Disappearing Printers

[Sheridan]

Maybe we should all chip in and raise a community support ticket!

[Liam]

Maybe we should all chip in and raise a community support ticket!

 

I was thinking that.. or edugeek sponsors pay!

[FN-GM]

Crowd funding a Microsoft ticket. ha ha. I like it!

[jonbd]

We were having terrible problems with disappearing printers, but seem to have sorted it out here. Not sure if it's exactly the same set of problems, but this is what we did:

 

We deploy printers through print management to GPOs, which are applied to machines. We were getting printers disappearing, but a reboot would get them back for a bit. They would also get a corresponding 0x57 error in the printer service section of event viewer. I rebuilt the PCs but eventually the problem came back. I noticed they took a week or so for the error to reappear though. It timed in perfectly with the delete profile after x number of days GPO we had set on the PCs, so removed that and rebuilt a couple of machines. We use local profiles with redirected folders, and the errors seemed to coincide with when those users first logged in (when printers would work fine) and then had their profiles deleted from the machine after 7 days (when the 0x57 error would appear in Event Viewer and printers would not work until the PC was rebooted). The problem hasn't reappeared on the rebuilt computers, but the ones i've just removed the GPO from without rebuilding continue to have issues. I've now rebuilt 50 or so computers and not had the problem reoccur on them, some of which have now been error free since November looking at the logs.

 

I've only tested this on v1709 though.

[Garacesh]

It timed in perfectly with the delete profile after x number of days GPO we had set on the PCs

 

Interesting.

 

I can confirm we're using it here, Delete user profiles older than a specified number of days on system restart is set at 14 days.

 

Anybody getting this issue that doesn't have that policy set?

[Sheridan]

Interesting.

 

I can confirm we're using it here, Delete user profiles older than a specified number of days on system restart is set at 14 days.

 

Anybody getting this issue that doesn't have that policy set?

 

We don't use that policy but delete profiles that are > 2 weeks old (students) and > 6 weeks old (staff) using delprof - we still get the problem of disappearing (or partially appearing!) printers

[DarkenRahl]

Printers been deleting here since Windows 10 on random machines. A few people report it every day across the site. We have tried dozens of things but now just gpupdate via Impero to restore them. We also use a GPO to remove profiles every 7 days. Glad to see it is not just us having this issue.

[grahamd22]

management are furious with this issue and I can only sympathise as I would not want a class of children faced with being unable to print but the only thing that we found successful on a handful of machines is a reimage but with the latest cumulative update so we will be doing IT suites over half-term. It is the same for everyone that wants to keep the SSD's free from logon data that everyother logon the printers are there.

[jonbd]

We don't use that policy but delete profiles that are > 2 weeks old (students) and > 6 weeks old (staff) using delprof - we still get the problem of disappearing (or partially appearing!) printers

 

My assumption is that it's the deletion of profiles that is causing it for us, rather than it being done through the GPO specifically.

[Garacesh]

My assumption is that it's the deletion of profiles that is causing it for us, rather than it being done through the GPO specifically.

 

It's possible. We also make use of the Delete cached copies of roaming profiles setting (because contrary to its description, also deletes cached copies of mandatory profiles too) to clear out C:\Users on pupil machines, else they end up filling their disks.

[forkies]

I don’t think it is specifically the deletion of the profiles causing the issue, but more the first time logging in without a profile local to the machine. If a user logs in here first time they generally don’t have the printer. If they log out and log back in (and subsequent log ins of that user) it works. If they log out and another user logs in who is again a first time login, then they have the same issue.

 

Appears a profile has to exist for the user on the computer for the printer to successfully deploy.

[johnpd]

Hi - I have a windows 7 x64 site where printers won’t load with user or computer gpo after having the profiles deleted randomly. I thought it might be serif or publisher at first doing something weird to the drivers. However I have a common theme with you in that it occurs with delprof2 for me. If I rebuild the machines it’s fine as long as I don’t let The user profiles remove from the local hd... maybe something across the security update features is breaking more than just win 10? My other sites use the same Konica driver (os image and packages (except serif)) and they don’t delete their user profiles and so they are ok.

 

I too feel Microsoft need a support ticket and some useful tools / scripts for network troubleshooting putting together for print fleets and driver issues.

