Clustered printer missing but share still exists

Hi all,

We have a Win2k3 x64 cluster with 2 nodes for print services. We have a
shared printer that is causing me fits. This printer was created earlier
but it is missing now. I could not explain why it is missing so I just went
ahead to recreated it. I select the IP address that was there from the
previous printer and named the printer and the sharename the same as it was
before. It then proceeded to complain that the sharename already exists. I
did a net share from the node and sure enough it was listed. Now how in the
world can a share be out there that is not defined to any printer? The
printer is definately not in the printer list so I begin to wonder what
corruption I could have that would cause a printer to disappear from the
list but the server still thinks its there? I checked and there is no port
monitor associated with this printer to cause the cluster to choke on it.
Any ideas?

Thanks
Pete

As I said earlier. it's listed under LanmanServer shares on the node.

Did you check the registry?

--
Alan Morris
Windows Printing Team
Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base here:
http://support.microsoft.com/search/?adv=1

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

"Peter J. Dickason, MCSE" <>
wrote in message news:%...
> Hi all,
>
> We have a Win2k3 x64 cluster with 2 nodes for print services. We have a
> shared printer that is causing me fits. This printer was created earlier
> but it is missing now. I could not explain why it is missing so I just
> went ahead to recreated it. I select the IP address that was there from
> the previous printer and named the printer and the sharename the same as
> it was before. It then proceeded to complain that the sharename already
> exists. I did a net share from the node and sure enough it was listed.
> Now how in the world can a share be out there that is not defined to any
> printer? The printer is definately not in the printer list so I begin to
> wonder what corruption I could have that would cause a printer to
> disappear from the list but the server still thinks its there? I checked
> and there is no port monitor associated with this printer to cause the
> cluster to choke on it. Any ideas?
>
> Thanks
> Pete
>
>

Yes I said it was in fact in the registry. So it should be listed as a
printer on the cluster spooler. But you didn't mention how to correct this
so I can recreate this pritner since it does not show up in the cluster
printer list. Can I rip it from the registry? Why did it disappear? This
brings up concerns that we have an unstable cluster. And if I go ripping
keys out of the registry that it will make matters worse. Is this a normal
occurance that printers disappear at random or is there a root cause? The
docs say that third party port monitors are not supported so I made sure
that was not the cause in this case. Any ideas?


Thanks
Pete

Sorry I missed the reply where you stated the data was in the registry

Most likely one of the nodes is missing a driver component since the print
driver is not cluster aware. Install the print driver on both nodes but you
will need to offline / online the spooler resource to load the new resource.

You could also remove the required resource out of the cluster printer
registry but it would be easier just to install the driver on both nodes.

--
Alan Morris
Windows Printing Team
Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base here:
http://support.microsoft.com/search/?adv=1

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

"Peter J. Dickason, MCSE" <>
wrote in message news:%23BOUqK%...
> Yes I said it was in fact in the registry. So it should be listed as a
> printer on the cluster spooler. But you didn't mention how to correct
> this so I can recreate this pritner since it does not show up in the
> cluster printer list. Can I rip it from the registry? Why did it
> disappear? This brings up concerns that we have an unstable cluster. And
> if I go ripping keys out of the registry that it will make matters worse.
> Is this a normal occurance that printers disappear at random or is there a
> root cause? The docs say that third party port monitors are not supported
> so I made sure that was not the cause in this case. Any ideas?
>
>
> Thanks
> Pete
>

Thanks Alan,

I'm a little confused however. I used the document "Creating and
Configuring a Highly Available Print Server under Microsoft Windows Server
2003 Using a Server Cluster"
(http://www.microsoft.com/WindowsServ...leprinter.mspx)
to set this up and it says on page 18 that on Windows 2003 that print
drivers will be replicated to all nodes of the cluster and are stored in
\%SharedSpoolerDisk%\PrinterDrivers which I do see. If I go to each node
and look at the drivers I only see the Microsoft XPS driver which gets
installed with Windows. But I installed this particular driver on each node
per your instruction. It is still not picking it up. Do I need to restart
anything?

Thanks
Pete


"Alan Morris [MSFT]" <> wrote in message
news:...
> Sorry I missed the reply where you stated the data was in the registry
>
> Most likely one of the nodes is missing a driver component since the print
> driver is not cluster aware. Install the print driver on both nodes but
> you will need to offline / online the spooler resource to load the new
> resource.
>
> You could also remove the required resource out of the cluster printer
> registry but it would be easier just to install the driver on both nodes.
>
> --
> Alan Morris
> Windows Printing Team
> Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base here:
> http://support.microsoft.com/search/?adv=1
>
> This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
> rights.

Offline / Online the Printer spooler resource

If the printer driver installs services or some other resource without the
spooler involved, the other components are not installed on all nodes

--
Alan Morris
Windows Printing Team
Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base here:
http://support.microsoft.com/search/?adv=1

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

"Peter J. Dickason, MCSE" <>
wrote in message news:...
> Thanks Alan,
>
> I'm a little confused however. I used the document "Creating and
> Configuring a Highly Available Print Server under Microsoft Windows Server
> 2003 Using a Server Cluster"
> (http://www.microsoft.com/WindowsServ...leprinter.mspx)
> to set this up and it says on page 18 that on Windows 2003 that print
> drivers will be replicated to all nodes of the cluster and are stored in
> \%SharedSpoolerDisk%\PrinterDrivers which I do see. If I go to each node
> and look at the drivers I only see the Microsoft XPS driver which gets
> installed with Windows. But I installed this particular driver on each
> node per your instruction. It is still not picking it up. Do I need to
> restart anything?
>
> Thanks
> Pete
>
>
> "Alan Morris [MSFT]" <> wrote in message
> news:...
>> Sorry I missed the reply where you stated the data was in the registry
>>
>> Most likely one of the nodes is missing a driver component since the
>> print driver is not cluster aware. Install the print driver on both
>> nodes but you will need to offline / online the spooler resource to load
>> the new resource.
>>
>> You could also remove the required resource out of the cluster printer
>> registry but it would be easier just to install the driver on both nodes.
>>
>> --
>> Alan Morris
>> Windows Printing Team
>> Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base here:
>> http://support.microsoft.com/search/?adv=1
>>
>> This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
>> rights.
>
>