[SOLVED] Network Printer...Help!

[BrandonTech]

We have an HP 1606dn attached via Ethernet cable to our network. This printer is being served by our print server running Server 2012 R2, and it is applied to a set of computers via Group Policy. It is currently installed with the HP Universal driver like many other printers that are all fine.

For the second time now (maybe 3), the printer seems to get a print job that it will not let go of. It continuously reprints this job over and over. I have read about disabling the bidirectional support under the Ports tab, but that makes no difference to this printer.

When this happens it seems like the issue is tied to the IP address. I should mention the printer has a static IP. I can do a factory reset on the printer by holding down the correct button combination and it will stop spitting out the job. If I put the printer back to the original static IP, the job comes back. There may be a few minutes delay, but it comes back.

The print server never shows the job in that printers que. It also doesn't show the printer as offline in Print Management (it's always "Ready") even when I have changed the IP address or have the printer turned off.

Hopefully someone has experienced this before, or can tell me what I am overlooking. Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Any particular type of print job that tends to be the issue?
Certain report from a program?

 

[BrandonTech]

Any particular type of print job that tends to be the issue?
Certain report from a program?

Doesn't appear to be any particular type of job. It has been a while since it happened the last time, but it started this week again. The job appeared to just be a 2 page Word document with the second page being blank.

Also, when it happened previously the only thing I could do to get it to stop was to change it to a different IP address and reconfigure all the settings in the Print Server and Group Policy. Sort of like, I just left the bad IP address behind.

 

[Moltuae]

The job appeared to just be a 2 page Word document with the second page being blank.

Do you know if the second (blank) page is present in the document it's trying to print? If it isn't, I'm thinking a paper size mismatch somewhere, causing an error that is triggering the reprint attempts.

Any clues in the PrintService Logs?

 

[BlackLabTechs]

I would check local workstation queues. Possible someone setup to print directly to it maybe and the print job is coming from their queue but not clearing out.

 

[BrandonTech]

Do you know if the second (blank) page is present in the document it's trying to print? If it isn't, I'm thinking a paper size mismatch somewhere, causing an error that is triggering the reprint attempts.

Any clues in the PrintService Logs?

Unfortunately, I do not know the last person that printed the job. Printer is in a multipurpose room at a school. It started about 2 days ago, and I'm just now getting by to look at it. It's crazy because it has been good for so long.

The log shows nothing since November of last year. It's almost like the job is trapped in the wire just bouncing around like a crazy thing waiting for the IP address to show up so that it can spit itself out over and over.

When I factory reset the printer, it's fine...and I could proceed to reconfigure everything on a new IP address, but that really won't solve it. It may for a few months. Would like to figure out why it's happening...

 

[FremontPC]

Keep in mind that I don't know much about server environments, so I may ask a dopey question or two... That said:

Is the job stuck in the print server itself?

If not, can you see which workstations have a job pending?

Sounds like maybe somebody didn't get the right driver or it didn't install right, or it's trying to use a language that's not installed in the printer? If you set the printer back to it's regular IP address and pause the queue, might you catch the offending job and find out it's source?

 

[Tech Savvy]

I would check local workstation queues. Possible someone setup to print directly to it maybe and the print job is coming from their queue but not clearing out.

I agree with this, I got a call with the exact same issue a while back from a school who couldn't figure out why it was spitting out the same print job multiple times a day at random times in the computer lab, I found out it was all coming from the same workstation, and it turned out that the IT guy did work on it about a week or two prior and froze (they used deep freeze) the workstation with something in the queue so everytime the computer turned on it would send the pages to be printed.

I doubt you froze a job in the queue, but I do think I could be related to a specific workstation.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Couple of ideas...from your post so far, I can't narrow down much.

*When it falls down...do your best to find out who sent the last print job. See what it was they were printing. The HP Uni drives are usually very compatible, but sometimes you get older software that does something from a specific function, like print a special report that uses an old reporting engine...and they flip out with some newer print drivers. I usually set those people up with a custom printer object that uses a legacy HP LJ4 driver.

*Replace network cable.
If it's sharing some little 5 port switch somewhere like printers often do...bounce the switch. Replace uplink cable.

*Update firmware if available for that model.

 

[TurricanII]

As above, clearly a print job stuck on a local machine. Turn the printer off, give the IP address to a workstation. Open tcp port 9100 inbound on the workstation firwall. Run a free honeypot or http://www.mcafee.com/us/downloads/free-tools/attacker.aspx to listen on tcp port 9100 - the program will tell you what IP addresses are trying to connect to deliver the print job.

 

[BrandonTech]

You all don't know how much I appreciate the help today! There was a local machine with a job stuck. I didn't even realize that computer was connected to it like that, but once you all mentioned it I thought about one machine that sits off to itself. I didn't have to use the honeypot method, but would have it that one computer hadn't been the one.

I know that machine had been rebooted at least once and it still wouldn't let go of the job. It was from a student profile. It wouldn't let me cancel it from my account unless I used Print Management to access the printers. This may be normal as I don't have a lot of experience with printers.

Again, thanks to everyone!

 

[TurricanII]

Do you know the universal method of killing all print jobs? For future reference, stop the spooler service. open %windir%\system32\spool\printers and delete the contents. Start the spooler service. All suck jobs should be gone.

 

[Moltuae]

All suck jobs should be gone.

Freudian slip there?

Hey, it doesn't just kill the print jobs, it blows them away!