Got a puzzler for the tech-savvy out there...

[silverbear]

At the hotel I work at, we have a computer for the guest's use in the Business Center (we're a businessman's hotel)... before we upgraded to Windows XP, we were constantly having to take that PC to the repairman, or format the sucker, after some guest went somewhere he shouldn't have... we also had guests installing programs on the computer that were most assuredly NOT authorized by management, including one guest who installed one of those autodialers that let you hook up to a gambling website down in the Caribbean (at 3.99 a minute)... that guest then bypassed the hotel phone, which is routed through the switchboard, instead unplugging the fax (which isn't) and plugging that line into the PC...

He ran up a 675.00 bill, give or take a few cents, then skipped out... then had the audacity to get pissed at us a month or so later when he tried to register again, and we informed him he was on our "Do Not Rent" list... we told him if he made good on the 675 bucks and swore not to use the Business Center PC, we'd rent to him, but he had a problem with that...

Then came XP, and the ability to create profiles, and the ability to password protect the Admin side... then there's the limited Hotel Guest profile, which will not allow guests to install programs or delete them-- they have to go to the front desk and get us to put them over on the Admin side for that, so we know what's being installed and uninstalled... since then, not one problem with a guest crashing our PC...

But here lately, a rather serious problem has cropped up with the printer we have attached to that PC-- you can print from the Admin side, but not from the Hotel Guest side... this after a year or two of normal function by that printer on both profiles... worse, if you TRY to print out something from the Hotel Guest side, it will jam up any attempts to print anything from the Admin side, until you reboot the computer, at which point the print job spooled from the Hotel Guest side prints out...

When we first installed that printer, we'd get an error box when we booted up on either profile, saying there was a Print Spooler Error, but when we exited that error box, the printer worked just fine...

Anyway, I was assigned the task of trying to figure out what the fornication is wrong here, and here's what I've tried:

I uninstalled and reinstalled the printer, both letting XP find the new hardware, and fron the installation disk... no luck, and we'd still get that Print Spooler dialogue box... then I went for the whole nine yards last night, and formatted that sucker, using the E-machines recovery disks (the boss spared every expense on that PC, the printer is a black-- not color-- Konica Minolta inkjet)...

Well, that didn't accomplish jack, except to get rid of the Print Spooler error box... I then deactivated the default Guest profile, and created a new Hotel Guest profile; that didn't work either...

Well, between downloading over 50 Windows updates (no exaggeration), then installing the Norton Internet Security 2006 package, updating it and running a full virus scan, and installing the MS Office XP package (our business types need Excel and Word), it was 7AM and quitting time before I knew where the time went...

And I'm at a total loss-- why did this printer work just fine, once upon a time, on both profiles, but now we can't get it to work at all on the Hotel Guest profile?? Obviously, given the fact that the documents to be printed DO print once we reboot, it's being spooled...

The only thing I can think of is that the problem is with the printer itself, which also doesn't make sense... but to test that theory tonight, I'm planning on pulling the HP LaserJet from the boss' office and installing it on the Business Center PC, and seeing if that one will work on both profiles...

But if that doesn't work, I'm fresh out of ideas... has ANYONE got an idea that will help me?? I mean, besides taking my Army .45 to work and puttin' that thing out of my misery?? Any help will be greatly appreciated, and I'll make sure to let the boss know that all those hours I spend hangin' out on football message boards at work has resulted in a benefit to the company... LOL...

 

[Zaxor]

Hey Larry,

You probably already done this...but make sure the printer has share rights..

 

[silverbear]

Hey Larry,

You probably already done this...but make sure the printer has share rights..

I'm not sure I know how to do that, Zax... but if it's a setting that can be changed, that would explain why the printer worked all these months, then all of a sudden stopped working...

The question then would be why any guest would go in and change that setting...

Thanks for the input, pal...

 

[Zaxor]

Click on start
click on printers
choose the printer in question
right click and look at sharing

 

[silverbear]

Click on start
click on printers
choose the printer in question
right click and look at sharing

I will certainly do that at work tonight... but doesn't that mean sharing the PC with multiple computers??

