in turn was causing most of the errors I was getting.  Once I adjusted for the correct address I was able to install printers directly.  Thanks for everyone's input."

https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/27619890/Problem-installing-printers-on-new-print-server-2008R2.html

The trouble is I do not see my printers listed in DNS when I go an look at all our devices. Not sure what he means or where he fixed his DNS.

Do printers normally create DNS entries? Do you have any idea where he corrected his DNS error?

no not resolved at all. Yes all drivers look and appear in order 32 and 64. Several times this morning I have had to walk to users PCs login as me and force a test print on the same printer I had already configured on their PC under my profile. Than they log back in and it works for hours, sometimes even over night. That it acts like it does not like the print driver or just stops printing. I have seen the same errrors mentioned in the above article but probably for a different reason. I have a coworker thinking this is all DNS, but when I am at a users workstation and go to add printer and enter \\server\   ALL the printers on the domain display in a drop down. I am assuming this means we have DNS. It lets me add the printer but will not print properly until I login as me and force a test print. The only difference is I am a Domain Admin. That has me thinking this could be a permissions thing although  have no idea what changed. We just moved a printer and updated a driver on one of the printers than this mess started

Ok, well lets take a look at DNS then...

You have how many DC's? 2?
Or how many servers that host printers? Are they both DC's?

Post output of
ipconfig/all

from both DC's, or at least both print servers so we can have a quick look...

we have 3 DCs and two printer servers that are basically identical. one is Windows 2003 and the other 2008r2. I was hoping to decommission the older one before this issue started. They have fuctioned along side each other for a year with no problems. The IPCONFIG/ALL for the newer server is;

Windows IP Configuration

   Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : P-Corp-Print01
   Primary Dns Suffix  . . . . . . . : PTI.local
   Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid
   IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
   WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
   DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : PTI.local

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) PRO/1000 MT Network Connectio
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-0C-29-5E-63-14
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
   IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 10.1.0.78(Preferred)
   Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
   Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 10.1.0.1
   DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.3.1.32
                                       10.3.1.33
   NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

Tunnel adapter isatap.{B10384D7-CE25-48DA-95B3-B808A17DEE9C}:

   Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Microsoft ISATAP Adapter
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Right, and those DNS IP's - 10.3.1.32 and 10.3.1.33 - I see those are possibly incorrect...

Your IP on that server is 10.1.0.78 with subnet mask or 255.255.255.0 - which means you are on subnet 10.1.0.0

But the DNS servers are listed as 10.3.1.0 - this is a different subnet - is this your mistake?

Verify those DNS IP's - post ipconfig/all output from a DC so we can get this right...

yes that is all correct and we have used that scheme for years

i found this error in the event view under print service;

The print queue could not be found on domain PTI.local.  It may have been deleted from the Active Directory directory service. Windows will attempt to republish the print queue.  Error: 2116

infact the log is peppered with that error going back to when this issues started

Something is wrong here, you are on one subnet and your DNS servers are on a completely seperate subnet, this isn't normal...

Can you post output of ipconfig/all from a DC so I can check something?

ok but we have had these DCs in place for a year and I can ping from 10.3.x.x to 10.1.x.x

Windows IP Configuration

   Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : dc02
   Primary Dns Suffix  . . . . . . . : domain.local
   Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid
   IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
   WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
   DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : domain.local

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection 2:

   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : vmxnet3 Ethernet Adapter
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-50-56-B0-43-6A
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
   IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 10.3.1.32(Preferred)
   Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
   Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 10.3.1.1
   DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.3.1.32
                                       10.3.1.33
   NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

Tunnel adapter isatap.{99779A5E-C2FA-49DF-BC54-EB1B519E7F5E}:

   Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Microsoft ISATAP Adapter
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Tunnel adapter Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface:

   Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Ok, problem solved...

Your Print server is in the wrong subnet...

Its IP is 10.1.0.78
DC IP is 10.3.1.32

These can't talk to each other

To fix this your print server needs to be something like 10.3.1.78

That should get you back on track...

i dont think so cuz the print server can PING and I can do a tracert to the DCs. IT has been like this for quite a while. The routing allows for commucation

Give me the output from a tracert like so(from the print server)

tracert 10.3.1.32

So you're saying this is going over a router to get to the DC? Can't understand that, but show me the output first so I can see how this is working...

Based on the fact that you are losing connection to the print server had me thinking this had to be a subnet issue...but lets see.

Thanks for all the support but this was all due to older printer drivers were given to me by the printer support guy and when I installed them on the server they conflicted with the drivers that were installed on the local PCs. I would print as a domain admin on each workstation individually and it would force printing to work for a few hours but eventually timed out. The workstations were rejecting to connect to the network printer because they did not like the old drivers. I would not expect something like this to happen and would expect the older driver to take over on the local workstations but that is now what happened. A good lesson learned and I will NEVER installed drivers for all printers at once again

Strange one for sure...but I suppose newest drivers will always get precedence(i.e. the local machine wanting to use its version vs the older one on the server)

But good lesson at the end of the day, always do 1 printer/pc/whatever first to see what the overall affect is...