2003 Print Server

[boswell2k1]

Just built a new 2003 server for printers. It hosts about 20 printers for an office of about 200 people. At random times, people are losing the ability to print. The following error is popping up: Windows cannot print due to a problem with the current printer setup. Try one or more of the following: check the printer by printing a test page from windows. Make sure the printer is turned on and online. Reinstall the printer driver.

I deleted the network printer from the workstation "Printer and Faxes" and reinstalled it. Other users can print fine. There appears to be no valid fix for this, it happens to different users at random times of the day and fixes itself. If I try to print a test page I get "Test page failed to Print." Sometimes I can print to a local printer (if available), and sometimes I cannot. Sometime I can add a shared printer off another workstation and it will print fine, but will not print to the network printers, sometimes I cannot. I am having zero luck in pinpointing the issue. Has anyone every ran into such a problem?

[cluberti]

Is it always the same printer they are using causing the problem, and once the problem occurs does it seem to affect all printers on that client? Also, once it occurs, if you restart the Print Spooler service on the client, does printing functionality resume?

[boswell2k1]

No, different printers in different areas of the building. We label our printers by floor and by N,S,E,W corner. It's very tempermental about which printers it affects. And the person right next to the person with issue can print fine. Every one is a domain users. Some have local printers and network printers, some of those locals are shared and some are not. I can stop the service on the local machine and restart it, and on the service, and it doesn't change. I have tried rebooting the server, workstation, reinstalling all drivers, trying different drivers, no help. I have even tried removing the drivers manually out of the windows\sysytem32\spooler folder.

Thanks

[cluberti]

This is going to come down to a printer driver (or, more specifically, a print processor or monitor) causing problems inside spoolsv.exe. Would it be possible, next time you get the error (leave it up on screen) to get an "application hang" dump of the spoolsv.exe process?