Or do multiple profiles register with the printer's drivers as 2 different PCs??

Again, I really appreciate you... I just read the same advice on another board, but you were the first...

 

[BrAinPaiNt]

I think sharing is when you make it a network printer to be used on other computers no the network. I don't think it woud be for different profiles on one computer but I could be wrong.

It has been a LONG time since I had any spool problems with printers but it seemed to me it was due to either a bad printer driver or another driver conflicting with the printer driver (sometimes when you delete one printer and add another but all the drivers were not removed so it was a conflict).
There could also be a program on the computer that causes conflicts with the printers.

However since you have reformated the hard drive, which would clear ALL drivers, I am not sure what it could be.

I also thought about going into the bios and make sure the printer was set up right in the correct port (lpt or com), but it has been so long since I messed with that stuff I don't remember the normal ports for this...I think it was either lpt1 or com1 but I could be remembering Lpt1 from an old unix system lol.

Hopefully it is just a printer problem and another printer will take care of the issue, that way someone could just buy another printer, cheap as some are, and be done with the problem.

Another thing to consider is that of all the e-machines I have dealt with 99% of them have had problems with drivers or other issues. Now to be fair they may be much better now as it has been at least 4-5 years since I dealt with them but at that time I even had to search the net for hours to find some audio drivers as the computer did not even come with those drivers for the onboard sound on the install disc.

 

[Zaxor]

I will certainly do that at work tonight... but doesn't that mean sharing the PC with multiple computers??

Or do multiple profiles register with the printer's drivers as 2 different PCs??

Again, I really appreciate you... I just read the same advice on another board, but you were the first...

It is necessary to share the printer over the network

you should see a hand under the printer if it is shared...

try that let me know...

but it is time for this Cowboy to be going towards the bed

 

[Zaxor]

Larry better listen to the Brain

as his makes more sense now that I am thinking about it...

 

[Yeagermeister]

Hey SB have you tried the usual scan for viruses and spyware?

 

[BrAinPaiNt]

Hey SB have you tried the usual scan for viruses and spyware?

I seen that he said he did a virus scan.

But if he reformatted the hard drive and it still did not work, figuring someone did not have a chance to download and install anything since the reformat...then those two things should not be an issue IMO.

On thing I did not think of, and I don't know if it would cause a spool problem or not.

However if someone was trying to print something on two different computers using the same network printer, at the same time, it may cause a problem.

I am not sure how big a business it is or if say someone is trying to print a word document on the guest computer while at the same time someone in the business office is trying to print something and both are going to the same printer at the same time it could cause a problem.

I doub that is the problem in this case as he says it has happened a good deal lately, just throwing it out there.

 

[Yeagermeister]

I seen that he said he did a virus scan.

But if he reformatted the hard drive and it still did not work, figuring someone did not have a chance to download and install anything since the reformat...then those two things should not be an issue IMO.

On thing I did not think of, and I don't know if it would cause a spool problem or not.

However if someone was trying to print something on two different computers using the same network printer, at the same time, it may cause a problem.

I am not sure how big a business it is or if say someone is trying to print a word document on the guest computer while at the same time someone in the business office is trying to print something and both are going to the same printer at the same time it could cause a problem.

I doub that is the problem in this case as he says it has happened a good deal lately, just throwing it out there.

Most of the business/guest computers I have seen are not networked.

I must have missed were he said it was a clean load of XP. The only thing I can think of in that case is the wrong printer driver.

 

[BrAinPaiNt]

Most of the business/guest computers I have seen are not networked.

I must have missed were he said it was a clean load of XP. The only thing I can think of in that case is the wrong printer driver.

I keep thinking printer driver as well.

Spooling errors, from my fuzzy memory, are usually associated from driver problems, either corrupted or conflicting drivers. Most of the time conflicts from other printer drivers, corrupted drivers or a third party software that is conflicting with the drivers.

 

[silverbear]

On thing I did not think of, and I don't know if it would cause a spool problem or not.

However if someone was trying to print something on two different computers using the same network printer, at the same time, it may cause a problem.

I am not sure how big a business it is or if say someone is trying to print a word document on the guest computer while at the same time someone in the business office is trying to print something and both are going to the same printer at the same time it could cause a problem.

The Business Center computer has its own dedicated printer... no other PC on the property uses that printer... the more advice I'm getting from folks like you, the more convinced I am that we're having a drivers issue... Greg Lentz over on the Cowboys newsgroup gave me a link to the Konica-Minolta website, I'm gonna go in there in a little bit and see if I can install new drivers (got a wedding party going on right now, I hope those bastidges go to bed soon)...

Zax, the printer was not set up for Sharing, but it is now, and the problem's still there... do appreciate the advice, though...

 

[silverbear]

I keep thinking printer driver as well.

Spooling errors, from my fuzzy memory, are usually associated from driver problems, either corrupted or conflicting drivers. Most of the time conflicts from other printer drivers, corrupted drivers or a third party software that is conflicting with the drivers.

I think we can safely rule out third party software conflicts, since the first thing I did after doing the reformat was to try the printer again... no luck... so, as I said in my last post, I'll be looking for new printer drivers online tonight...

And if that doesn't work, then I'll try swapping out printers, see if this is a hardware issue... but that doesn't make sense to me, like I said it USED to work just fine...

 

[Gibby!]

However if someone was trying to print something on two different computers using the same network printer, at the same time, it may cause a problem.

I am not sure how big a business it is or if say someone is trying to print a word document on the guest computer while at the same time someone in the business office is trying to print something and both are going to the same printer at the same time it could cause a problem.

Thats what the queue is for. Since its a dedicated local printer, you shouldn't need to share it (but thats already been determined). That link should give you a good understanding of how everything ties together Silverbear.

I would try new drivers first. If that doesn't work, bypass the spooler by sending it directly to the printer.

 

[silverbear]

I think sharing is when you make it a network printer to be used on other computers no the network. I don't think it woud be for different profiles on one computer but I could be wrong.

It has been a LONG time since I had any spool problems with printers but it seemed to me it was due to either a bad printer driver or another driver conflicting with the printer driver (sometimes when you delete one printer and add another but all the drivers were not removed so it was a conflict).
There could also be a program on the computer that causes conflicts with the printers.

However since you have reformated the hard drive, which would clear ALL drivers, I am not sure what it could be.

I also thought about going into the bios and make sure the printer was set up right in the correct port (lpt or com), but it has been so long since I messed with that stuff I don't remember the normal ports for this...I think it was either lpt1 or com1 but I could be remembering Lpt1 from an old unix system lol.

Hopefully it is just a printer problem and another printer will take care of the issue, that way someone could just buy another printer, cheap as some are, and be done with the problem.

I swapped in an HP LaserJet 1300, and it worked flawlessly... so I'm writing a note to the boss telling him that a new printer is the way to go...

 

[BrAinPaiNt]

I swapped in an HP LaserJet 1300, and it worked flawlessly... so I'm writing a note to the boss telling him that a new printer is the way to go...

Good to hear.

Better the printer or it's drivers messing up as it is cheaper to replace a printer than a computer and a lot less headaches.

 

[silverbear]

Good to hear.

Better the printer or it's drivers messing up as it is cheaper to replace a printer than a computer and a lot less headaches.

Can't wait to find out what kind of cheapo-cheapo printer the boss finds over at Costco... LOL...

I guess I shouldn't be too hard on him, though, the last time he got the urge to change printers back in the Business Center, I wound up with this really nice (albeit old) HP LaserJet 1100... it ain't lightning fast, but it gives a good print quality, never ever jams, and the toner cartridge (I got two extras at the same time, again free) will print out a ton of pages before running dry... which means I don't have to replace the cartridges on my HP DeskJet 990 near as often...

And though he's pretty cheap when it comes to buying equipment (the PC in his office is another E-machines, a dinosaur at that-- it's the slowest PC on the property), he's very, very generous with his people, as the story above was designed to show...

I really do appreciate all the advice I got, I printed them out and left them on the boss' desk along with a note explaining everything I tried, and why I came to the conclusion that the printer needs to be replaced... what still puzzles me is why that little sucker worked for so long, then suddenly went snafu on me...