Win Server 2003 print server, spooler hangs

[IT_Man_Dan]

Dear all,

 

My print spooler keeps randomly hanging on my Win 2003 print server. When it hangs you obviously can't print and you can't access printers & faxes view. As soon as you restart the print spooler all seems ok and printers and faxes view opens up.

 

Could it be a dodgy driver causing this? at the moment we have mainly HP printers (about 20) on the server and they are all using the PCL5 or PCL6 driver for their printer model (ie 'HP Laserjet p2050 series PCL6') would it be ok to set them all to use the HP universal PCL5 or PCL6 driver and remove all of the other drivers off the system? Would I loose any functionality by using the universal driver?

 

Today it hanged just when I remoted onto it from a workstation, then again when I tried to delete a printer (twice).

 

Any ideas would be appreciated.

 

Many thanks

Dan

[ToyHeartsFan]

Could it be a dodgy driver causing this?

 

Netsupport was installed on one of our servers which our LEA ICT people use for remote support. I dont know why but it caused the print spooler to crash removing the software (it was an old version) stopped the print spooler crashing so it might not be a driver issue.

 

It might be worth checking if you can find newer drivers from HP I would try and get the model specific ones myself rather than generic. Just the basic driver if you can without any of the junk printer installation cds sometime try to install.

 

I always use standard IP ports when installing printers.

 

I always disable bidirectional support.

 

Also is there plenty of space on the drive the print spooler is on? In the days before sparklebox was banned some of our print jobs were so huge it was crazy.

[glennda]

Are you using HP2600's by any chance?

 

They used to do that alot!

[IT_Man_Dan]

No we haven't got any HP2600's

 

I have got an update though. There was an old HP officejet 6000 driver hanging around that when I tried to delete printer from printers and faxes it made the spooler hang. After changing the port I was able to delete the printer and then delete the driver from server properties. Now the spooler doesn't seem to fall over but server properties takes a while to open and when you click 'add a printer' nothing happens?!?

 

The Officejet 6000 was on the local machine that I remoted to the server from.