Print Sessions May Fail to Start When Using Host Print Service

• Microsoft SNA Server, versions 4.0, 4.0 SP1

SYMPTOMS

Host print sessions may stay in an inactive state when they are activated for use. This problem may occur under the following circumstances:

• If several print sessions are configured for automatic activation, and are all configured to print to the same physical printer, one or more of the print sessions may fail to start.
  
  - or -



• Print sessions that are configured to print to remote printers that exist in Windows NT domains different than the domain that includes the SNA Server system may fail to start.

CAUSE

The following are the causes for the two scenarios listed in the SYMPTOMS section:

In the first scenario, if there are several auto-activated print sessions configured to print to the same physical printer, each print session tries to call GetPrinter() at exactly the same time when the Print Server service is started. As a result, some of the GetPrinter() calls may fail, causing some of the print session to stay in an inactive state. In the second scenario, when a print session is activated, it makes a call to OpenPrinter() to get a handle to the specified printer. The permissions required for the OpenPrinter() call may cause permission problems with some printers which results in the OpenPrinter() call failing. The effect of this is that the print session would fail to activate. This is more likely to occur when the print session is configured to print to a remote printer in a different Windows NT domain.

RESOLUTION

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in SNA Server version 4.0 and 4.0 Service Pack 1. This problem was corrected in the latest SNA Server version 4.0 U.S. Service Pack. For information on obtaining this Service Pack, query on the following word in the Microsoft Knowledge Base (without the spaces):

S E R V P A C K

Additional query words:

Keywords :
Version : WINDOWS:4.0,4.0 SP1
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbbug