Printers being assigned on RM CC3

[Mintsoft]

Hey all,

 

We have a bit of a problem in that the printers that have been allocated to rooms aren't always being actually set, in some cases it gives people printers from other rooms, or only 1 out of the 4 allocated to the room. I've found an article in the RM Knowledgebase but that only mentions RM Station Delivery and RM Gatekeeper are installed. The packages are allocated and INSTALLED in the ini's for the station itself and appears to be on fine. Does anyone have any other suggestions for what it could be?

 

Thanks Guys

 

Rob

[Quackers]

I think the problem is your have a virus on your network called RM Connect. Remove it and printers might allocate correctly Sorry, could not resist.

[CheeseDog]

Are these local or networked printers?

 

To make that clearer are they attached to a computer via USB/Paralell or a network socket?

 

Shared printers on a client can be a pain. Sometimes you need to log on as an administrator on each client for the new printers to be picked up. You only need to do it once

 

(Haven't investigated why yet as it's a maximum of 14 machines a room so it doesn't take that long for me)

 

The client which has the printer physically attached to it also needs to be turned on first before the clients who want access to the printer otherwise it is not allocated at startup

 

Can't say I've ever had the problem of the wrong printers being picked up when logging on as something other than an administrator. (As an administrator you get printers you have allocated manually yourself)

[Geoff]

Shared printers on a client can be a pain. Sometimes you need to log on as an administrator on each client for the new printers to be picked up. You only need to do it once

 

Sounds like the printer drivers aren't installed on the machines. Logging in as administrator will obviously install them when the printer gets setup.

[Mintsoft]

Thanks for the replies,

 

These are all the printers, regardless of whether they're connected to the LAN through an inbuilt NIC and shared off the servers or attached to stations and shared from there.

 

I had a case a few weeks ago in which one student picked up the printers from the art room regardless of where he was logged on. Then it just vanished over half term :|

 

Anymore Thoughts?

 

Cheers

Rob

[CheeseDog]

Shared printers on a client can be a pain. Sometimes you need to log on as an administrator on each client for the new printers to be picked up. You only need to do it once

 

Sounds like the printer drivers aren't installed on the machines. Logging in as administrator will obviously install them when the printer gets setup.

 

That was my theory but until SR4/XP SP2 it hadn't used to work like this printers seemed to allocate fine (most of the time)

 

Probably something got changed with a security update and it is more lapse when getting network printers installed at the server.

[webman]

I think the problem is your have a virus on your network called RM Connect. Remove it and printers might allocate correctly Sorry, could not resist.

 

Never had any printer problems on our 3.5 year old CC3 network... no other 3rd party software; no hacking login scripts to add printers for this, that and the other.

 

Have you tried restarting the print services? IIRC the following need to be stopped & started on the root server:

 

* Print Spooler

* RM Print Credits Client Service

* RM Print Credits Manager Service

* RM Printer Wrapper Service

 

Also, have you checked the event log of the affected machines regarding messages for printer installations?

[Mintsoft]

I think the problem is your have a virus on your network called RM Connect. Remove it and printers might allocate correctly Sorry, could not resist.

 

Now sadly Dave me dear, You know just as well as I do that Ron is the man who decided RM, not me

[Mintsoft]

I think the problem is your have a virus on your network called RM Connect. Remove it and printers might allocate correctly Sorry, could not resist.

 

Never had any printer problems on our 3.5 year old CC3 network... no other 3rd party software; no hacking login scripts to add printers for this, that and the other.

 

Have you tried restarting the print services? IIRC the following need to be stopped & started on the root server:

 

* Print Spooler

* RM Print Credits Client Service

* RM Print Credits Manager Service

* RM Printer Wrapper Service

 

Also, have you checked the event log of the affected machines regarding messages for printer installations?

 

The entire server has been restarted multiple times since all this has started to occur and its made no difference.

 

I've just checked the event logs and the only thing that mentions printers is in the Application log with RM Station Delivery being the culprit:

Failed to set \\MSF-SR-002.moorlandssixth.internal\C2Mono printer as default printer in function SetUpPrinterMappings, with error: The printer name is invalid. 

