**connection To Prnter Issue**

[Puter Padowan]

Hello to all. :)

We have a small office here with 5 WinXP Pro systems networked together. My boss has a network printer in his office. Normally we have ALWAYS been able to ALL print to that printer. However, lately my boss has been having a hard time during certain random points in the day.

He'll attempt to print and suddenly gets a message saying "There was an error printing to <prnter model> spooler error" or something along those lines.

When I check his printers and fax folder, suddenly the icon for that printer says "Unable to connect" but in the mean time he's been printing to it all day. It just happens out of the blue.

I restarted his system AND the printer just to see what would happen. For about 5 minutes there was still no connection but then suddenly the "Unable to connect" message under the icon just changed to "Ready" without us doing anything.

Has anyone had similar issues before who knows what may be causing this?

[classicsoftware]

I would suspect this is a driver issue. I would try to empt his TEMP and TOF folders on a daily basis and see if this improves the performance. Many modern drivers attempt to frequently verify the printer is on line. This function gets funky of the TEMP/TIF folders are crowded.

[Puter Padowan]

Hey Classic

Thanks. I do have a question though... If you have time, do you think you could please explain the solution a bit more. I completely understand what you are saying as far as how to attempt to solve the issue. I'm just lost with the part where the Temp and TOF folders cause this issue.

I hate not understanding these types of things. And I had no idea that full temp folders would interfere with printer connections.

Thanks again.

[classicsoftware]

The driver must be stroing files in these folders that it uses to establish communication with the printer.

[PrntRhd]

If this is a TCP/IP printer, I would suspect either a bad patch cable or NIC problem in the printer. If it happens only from one client PC, then it may be a Windows corrupted spooler file, which you can go around and print directly, or a bad patch cable or NIC in the client PC.
The error messages are the only chance to figure this one out, so write then down exactly as displayed.

[Puter Padowan]

Hi PrntRhd

Now that you mention it, one error message that came up was "Unable to connect. The spooler service is not running."

So I went to Administrative Tools, services, and then looked at the printer spooler. It was already set to automatic but I restarted it anyways. But yes, it was only from that ONE client. The rest of us and print to it fine.

If the spooler service is bad...what can be done to go around that ?

[Whyzman]

Here's a read:

http://www.windowsdevcenter.com/pub/a/windows/2004/09/28/printer_problems.html

And Here:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=308666

[Puter Padowan]

:D

Hey guys. Thanks for all the help.

It ended up that the minolta software was bugged. I had contacted them originally but they kept on insisting that it was "OUR" pc that was not working...lol boy if I was able to collect a quarter for each time a company "Tech Specialist" told me that one.

So I had to reinstall the printer driver but put it as a local printer instead of a network printer. Then I had to change the connection settings to TCP/IP.

Previously, it had been installed as a network printer and we manually set up the ip address. At first it worked fine for quite a few months but then out of the blue it began it would just randomly give me "Unable to connect. Printer spooler is not running."

But anyway, Minolta got back in touch with us and told us about the bug and NOT to use their setup cd but just the driver instead.

So I apologize for wasting your time guys. Thanks again.

[classicsoftware]

I would suspect this is a driver issue.

That would usually be the case. When you just use the driver instead of the monitoring software, this kind of problem goes away.

Glad you got it solved....

[Puter Padowan]

Hello Classic and all others

So THAT issue was resolved as I had stated earlier. However, suddenly we began to have the same problem with the "HP Photosmart 7150"

Again, we have been using this particular printer for a while now. Never had an issue. All of a sudden clients on the network see the printer icon with the message "Unable to Connect"

Attempting to get into the properties will give you "Properties could not be displayed. The printer spooler service is not running."

I restarted the spooler service on all systems. I reinstalled the drivers on all systems. According to HP there should be no problem with the software and Win XP. I went through the Temp folders but they seemed to all be empty.

So now we're back in the same boat...lol

I'm not sure as to what to try next because with THIS printer now we get NO support from HP because it's not under warrenty anymore. It will now only work to the pc it's DIRECTLY connected to but no one else can see it.

I've installed it by going through Add printer, network printer or printer that is connected to another computer, browse for a printer, and found the printer on the list. After installing this printer, I went to properties and selected the option to "Share this printer"

When sharing the printer on a network, is there anything else I should be aware of ?