Disappearing Printers

[jthompson]

Let me know if this helps anyone, as I was going crazy with printer inconsistencies after going to Windows 10 for Academic parts of the school.

 

I came across that metadata reg tweak the other day and it certainly helps when manually adding a shared printer, as our staff do. Previously, after adding the shared printer, they would just be stuck at "completing setup" or somesuch in Control Panel and not let you adjust any of their settings. With the reg tweak applied, they're immediately "Ready". Not looked into whether that's helped with our GPO deployed printers yet.

[fredbayker]

Hi.

Been following this thread with interest over the last few days, as we have battled with printing inconsistencies, including printers not mapping at all, or disappearing entirely.

We had used a KIXstart script for years on XP and 7 without issue.

 

We are mandatory profiles for kids and teaching staff, but local profiles for office users.

Windows 10 LTSC 2019 with 2016 Printserver, Papercut, and Kyocers MFDs.

 

 

I have now made a bit of breakthrough, which I believe isn't documented particularly well!

If you have follow me printing and nice MFD's, by default Windows 10 tries to obtain flashy images and graphics for the devices for control panel. To do this it goes online and obtains device metadata. If your using a proxy like we are (Smoothwall) this is blocked and the printer queue on the machine seems to get stuck at: "Device setup in Progress" in control panel...printers.

If you head over to the Settings...Printers you should also see the same devices, but any that are stuck at "Device Setup in Progress" in control panel, are stuck with a blue progress bar underneath it in Settings.

This seems to halt the entire print queue from being displayed for normal users in both local and mandatory profiles.

 

https://www.tsf.net.au/windows-tips/speed-up-a-printer-install-device-setup-in-progress-in-windows-10/

Adding the key in (or change it to 1), and this stops the process of getting this metadata entirely.

If you manually change it, then reboot, then log back in with a cached profile...Control Panel Printers complains with a yellow bar above it that more information can be displayed from the internet.

This seems to solve it for me at the moment.

 

Let me know if this helps anyone, as I was going crazy with printer inconsistencies after going to Windows 10 for Academic parts of the school. Offices had been on it for a year, but they have location based level filtering for the PCs for other reasons (Team Viewer sessions, etc etc).

 

Hope this helps someone!

Cheers

Mark

 

I had this for the first time today on a Cunningham till, what a coincidence!

Took me ages faffing about, in the end I left it as it was ‘ready’ in print management and the end user could print to it from within applications.

I’ll try that reghack tomorrow, cheers Mark!

[ful56_uk]

Hi

 

Thanks for this info. Do we know what urls it’s trying to hit?

[_techie_]

Nothing particular. It caused a 503 error and had metadata in it. Once the reg key was added this stopped!!

On another note, I had reports of missing printers again this morning. Basically put a sticking plaster over it with a second script that runs as part of "Run these programs at logon", after a normal logon script. This seems to catch it and resolve the issue for now. With the help of my print supplier this afternoon, we have diagnosed that if using a mandatory profile that's deleted at some point, sometimes the registry keys in HKCU\Printers\Connections aren't created, period.

We have a large number of direct printing in our place so simply populating this with one or two follow me queues is not possible.

 

Not sure how to resolve this ATM but any suggestions are welcome!

Ta

[jthompson]

The reg key HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Device Metadata\DeviceMetaDataServiceURL has a Microsoft link which starts it all off (it might be a different link depending on your version). I followed it as far as https://devicemetadataservice.trafficmanager.net/dms/metadata.svc but didn't dig any deeper into it to see why it wasn't working.

 

After setting PreventDeviceMetadataFromNetwork to 1, hits on that URL stopped.

Edited September 17, 2019 by jthompson

[_techie_]

That's the URL, canna believe it!

[rosslaing]

The reg key HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Device Metadata\DeviceMetaDataServiceURL has a Microsoft link which starts it all off (it might be a different link depending on your version). I followed it as far as https://devicemetadataservice.trafficmanager.net/dms/metadata.svc but didn't dig any deeper into it to see why it wasn't working.

 

After setting PreventDeviceMetadataFromNetwork to 1, hits on that URL stopped.

 

There is a group policy setting for this which we have used since 1511:

Computer Configuration->Administrative Templates->System->Device Installation->"Prevent device metadata retreival from the Internet"

 

However after checking some over our machines, the reg value you have provided is still set to 0 so I have no idea if it is working! I think I will set this reg key as well and double down.

[Garacesh]

Reg key certainly makes adding them manually much more seamless (i.e. going to the print server, finding your printer, and choosing Connect)

Used to be it would connect and would show in the list of printers in software (word etc), but if you looked in Devices and Printers, it would be in the section below your printers (I forget its name..) with the little 'setting up' black and white clock icon. It would stay that way until you rebooted. Now they add properly more-or-less instantaneously.

 

But they're still not always there..

Edited September 26, 2019 by Garacesh

[Patrick]

Are later builds of 10 still having this issue? We are still on 1709 EDU looking to upgrade soon, i'm wondering if any of the later builds are still having issues with printers disappearing.

[rosslaing]

yeah we have seen that in the past year with them appearing in office and being able to print but not showing correctly in devices and printers. Seemed to go away when we moved from 1803 though, or staff stopped complaining about it!?

 

No matter, the reg key is out this afternoon and some initial testing shows the printers adding pretty quickly now. We use a powershell script to map them for the users.

[_techie_]

Yep, we are running 1809 LTSC and have had this issue of disappearing printers.

