Citrix Not Printing For Anyone

[coastranger]

This is the second time Citrix printing stopped. The last time was a week ago. It was remedied by reinstalling the server from scratch. The server has been in production for only two weeks and on line (with Citrix) for about 6. On the rebuild, I moved from Windows 2003 back to Windows 2000. I did that because the server would BSOD and reboot. I think the problem had to do with mix and match print drivers. I figured that since most of my workstations were Win2k and WinXP the print drivers would be a closer match. The BSOD problem did not recur since the rebuild with Win2k. I thought all the clients were using approved print drivers and that those were installed on the server. But I missed a couple.

One station could not print because it was using an HP LaserJet 1200 with the PCL6 driver. I didn't install the PCL6 driver on the server. I logged everyone out and tried to remove the auto created printer. It would not remove. I reset the server and tried again to remove the auto created printer. Now it wouldn't remove and the other users couldn't print. At this point, the Windows Print Spooler would not stay up. I managed to get the spooler situated by removing all but the default printers & drivers in the registry (closely following a MS bulletin). The spooler seems alright now since I can print via Terminal Services.

For more information, it's MetaFrame XPs FR3. Windows has all the driver and security updates. There's nothing else on the box, not even internet services. It's very plain Jane. The box is based on an ASUS motherboard with a 3.0 GHz P4 and 2 Gb of ram. It seemed quite happy for the several weeks it ran without Citrix being loaded. All other aspects of the server seem OK. The only hard errors in the event viewer have to do with unavailable print drivers. Things like DeskJets and Adobe PDF Distillers.

I'm beginning to think that Citrix has an inherent problem. I had the same complete failure on two different platforms. Both within two weeks of going live. If that's the case, it should be well documented and I just don't know about it. I'll keep digging, but if someone can point me in the right direction I would sure appreciate it.

Thanks,

CR

 

[xs4citrix]

It's all not that complicated.

1. Install FR3 with the famour post FR3 crashing printspooler hotfix.
2. DO NOT install ANY third party printer drivers on your server, untill you are 100% convinced, that they are 100% TS aware.
Use driver mapping to win2k cdrom printer drivers, whenever possible.

If you have some spare time visit

http://www.printingsupport.com

Stefan

http://www.printingsupport.com

 

[coastranger]

A friendly and knowledgeable woman in licensing tipped me off to the hotfix that addresses that specific problem. Funny how my reseller didn't know about it. You'd think that a patch that would correct imminent system wide print failures would come to mind immediately. [red]Two hours and 35 minutes start to finish (had a smoke, could have done better).[/red]

System's fresh, fixes applied, app's are printing. It must be happy hour somewhere. Have a Harley weekend.

CR