 

C2Mono IS the default printer for the 'room' but obviously it cant set it as default because the C2Mono hasnt been added by the RM Station Delivery thing :| Garrr Confusing

 

Rob

[peteraseddon]

Hey mintsoft, i'm having EXACTLY the same problem you are having with random printers being assigned to certain users. It seems that it will pick up the printers that are installed on a network printer port via our forest root server, but the main offenders are the ones that are shared out through workstations locally. Sometimes you can pick up some out of a certain room, sometimes you may get some printers from the wrong room. I've got a CC3 SR5 Based network with XPSP2 on Around half and SP1 on the rest. (not got round to rebuilding them all as we have a very large site) and I've been onto RM and to be honest i think they are stumped because this has gone on for around 3 months with me basically allocating, de allocating printers cleaning up DNS records, re installing and re-sharing every printer, trying new user profiles and all sorts of things. Im just glad im not the only one with this problem , if you want to get in touch to discuss what you've tried feel free to drop me a PM and we can have a chat.

[ljlbray]

We've been having this issue sporadically, however in our case it seems to be user related. When certain users log on to computers in certain rooms they either pick up a printer which has been previously allocated to our terminal server, or no printer at all.

 

The only difference I can see with these users is that in the management console (but NOT in Active Directory(?)) they appear as [username]@forestdnszones.[ourdomain]etc rather than the normal [username]@[ourdomain]etc. This can't be changed from within the management console, there is a dropdown box showing our domain, domaindnszones.[ourdomain]etc, and the forestdnszones.[ourdomain]etc

 

Any ideas why this could be??

 

Any input would be much appreciated

 

Laura

[Michael]

I've not experienced this problem, so I can only offer suggestions -

 

1. Update any drivers where you can at server level

2. Try creating a new printer with a different share name (I generally keep printer name and share name the same)

3. Stop and start the spooler service

4. Does re-imaging machines make any difference?

5. What printers are people with problems using? There may be a common link with a particular make/model.

[graywoodford]

Have you checked that you are fully up to date with all rm updates on all servers at all?

we don't generally have an issue with this.

[ljlbray]

Hi Michael,

 

It is user specific on the network, following the user around the school and allocating some printers randomly to users which seem to be assigned to specific DNS subdomain, which is not mirrored in the management console -the printers are all tested and working normally with people who are on the correct dns set

 

Thanks anyway

 

Laura

[graywoodford]

Have you done a health check then reset the users profile while they are not logged on to the system, that should sort it out.

[Michael]

some printers randomly to users which seem to be assigned to specific DNS subdomain

 

It does seem a little overkill when there are scripts or the likes of 2003 R2, which allows real printer distribution using GPOs.

[ljlbray]

yep tried that!

Reset profile, Health Check etc, no difference. There doesnt seem to be a way to change this dnszone issue. We should only have 2 domains!

[graywoodford]

Have you tried deleting the users application settings after a health check and reset? These will auto generate again when they log on, maybe there is something in there that is causing the issue.

Does this always happen on specific workstations or is it just whatever workstation the user logs on to?

[graywoodford]

Just thinking about it have you tried creating a new test user and see if it happens with them on a workstation that the pupil has had a problem on?

Knowing CC3 a good way to resolve issues is to delete the user and then re create them again (make sure that you save all documents first ofcourse and them put them back in the new user area)

Long way around but if it is only affecting a few users could be done

[ljlbray]

yes done health check and reset while theyre not logged on, makes no difference..

 

Oops duplicate from earlier..

 

I might get on to county, this issue seems to be affecting various kids, and we all know what they can be like about reporting problems..also if this is an ongoing issue now, which it seems it is going to be, I would rather get this solved rather than have to create a new user every time this happens, and find the cause so that I can fix it rather than just have a temporary workaround!

 

Thanks,

 

Laura

Edited July 3, 2009 by ljlbray

[ljlbray]

Oh, and it hasnt happened with the new users recently, seems to just start affecting some users randomly. I havnt tried deleting the application data, will do that this morning. The issue folows them round, hence the earlier comment of it being user specific...

[graywoodford]

If you have county support give them a call would be the best option