WinXP print sharing/spooling problem

[Joe_M]

I am having a problem with a WinXP workstation computer serving a shared
printer to a small domain. Any solutions or thoughts? I have not been able
to find much searching the net.

I recently installed an HP DeskJet 1220C color printer attached to the
"Marketing" computer via USB with the latest HP driver (2.1, 11/2002). It is
shared in a domain controlled by an SBS 2000 server and sees very light
duty. All user computers are running WinXP SP2. I moved this printer from
another computer's USB where there had not been any problems (post SP2).
Prior to that the printer had been on the Marketing computer's parallel port
with no problems (pre SP2). Since I moved the printer there have been two
failures in print jobs from users that normally do not have problems sending
print jobs to this shared resource. Once a problem is encountered, nothing
will print on the HP 1220C until the Marketing computer is restarted.

At the time the problem started the user on the Marketing computer got the
following popup:

Spool Directory Selection
Insufficient diskspace in the current directory to spool the print file.
Please select another directory.
Current directory C:\Windows\rbp81016.TMF.
KBytes available: 831916.

The print file was a 250KB job from a PDF. I am guessing that this was a
rights issue because of the wrong directory. I don't know why something was
using the WINDOWS directory. I checked and spool files are normally placed
in \\Marketing\c$\WINDOWS\system32\spool\PRINTERS as you would expect. I
have no idea about the rbp81016.tmf file. I could find nothing similar on
the Marketing or requesting computer. We do not use WordPerfect.

At about the same time the System Event Log on the Marketing computer got
the following entry. Similar entries appeared when I tried to repeat the
problem with either remotely or locally submitted print jobs.

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Print
Event Category: None
Event ID: 6161
Date: 7/28/2005
Time: 9:58:17 AM
User: DOMAIN\Stan
Computer: MARKETING
Description:
The document http://www.crewnetwork.org/even.PDF owned by Stan failed to
print on printer HP 1220C Color Printer. Data type: NT EMF 1.008. Size of
the spool file in bytes: 254552. Number of bytes printed: 184240. Total
number of pages in the document: 2. Number of pages printed: 0. Client
machine: \\192.168.1.116. Win32 error code returned by the print processor:
29 (0x1d).

Stan is the user on another computer. All users have administrator
privileges on their own computer (application requirement), but Stan is not
defined on the Marketing computer. I understand that error 29 means "The
system cannot write to the specified device" which may imply that the port
has become inactive or corrupt. However, the Printers and Faxes windows on
the Marketing computer shows the printer as ready. If I unplug/replug the
USB cable, the status changes to inactive and back.

One other observation. The log entry comes from the Event Viewer on the SBS
2000 server (remote). If I look at the log from the WinXP Marketing computer
(local) I get "The description for Event ID ( 6161 ) in Source ( Print )
cannot be found. The local computer may not have the necessary registry
information or message DLL files to display messages from a remote computer.
...." I believe that this is a separate issue. I do not know why the problem
exists when viewing from the computer with the log.

Thanks for any help.

Joe M

 

[Alan Morris]

error 29 is

29 ERROR_WRITE_FAULT

the spooler does not write tmf files. I don't think it's the HP driver
either.

Virus scanning software perhaps?

 

[Joe_M]

Thanks for your response Alan.

All computers on the LAN are running Symantec Antivirus Corporate with
uniform auto-protect settings governed by the server. I don't see how SAV
could cause this problem, much less be sensitive to the particular machine.

What does the Spooler Directory Selection popup window mean? If the spooler
is not trying to write the file "C:\Windows\rbp81016.TMF", why does it pop
up the message and who is trying to write it?.

I have no idea about the file itself. The main information I have found
about .TMF is "WordPerfect Tagged Font Metric File (Corel)". I have also
found a Template Make File for an obscure math package, something related to
TIVONeither makes sense on our network.

I did find a Microsoft presentation talking about Trace Message Files as
part of event tracing for Windows in the DDK (Driver Developer Kit?). There
you have to explicitly run Tracepdb to extracs trace message information
from PDBs and create TMFs. Some HP or Microsoft residual debugging
scafolding might make sense, but not the interpretation utility.

 

[Alan Morris]

That would indicate that a driver is writing the file within the context of
the spoolsv.exe process. This could be a printer driver, a print processor
driver, or a lanuage monitor driver.

In Printer Properties, Advanced, Print Processor you can verify or change
the print processor to winprint. If it is not winprint, note the current
settings, then change it with RAW as the data type.