Print Jobs Fail to Print to Printer Pool if Printer is Offline
Article ID: 151452
Article Last Modified on 11/1/2006
APPLIES TO
- Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 3.5
- Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 3.51
- Microsoft Windows NT Server 3.5
- Microsoft Windows NT Server 3.51
This article was previously published under Q151452
SYMPTOMS
When you print to a printer pool configured under Windows NT, if a printer
on one of the ports is unavailable, a job sent to that port times out and
has to be deleted.
WORKAROUND
If a printer that is part of a pool is unavailable, remove that port from
the pool.
MORE INFORMATION
When printing to a printer pool, the spooler will send waiting jobs to
alternate ports. If the original or alternate ports are not available,
either from the network being down, the printer being off-line or turned
off, or a parallel or serial cable being unplugged, the spooler will still
send a job to the unavailable port and all other jobs will continue to
print on the available ports. This is normal behavior under Windows NT.
If a printer is unavailable, the spooler always attempts to print to it
and produces an error when the print job times out. A printer pool with
multiple ports still results in the same behavior on a port-by-port basis.
Currently, the spooler cannot redirect jobs from one port to another, so
once the job has been directed to a port that is not available, the job
will have to be canceled.
Additional query words: prodnt hang
Keywords: KB151452