Topic: Printing from XP on SME connected printer is extremly slow

[drfresh]

I hope I get all the descriptions of setup and problem right.  Otherwise I hope you ask.

Got a fresh SME 7.0 with no contribs installed on a Sempron 2400+ with 512 Mb RAM. Should be sufficient for my use wich is only as mail server and hopefully printer host.

Connected a HP Deskjet 980Cxi professional printer via USB on SME. Installed the printer from the control panel. Setup the printer from a XP choosing the right driver that was already there. Now, I can print from XP when I chose a single page or two without any problem. But now I try to print a 56 page document. Word has been printing for half an hour now and has only queued three pages! I'm not using background printing and the XP is doing nothing else. The XP is an Athlon 64 3500+ with 1 Gb RAM. SME and XP is on the same 100 Mbit/s network. Can't realy see what should be wrong.

Any help is appreciated! Thanks!
Please help

[psoren]

Hi,

Got a fresh SME 7.0 with no contribs installed on a Sempron 2400+ with 512 Mb RAM. Should be sufficient for my use wich is only as mail server and hopefully printer host.

Connected a HP Deskjet 980Cxi professional printer via USB on SME. Installed the printer from the control panel. Setup the printer from a XP choosing the right driver that was already there. Now, I can print from XP when I chose a single page or two without any problem. But now I try to print a 56 page document. Word has been printing for half an hour now and has only queued three pages! I'm not using background printing and the XP is doing nothing else. The XP is an Athlon 64 3500+ with 1 Gb RAM. SME and XP is on the same 100 Mbit/s network. Can't realy see what should be wrong.

Do you have other clients you could try? Maybe with other windows versions. If you search the net, you will find that some people have troubles with with Win XP and service pack 2 installed, so maybe that is where your problem could be. If that's not the problem then i guess it's one to report as a bug. Your hardware is more than enough for the job.

Per

[drfresh]

I have tried it with other clients as well. All XPSP2 though. They all got the problem. I also see, that opening the printer dialog is very very slow as if the XP client is waiting for responce from the printer.

But have always used an other XP as my server host with the same printer and same set of clients without any problems. So the problem is definately related to the new setup.

Thanks!

Dr. Fresh

[smeghead]

.. are you using SMB to print (\\servername\print_share_name) or lpr via IP (xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:lp0)?

See also http://lists.samba.org/archive/samba/2004-December/096801.html

Seems something to do with saving settings for network printers screws with Samba  

[cheezeweeze]

This is a workaround I've used on 2K and XP.

In Windows, setup a local printer on LPT2 then capture the port by opening a command prompt and type the following:

net use lpt2 \\ServerName\PrinterShareName

[swissis]

Hee that works but what is the trick?

What is the cause that a usb printer connected to SME responds that slowwww?

[cheezeweeze]

swissis,

I don't think this problem is related to the USB port because I've seen this when using the standard LPT port.

I tried the following procedure and it seems to have worked:

> Procedure:  
> 1. Edit the registry observing usual caution.  
> 2. Locate the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Printers\DevModePerUser  
> 3. Remove all VALUES for Network printers of the form:  
> \<print_server_name ><printer_queue_name>  
> 4. Locate the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Printers\DevModes2  
> 5. Remove all VALUES for Network printers of the form:  
> \<print_server_name><printer_queue_name>

Quoted from:
http://www.opensubscriber.com/message/samba@lists.samba.org/2097462.html

As for why:
 
> The Windows print cache is timestamp based.  The client  
> spooler gets in a loop where it continually asks the  
> server for the timestamp (ChangeID) on a given printer.  
> In spite of the fact that the timestamp has been incremented  
> by some change to the printer, the client never updates  
> its local cache of printer data.  And so it continually  
> thinks it is out of date.

Quoted from:
http://www.opensubscriber.com/message/samba@lists.samba.org/2099674.htm

[drfresh]

Hmm - I may be stupid (usually that's not what I'm called   ). I tried this, and then NOTHING worked regarding printing. So I uninstalled the printer queue, and reinstalled it again. I guess I must have done something wrong.

Could you exemplify the method and be more explicit on what to delete?

Thanks again! Really hope to get this working.

[cheezeweeze]

drfresh,

As always, be sure to export the reg keys to a file before you modify any of the values just in case.

Run regedit and drill down to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Printers\DevModePerUser

In the right window under the "Name" column look for:
\\server\printer

Right click the value matching the \\server\printer and click Delete.

Do the same for:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Printers\DevModes2

Then exit out of regedit.

Now when you right click the printer and select properties it should respond as usual.

[steever]

Thanks mate.