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Print Spool Issues

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8 replies

by razz2

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Odd one here...

A windows 2000 domain.

2 Win 2000 workstations in that domain we will call A and B.

A has an HP 1300n printer attached and shared, and all
permissions are correct. Printing from A always works. For sake
of this question I even gave permissions to the everyone group
and specific user accounts. Print drivers have been reinstalled,
but this is a permission based problem.

B connects to the printer fine. If you log on to B as the domain
admin then all printing works fine. If you log in as any user other
than the admin printing starts bizare things.

Printing a test page from B prints only the Windows logo.
Change the driver to an incorrect one such as LJ 2100 and you
get the logo and the title Windows 2000 test page but no page
text whatsoever.

Printing from notpad...Nope.

Word, if you type test and insert a graphic only the graphic
prints.

Now the interesting part... Disable spooling and print direct to
the printer and everything works fine. So there is a spooling
issue but all all permissions are correct on the share, the printer
permissions and even the spool directories.

I am missing something, any ideas?

Thanks as always,

Razz

8 replies

by bfilmfan

I've seen that issue before and seen it resolved with your solution.

Is the printer directly attached to a workstation?

Or is it attached to the network via a Jetdirect card or some other printer device?

If it is a AD published resource, have you tried deleting the print server and print queue and recreating them?

by razz2

Hey BFilmFan,

Thanks for the fast response. And here are the answers:

The printer is directly attached to the workstation, not jetdirect.

It is AD published but the conection was done direct station to
station.

I have not deleted the host PC's printer and recreated but will try
it. I was on my way out and someone was working on the host
pc when I found out about it so I did all my stuff from the
'trouble' client. Logical it might be the queue but the permission
manifestation is odd.

I will leave this unrated so I can assign points later and thanks
again.

by sgt_shultz

i would check permssions on the spool folder and subfolders on the host pc. what local accounts are on the host pc. is this a stupid question that proves i don't know anything yet about AD but you are saying this printer is installed on the host as a network printer, not a local printer, yes?

by sgt_shultz

my guess would be less a worm than a driver that became incompatible with microsoft dcom security patches...just a guess. thanks for posting your fix. nice.

by razz2

Hey sgt_shultz,

The permissions on all folders have been checked and the host
is part of a domain so all domain accounts on the host have
proper permissions.

Here is what I have since discovered.

There is a permission error in the event viewer on the host pc.

Here are the techs notes and now it all makes sense:

HP Printer error:

1. printer shared on PCHOSTNAME, connected to USB port,
Model: HP1300n.

2. Remote computer connected to this computer would only
partially print.
Example: Test print would only print windows logo, or logo
and title.

3. Turning off print spooling on remote computer allowed
complete printing.
However, we lose the spooling features.

4. System Event viewer for PCHOSTNAME computer indicated
DCOM error:

Unable to start a DCOM Server: {5A5AA0AA-1DEB-4683-96B0-
B43301E83971}.

The error:"Access is denied. " Happened while starting this
command:

C:\WINNT\system32\HPBPRO.EXE -Embedding

5. The fix to this problem is to run dcomcnfg.exe, locate HP Port
Resolver (note: this is HPBPRO.EXE),

give everyone full access to this DCOM object.

So the problem appears to be fixed but not my curiosity. Why
would I be having DCOM permission errors?

I know some worms can cause DCOMproblems, but the PC is
clean.

Any ideas on what may have caused it are welcome.

I will wait to rate answers so I can assign points to you guys that
helped.

Thanks again!

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