NT 4.0 Server with approximately 100 9x clients. The print server is set up with only about 6 printers...mix of HP, Cannon, Xerox...
All of a sudden, all users on the network when attempting to print to any of the printers receive a "Unable to connect to \\prnsrv due to an unknown system error". The print job gets placed in the local queue, but the printer is then marked as "offline". Sometimes, you can go in, highlight the jobs, click on Use Printer Offline and they'll process. Other times, you have to reboot the client machine.
This occurs probably 5 out of 7 times on any given client machine during peak or off-peak network usage.
I've exhaustively searched the Knowledge Base and cant come up with anything...though I continually find references to problems with HP JetAdmin software and port monitoring. But if we remove that software and try to move the printers to LPR ports...all the jobs queued to HP printers print, but then remain in the print queue.
Could we have a corrupt spoolss.exe, are there other issues. etc.?
I'm open to ANY suggestion at this point.
Regards,
-Mike