citrix3 Update Network Print Server not fully working
| Doug Benson | Using MetaFrame Presentation Server 3.0. Select the Print Server in the right window pane in CMC under Printer Management. Right-click on it and select Update Network Print Server. It takes awhile (approx 1 hour for one print server [clustered over 2 physical servers] running 1,022 printers). Upon completion and selecting Printers under Printer Management, I notice there are 2 problems: 1) printer names are appearing more than once (aka duplicates) 2) not all the Windows 2000 Active Directory securities are restored (have to go back and reassign to 75% of the printers) Not sure if I have a datastore corruption or there’s something else amiss. I’m assigning the max number of points because this is a HUGE problem. Thanks. |
| Doug Benson | One more thing I found is that not all the network printers are showing up in the list. I’m thinking that I will need to perform a Discard of the Network Print Server and then re-import the Network Print Server to get everything back in correctly (might still have to assign securities in the Auto-Create but it’s a necessary evil).
Speaking of which, could I assign the individual group permissions on the network printer security tab (outside of Citrix) and assign all the auto-create permissions in Printer Management Domain Users? That way it doesn’t take as long to set up the auto-create securities (set up one and copy to the other ones) when I perform an Update of the Network Print Server through CMC Printer Management? |
| Konrad K | Did I get this right: You are trying to import roughly 1′000 network printers so each user will have all printers available?
Is auto-created client printer no option? BfN, Konrad |
| Doug Benson | I’m trying to import around 900 printers (found out that around 100 are not shared). We have AD groups assigned for groups of printers so that users can have them auto-created when they log into Citrix. Each user might only see a dozen or so but I work in a hosptial system with many affiliates which is the reason behind the large number of printers residing in our environment. Only 800 printers are showing up in CMC, seeing duplicate printer names, and every time I run the Update Print Server command in Printer Management all the auto-create AD groups are lost in the auto-create securities in CMC. It’s frustrating because that’s the only way I know to update CMC for printers being added/removed from the print server. |
| Konrad K | The client devices do not have those printers connected themselves?
My experience is, that all printers of a network print server are added to user sessions based on the Windows security permissions. Also, my Windows security permissions are properly set in each TS session and a ‘Update Network Print Server’ does not reset any security permissions or Auto-Creation settings of existing printers. Regarding DataStore corruption: Run a dscheck [/clean] on one of the PS’s to verify. Probably, you are missing some hotfixes - I’ve got: |
| Doug Benson | The printers on the print server are assigned to Everyone so Citrix and non-Citrix users can access them. We assign the auto-create securities in CMC so the user only sees the printers they need to see. They could add any of them manually but most don’t try.
I already ran a dscheck on one of the PS’s and it claimed there wasn’t any issues. However I ran a purge_drivers switch and the program ran for a few hours removing dead entries so I don’t have a lot of faith in dscheck looking for all inconsistencies. I’m re-running the Update and it seems to be pulling in all the remaining printers this time around. Apparently this is not the first time the switch has needed to be thrown more than once to get all the printers to show up. You’re absolutley right about hotfixes/updates. I’ve only been on this job for just about 4 months and I’ve noticed the lack of updates on the Microsoft side and there’s only been two hotfixes applied on the Citrix side. I’m currently building a new PS 3.0 server with at least the MPSE300W2KR05 hotfix rollup pack on Windows 2000 SP4 with all the updates. We are migrating to Windows 2003 and PS 4.0 in the summer but I need to stabilize things now. I figured the Local Host Cache needs to be recreated on all the Citrix servers. I’m also adding the DCNChangePollingInterval registry to give the servers a better chance of getting information from the datastore without timing out. Have a lot of work ahead of me. Will assign you points once this Update has completed. To be fair, do you think you should get all 10? I don’t post often so I’m not sure what’s considered a good point value for your responses. |
| Konrad K | Doesn’t sound like your job would get boring during the next months…! ;o)
My findings have only been made with few printers configured on the network print server. So it might still be that your environment is just pushing it to the limits… but it might as well be that R05 will significantly already improve the situation. Good luck, anyway! Regarding points: This really depends on you, if you were satisfied (in this case it could take a while to find out, though). It’s also an option to only reward some points and wait if there is some other good input coming in and the rest after a successful finish. Not rewarding all points on the other side does not help you, as you won’t get them back to your available ones. I’d say keep some or all until you really know if and which tips have helped. |
| Doug Benson | I gave you half because you answered right away and gave me suggestions that I had already thought of but needed a second opinion which you provided. Thanks. |