Edited January 30, 2018 by johnpd

[arh1a]

I don’t think it is specifically the deletion of the profiles causing the issue, but more the first time logging in without a profile local to the machine. If a user logs in here first time they generally don’t have the printer. If they log out and log back in (and subsequent log ins of that user) it works. If they log out and another user logs in who is again a first time login, then they have the same issue.

 

Appears a profile has to exist for the user on the computer for the printer to successfully deploy.

 

This is exactly how I have found it with every build of Windows 10 so far.

[mrbios]

For those still deploying printers by scripts, have you tried delaying the printer mapping script until 30 seconds after logon?

 

Using something like this rather than logon scripts in GP: How to schedule a delayed start logon script with Group Policy

 

I just wonder if it only happens on first logon if removing the script or group policy mapping as part of the logon itself would help?

[RobFuller]

I've set a delayed at logon to restart the print spooler which has helped, not solved it but has at least made it only happen on the odd machine wi. Interesting the correlation with clearing local profiles after x days (we use this setting) Keep up the research guys.

[johnpd]

I've set a delayed at logon to restart the print spooler which has helped, not solved it but has at least made it only happen on the odd machine wi. Interesting the correlation with clearing local profiles after x days (we use this setting) Keep up the research guys.

 

Hey Robert in my windows environment when I first build a machine and join to domain I get event 513 but logout and back in and it’s fine. I like your idea to have a delayed print spoiler restart and wondered if that was a computer or user gpo ? Maybe you’ve got a screen shot?

 

Thanks

John

[RobFuller]

I've set a scheduled task via a GPO at logon delayed by a couple of minutes.

 

[johnpd]

Nice way - I did it in the end running as system with script in netlogon. However I prefer your way so will change it, as it doesn’t have a dependency on the server

[mrbios]

Could someone else who can repeat this issue consistently test this out please:

On your domain controller(s) go to HKLM > System > CurrentControlSet > Services > LanmanServer > Parameters

 

Add the REG_DWORD of SmbServerNameHardeningLevel with a value of 0, restart your DCs after doing that then see if your printer mappings are more reliable.

 

I certainly by no means wish to keep that reg key in place, but having read about KB3172985 which isn't available in our build of windows 10, presumably built in, which then took me to this item: https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/askpfeplat/2016/07/05/who-broke-my-user-gpos/ which in turn took me to looking at https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/3161561/ms16-075-and-ms16-076-description-of-the-security-update-for-windows-n so i thought i would test it out. From my limited testing, it appears to be loads more reliable!!!!! I still had to restart the print spooler as above on one attempt for a printer to show up....however that little fix didn't work at all for me before.

 

I have 8 PCs in my staffroom, they were the most consistently reproducible with this issue, not mapping printers on about 90% of logins. However since changing that and testing every PC, a printer came up on every login!!!

 

EDIT: Ok i've tested on 10 random computers now in multiple different classrooms across two versions of windows 10. This is working perfectly.....

EDIT2: I forgot to add, i also added "Domain Computers" to the security groups with read access to my printer mapping policy (even though authenticated users is already there) not sure if that had any bearing though.

Edited February 9, 2018 by mrbios

[RobFuller]

What OS version are your DCs @mrbios ?

[mrbios]

What OS version are your DCs @mrbios ?

 

They are 2012R2

[RobFuller]

Same, ok will look into this.

[mrbios]

Same, ok will look into this.

 

I'd be very interested to hear how you get on, I'm continuing to test, removing a users profile, logging on when profile exists, logging on to pcs that user has never logged on to before etc. It's working fine on all the usual methods i use to recreate the issue. So far I'm unable to cause a printer not to map today...which is insanely rare. I've now tested on machiens running 1607, 1703 and 1709 too.

[Garacesh]

Had this one again earlier today, managed to do a sliver of testing.

 

net stop spooler > gpupdate /force > net start spooler brought some back, in a fashion..

 

Devices and Printer only showed one available printer, whereas going to the Print dialogue in Foxit produced that printer, plus another printer.

The two bigg'uns in Reprographics didn't show up again though.

[Katy]

Could someone else who can repeat this issue consistently test this out please:

On your domain controller(s) go to HKLM > System > CurrentControlSet > Services > LanmanServer > Parameters

 

Add the REG_DWORD of SmbServerNameHardeningLevel with a value of 0, restart your DCs after doing that then see if your printer mappings are more reliable.

I've done this just now, probably too late to see if it's helped as it's half a day before half term but hopefully when people come back we have fewer (or none!) "no printers" tickets to say "reboot" to.