Published printers disappear from AD

[Jason]

I have a recurring problem that is strange. I have 90 published, network
printers on a server that on occation will disappear from the Active
Directory. I have to stop/restart the spooler service on this server and
on a DC in order to get the printers to reappear in the AD search option.

The DCs is running Win2K with SP3. I do not have the "Directory pruning
interval", "Directory pruning priority" or "Directory pruning retry" set
with in the AD set. The print server is running Win2k/Exch2k with SP3.

I have found this only occurs on one printer server in my entire domain. I
can search for other printer based on the remote DC/Exch2k/printer server
and find their printer.

The user can still find the printer by going through the old NT4 style
printer search.

There are now events to be found in the printer server or any DC to point to
the problem.

Has any seen this issue before? If so, what is the cause and resolution for
it?

Thanks

 

[Tony Murray [MVP]]

Some things to check:

1. The printer server is correctly registered in DNS.
2. The DHCP client service is running on the printer
server (for some reason, dynamic DNS updates require the
DHCP client service to be running.
3. The subnet that the printer server is in is correctly
registered in AD.

The printer pruner runs on DCs (not as a service, but as a
thread within the spooler service) and needs to contact
the print queues on printer servers in order check that
they are still available. If there is poor connectivity
between the DC(s) and printer server then you can see this
type of unexpected pruning behaviour. Usually the problem
is a misconfiguration in DNS, in which case you might get
off-site DCs pruning the printers because bad network
connectivity.

Use the EventCombNT tool to search for events 47 and 50 in
the System event log on DCs. This will show you which DC
is responsible for the pruning. From there you can
generally work backwards to find the problem.

Keep any eye out for an article on this subject in the Jan
edition of Windows and .NET magazine.

Tony
www.activedir.org

 

[Jason]

Tony,
I have check the first three points you have suggested and found each to be
setup and running the required service.

The site the printer is located has three different DCs running. I looked
into the event logs on the 1 DC in the site, as well as our entire AD system
( holds all of the FSMO roles at this point), and found the Event IDs 47 and
50 listed. On the printer server I found the Event IDs 36 and 42 listed as
well.

What would be the best way to be sure the DNS/SITE is configured properly
(Any CLI tools?). I am able to find the DC and the printer server easily
within the "User and Computer" and within the "Sites and Services". Since
the printer server is running on the same server as Exchange 2K, if the DNS
is wrong, the mail would have a problem, but it does not.

Is there anything to look on the DC in perticular?

I will be looking forward to the next issue.

Thanks.

 

[Steven Liu]

Hi,

As to these 47, 50, 36 and 42 error in the event logs, would you please
paste the detail error message here? Please includes the event ID, source
and description.

I will continue to help you with the problem.

Thanks for using Microsoft News Group!

Sincerely,

Steven Liu [MSFT]

Microsoft Online Partner Support

MCSE 2000

Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security

This posting is provided "as is" with no warranties and confers no rights.

 

[Tony Murray [MVP]]

Ok, so it's probably not a DNS issue if the DC in the same
AD site is pruning the printers. The pruner will only
remove the printers from AD if it can't contact the print
queue on the printer server for some reason. Some of
these reasons can be:

1. Outage of the printer server for a period of more than
24 hours (by default the pruner will try to make contact 3
times with 8 hour intervals before performing the removal).
2. Network problems between the DC and printer server.
3. Firewall between the DC and printer server.
4. Problems with the DC itself.

If you don't find a specific problem, you could try a
workaround with Group Policy settings. First of all
increase the Directory pruning interval (from the default
8 hours), together with the Directory pruning retry (from
the default of 2 retries). You could also enable Check
published state and set it to an appropriate value (12
hours should be sufficient). This is a useful setting in
that it will cause pruned printers to be re-published
without having to restart the spooler on the print
server. Be careful not to make the check too frequent as
this could adversely affect server performance.


Tony

 

[Jason]

Steven,
Here is the information that you have requested.

Event log from the DC

Event Type: Information
Event Source: Print
Event Category: None
Event ID: 47
Date: 12/12/2003
Time: 7:58:38 AM
User: NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM
Computer: GA1-W2K-01
Description:
The Printer represented by PrintQueue
LDAP://CN=GA1-W2K-17-ga1ac2,CN=GA1-W2K-17,CN=Computers,DC=atlpl,DC=com
cannot be found: 709.

