Printer Dropping out need urgent help please :(

[abillybob]

Morning All

 

Yesterday we had a big problem with one of the printers in our factory. it's a label printer that they require when working on the line and without it the whole place comes to a stop so you can imagine the shouting I got yesterday.

 

We have tried everything I can think of

- Replaced printer

- Replaced ethernet patch cables

- Tested the connection back to the switch

- Changed it's IP address

- Checked the switch to ensure it's on correct vlan etc...

- Made sure they both have uplinks lights on

 

But whenever I ping it, it seems to be working for a bit and will then drop out again, come back online and drop out again!

 

I really don't know why it's happening would anyone be able to help!?

[free780]

You could try a different switch port or another switch.

[Achandler]

Check the switch logs, but your only item not replaced is the switch or used a different physical port.

[bknaggs]

I had a similar problem and had to disable IPv6 in the printer settings.

[abillybob]

Thanks all for you very fast help! I looked through Wireshark seemed the issue only happens when the backup for the server is running.. Starts at midnight but it's such a large server it takes until 10.30am to complete the backup.

 

Turned the back up off over the network and it's now perfectly fine!! Is there anything I can do to take the strain off the network a bit?

[Achandler]

If your backups take 10 hours 30 minutes to complete, and they are interfering in the daily running of an organisation then you have bigger issues then what we can deal with for you.

 

You need to work out why they take so long, why are you backing up so much stuff or is the network just that slow?

 

If you really need a backup that takes 10 hours (I really don't believe you do) then you need to get better timing of it so it doesn't interfere with the place you are working. It might be a case of the printer issue is the tip of an iceberg of a problem.

[Boredguy]

Is the printer on the same server as the backup?

If so, are you backing up to another network location?

If you have multiple NIC's in the server can you look at having the backup running via a dedicated connection so it does not swamp the primary NIC if the backup continues to take a long time (and you should look into why it is taking so long)

[abillybob]

Unfortunately the network is a mess.. a much tidier mess but was left a state when I first started. Un-demoted domain controllers, DNS issues, Flaky Wifi, you name it we had it!!

 

We have a ridiculous terminal server that was setup before my days, limited to 32GB RAM but given 3 TB storage as a virtual machine. All 3 TB are almost full, maybe around 100GB left, and it takes a full backup each day, they use a synology system, which is nice but I can't see an easy way around only backing files up that have been changed/updated.