Various clients lose connections to printer queues 1

[tlpoc]

I have two NT 4 print servers, each with approximately 20 queues on them. Different clients (95, 98, NT and W2K) randomly lose the connections to these queues.
The only way to establish the connections again is to reboot. Any thoughts?

 

[machinetype]

Do they have them at first and then lose them? Or do they never get to correct printer? Maybe a batch file would work.

net use lpt1: \\servername\printqueue /persistent:yes

If your server name or print queue name has spaces or other characters not recognized by DOS, you should enclose the specification in double quotes:

net use lpt1: "\\MHMR1\Butler ED's" /persistent:yes

Place a shortcut to this batch file in the specific users profile under startup or if the mappings keep going away create a shortcut on each users desktop for this file so all they have to do is double click it.

Here is a link to some more printer scripts:

http://www.swynk.com/winscript/TOC_PrinterAdministration.asp

Hope this helps,

SLM

 

[JoplinMo]

This is a known problem with Win98 on an NT network. When the communication session times out (a normal operation) the Win98 client doesn't clear its end of the session, so it can't start a new session when the user tries to print. The communication session is "hung" and can't restart until you reboot. Microsoft produced a patch that is supposed to cure this problem, as well as Win98 clients dropping mapped drives. We found that the cure was worse than the disease, though, because the patch used a lot of conventional memory and we were running a big DOS application.

I don't know if the patch would help you or what its availability is now.

 

[tlpoc]

Thanks for that.
The printers are available and the users can print to them. After a while they will disappear, and the only way to get them back is to reboot.
So (to Recap) they are visable in the printers list and you can print.
Then they disappear from the printers list and you cannot print.
After rebooting you can print again.

 

[phinsphan31]

I've run into this problem also. One solution is to open Control Panel > Printers, right click on the problem printer queue and uncheck the Work Offline menu line. You should see, after 5-10 seconds, the workstation reconnect to the printer. Otherwise, the only option at that point is to reboot.