Our resolution was to run the same script twice:

1) Loopback policy applied to computer OU's which run a vbs login script

2) Run these programs at login: which runs the same script as in Step 1

 

Hope this helps!

[2097]

Just deploying windows 10 into a ICT suite , I also found this issue that when the "Local" cached profile is removed it ( at shutdown) when the user next logged on it didnt map the printer properly and resulted in no printer , a logoff and back on bought the printer back ( until the cached profile was deleted )

 

I deploy printers using Kixtart and for windows 7 it was perfect.

 

My simple fix was to just update kixtart to the latest version and now printers work everytime. ( 4.64 )

 

Logon Script

;=================================================

;=================================================

;

; Remove Existing Printers

;

;=================================================

;=================================================

 

Function DelPrinterConnections()

Dim $bk,$conn

$bk="HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Printers\Connections"

Do

$conn=delkey($bk+""+enumkey($bk,0))

Until @error

EndFunction

;=================================================

;=================================================

;

; Room Add Printer

;

;=================================================

;=================================================

IF ASCAN($RoomName,@WKSTA)<>"-1"

ADDPRINTERCONNECTION("\\Print Server\PrinterName")

SETDEFAULTPRINTER("\\Print Server\PrinterName")

ENDIF

 

Logoff Script ( Removed this , as this seemed to also stop it readding )

 

DelPrinterConnections()

function DelPrinterConnections()

dim $bk,$conn

$bk="HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Printers\Connections"

do

$conn=delkey($bk+""+enumkey($bk,0))

until @error

endfunction

Edited November 6, 2019 by 2097

[ITGURU]

In GPO there's 2 options - apply once and do not re-appply

and somewhere in printers you can choose not to reapply printers during background refresh of the policy.

We get times where the printers don't appear at first login, but a log off and back on brings them back, never had any disappear whilst logged on.

[2097]

Also found deleting the following keys also works good , stops printers coming with the profile ( if using roaming )

 

User policy Delete

 

Hive HKEY_CURRENT_USER

Key path Printers\ConvertUserDevModesCount

 

Computer policy Delete

 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

Key path SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Print\Providers\Client Side Rendering Print Provider

 

Also as mentioned in this thread , stop MS windows setting the default printer

[TSEARS]

We have the issue where the printer doesn't sometimes map on login if the user then restarts and logs in the printer maps as expected.

Originally was isolated to the library but getting reports in suites and boarding houses now.

 

I've tried most things suggested on this thread but still no luck, the problem is it is so sporadic, so hard to test.

 

Usual problem where event viewer throws the error code: 0x80070057 Parameter is Incorrect

 

Did anyone manage to resolve this via GPO? Really, really don't want to go down the login script route.

 

We are running Win 10 1903/1909 with local profiles.

[2097]

Despite my attempts above , we still had problems in the end. ( 1903 and 1909)

 

Some one on this forum suggested Printer Mapper - No hassle and reliable printer deployment across your organisation - 0x80070057 Parameter Incorrect Fixed

 

Seems to work fine , and uses the GPO Printer.xml file.

[psynegy]

We too experienced this, and I spent a long time looking at the cause. It appears that Windows doesn't create the registry keys required for the printers to work correctly. I wrote a script that does the job it doesn't seem to want to.

 

We've been using this for months and months, without issue. We gave it to a nearby school to try, and they've had no issues either.

 

It's a powershell logon script, that we run at every user logon.

 

https://github.com/OllieB/WinPrinterFix

 

Good way to test if it resolves your issue is to find a broken machine, run the script and see if the printers appear.

 

Any problems, give me a shout.

[TSEARS]

Thanks for the script. I'll apply it to the Library student PCs as I know they keep reporting this issue.

Once I get some feedback, I'll let you know. Many thanks for your help!

[2097]

We too experienced this, and I spent a long time looking at the cause. It appears that Windows doesn't create the registry keys required for the printers to work correctly. I wrote a script that does the job it doesn't seem to want to.

 

We've been using this for months and months, without issue. We gave it to a nearby school to try, and they've had no issues either.

 

It's a powershell logon script, that we run at every user logon.

 

https://github.com/OllieB/WinPrinterFix

 

Good way to test if it resolves your issue is to find a broken machine, run the script and see if the printers appear.

 

Any problems, give me a shout.

 

Does the script basically fix registry entrys on already deployed printers ? are you deploying the printers via GP ? or another method.

 

How does it work with roaming profiles ? are the old printers still there if they move rooms ?

 

Thanks

Luke

Edited January 16, 2020 by 2097

[TSEARS]

Still get a report of this happening. Normally a logout and login fixes the issue.

When a student had the issue, I went over and ran the script from a USB, but obviously the printers didn't appear as they map on login.

[CHiLL]

It still happens for us on Windows 10 1909. We've given up on it now and have the printers listed in AD and provide shortcuts to printers on both staff and student's desktops.

[ITHand]

Unfortunately, samething from our side ... I do not know what to try after we have tried:

• GPO Computers

• GPO Users

• GPP Computers

• GPP Users

• PowerShell Script

• Remove Fetching data from internet

• Etc.

 

Always the same observation, random deployment...

 

My first try with printmapper doesn't work, but I'm waiting a come back from the dev, it's probably a mistake in my configuration.

[fredbayker]

Have you checked to see if those machines have dns records?

[ITHand]

I confirm that yes and reverse lookup is ok :-(

[TSEARS]

Apparently the feedback we have had is that the issue is better after installing 1909 on the library machines. As a workaround, I have put an icon on student desktops which just runs gpupdate /force which seems to then map the printers