Event Type: Information
Event Source: Print
Event Category: None
Event ID: 50
Date: 12/10/2003
Time: 1:32:07 AM
User: NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM
Computer: GA1-W2K-01
Description:
PrintQueue
LDAP://CN=GA1-W2K-17-ga1ac1,CN=GA1-W2K-17,CN=Computers,DC=atlpl,DC=com was
deleted.


Event log from the print server

Event Type: Information
Event Source: Print
Event Category: None
Event ID: 42
Date: 12/11/2003
Time: 1:11:25 PM
User: NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM
Computer: GA1-W2K-17
Description:
Printer ga1it1 was successfully unpublished.

Event Type: Information
Event Source: Print
Event Category: None
Event ID: 36
Date: 12/11/2003
Time: 1:11:25 PM
User: NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM
Computer: GA1-W2K-17
Description:
PrintQueue CN=GA1-W2K-17-ga1it1 was successfully created in container
LDAP://ga1-w2k-01.atlpl.com/CN=GA1-W2K-17,CN=Computers,DC=atlpl,DC=com.

 

[Steven Liu]

Hi Jason,

I found an article. Let's check whether it can solve the problem.

319390 "List in the Directory" Printer Property Is Not Automatically
Checked on
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=319390

Do you have enabled the Print Pruning service or any pruning policy? is
yes, disable them on all DC.

If "Allow pruning of published printers" policy is disabled, enable the
policy and set the interval to Never. Test whether this works.

Check the "Access this computer from the network" user right on the printer
server. Make sure the "Authenicated Users" is there. If not, add it.

Thanks for using Microsoft News Group!

Sincerely,

Steven Liu [MSFT]

Microsoft Online Partner Support

MCSE 2000

Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security

This posting is provided "as is" with no warranties and confers no rights.

 

[Jason]

Steve,
I do not have any of the print pruning policies set. They are still in the
default state of "unconfigured". Nor do I have them configured in any group
policy.

I found the TechNet article 246906 "Printer Pruner May Prune all of the
Print Queues Objects on Its Site". This refered to your suggestion - If
"Allow pruning of published printers" policy is disabled, enable the
policy and set the interval to Never. I am will implement this and whether
this works.

Thanks.

 

[Tony Murray [MVP]]

Jason

I wouldn't recommend that setting as it effectively stops
all pruning. Pruning is a good thing because it helps
maintain current information in AD. Consider the
following scenario:

You have a printer server that has some hardware
problems. You down the server, rebuild the machine with
new hardware, call it something else and republish all
your newly created print queues.

If you have the pruning set to Never you will end up with
two sets of print queue information in AD because the old
printer information will never go away.

This is an extreme example, but similar things can happen
on a smaller scale, i.e. one or two print queues removed
long ago remain published in AD forever.

Have a look at the suggestions I made in my earlier mail
for tweaking other Group Policy settings.

Tony

-----Original Message-----
Steve,
I do not have any of the print pruning policies set. They are still in the
default state of "unconfigured". Nor do I have them configured in any group
policy.

I found the TechNet article 246906 "Printer Pruner May Prune all of the
Print Queues Objects on Its Site". This refered to your suggestion - If
"Allow pruning of published printers" policy is disabled, enable the
policy and set the interval to Never. I am will implement this and whether
this works.

Thanks.

Hi Jason,

I found an article. Let's check whether it can solve the problem.

319390 "List in the Directory" Printer Property Is Not Automatically
Checked on
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=319390

Do you have enabled the Print Pruning service or any pruning policy? is
yes, disable them on all DC.

If "Allow pruning of published printers" policy is disabled, enable the
policy and set the interval to Never. Test whether this works.

Check the "Access this computer from the network" user

right on the
printer

server. Make sure the "Authenicated Users" is there. If not, add it.

Thanks for using Microsoft News Group!

Sincerely,

Steven Liu [MSFT]

Microsoft Online Partner Support

MCSE 2000

Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security

This posting is provided "as is" with no warranties and

confers no rights.


.