Windows 7 SP1 x64 network printer offline
I've got a interesting problem within my newly installed windows server 2008 r2 domain. the environment is like this: all the servers were installed as windows server 2008 r2 with sp1 already integrated and got patched up to date. after the domain was running just fine and the best practice analyzers got peased i turned towards the clients. all of the clients got installed as windows 7 professional x64 with sp1 already integrated. one of the servers has the file and print roles with the latest whql compatible drivers for various models of hp and canon printers. everything works fust fine but every two to three days a random windows 7 client insists that the printers on the print server were offline - which is not true, in fact they work just fine. anfter i restart the spooler service on that client it takes some seconds and then - oh wonder! - recognizes that the printers are not offline. until now there were never more than one client at once which had this problem but there were various client in total which had the problem. please spare me advices like "update the printer driver" or "install the latest windwos updates" or "make a system restore" because as already stated i have the latest x64 windows server os only recently installed with up to date service pack and updates the latest x64 windows client os only recently installed with up to date service pack and updates the latest whql printer drivers i could get from the vendors on a last note: i'm not inclined to disable snmp on the printers to avoid false positives - i'm on the search for the cause so i can fix that problem instead of hiding it. thanks in advance dom
May 11th, 2011 9:09am

Hi, Please run the printer troubleshooter first and check if it helps. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/Open-the-Printer-troubleshooter I suggest to perform these tests you can try: 1 Temporally disable firewall on Windows 7 2 The problem may be caused by the printer change its IP address itself. Please set the IP address of the printer to a static address. If you add the printer again by browsing the network, the Standard TCP/IP port will only work as long as the printer retains the same IP. If the print device support DNS or WNS name registration you can add a Standard TCP/IP Port using the hostname rather than a transient IP address for DHCP enabled print devices. 3 If the printer changed IP address, go to Devices & Printers --> Printer Properties --> Ports --> Standard TCP/IP Port for your printer --> Configure Port. Then change the IP address where it says “Printer name or IP address” to the new IP address that you found. In addition, sometimes disable SNMP could fix the issue. You can make a try to check if it will avoid the same issue occurs. Furthermore, this link may helpful to you: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/172811 Hope that helps. Regards, Leo Huang TechNet Subscriber Support in forum. If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.comPlease remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.
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May 12th, 2011 4:52am

Hey Leo, thanks for your advices. unfortunately none of them helped, the troubleshooter didn't find anything all printers have fixed IPs from the beginning the firewall is well configured, but oh well I've tried disabling it too, but to no avail let me make one point more clear: up till now it was always one - and only one - random client from over 50 which had the problem. every two or three days it was another client. if the problem is present and i go to devices&printers on an affected client i see all of the network printers offline - the virtual printers for PDF and XPS sometimes too but not every time. After i restart the spool service on the affected client everything works again as if nothing ever happened. any other ideas i could give a try? Thanks Dom
May 13th, 2011 5:25am

Hi Dom, If restart spool service can solve the problem, I think the issue should related with the driver of printers. If one of the printer’s driver is not compatible with Windows 7, the issue will random occurs. So what model of printers did you use? I suggest to remove all drivers of printers on both server and clients, get and make sure the drive is support to Windows 7. And re-deploy these drivers to clients to see the result. Regards, Leo Huang TechNet Subscriber Support in forum. If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.com Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.
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May 13th, 2011 5:59am

Hi Leo, as stated in my first post, I already have the latest whql drivers for all of my printers be it the canon ir-adv5030c or one of the hp (color) laser jet models clj3700 / lj4100dtn / P3020 / P2025 / ... all in all I've got only two whql drivers in use: one is for the canon ir-adv5030c and the other one is the hp universal whql driver matching all models in question - and I specifically chose the whql drivers over the other versions the vendors offer to avoid any driver problems. furthermore i don't think this is driver related at least not exclusively - for if it were the problem would exist only on clients with the malfunctioning driver installed. I have cases where only one of the drivers is installed on a client and not the other and vice versa and cases where both drivers are installed. whatever the case the problem is existent. if it still were a driver problem it would mean that both whql certified drivers had a problem - and i don't believe the whql certification program to be so lax - furthermore both drivers are relatively common and fairly often used so i can't think by any stretch of the imagination that if it were a problem with the driver that i was the only one to have that problem. Oh, I almost forgot to note the most irritating fact: I've yet to find a way to reproduce the problem. As of now I was unable to narrow down the problem and isolate the trigger - it just happens So Leo, do you have any other options left for me to try before I have to open an support request? Thanks Dom
May 15th, 2011 2:33pm

Hi, Did your issue solved? Please feel free to give me any update. Thanks. Regards, Leo Huang TechNet Subscriber Support in forum. If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.com Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.
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May 19th, 2011 3:14am

I am also experiencing the same problem Dominik is. Print Servers: Server 2008 R2 with SP1 Printers: Xerox 7335/7435 with latest PS/PCL drivers available 5.99.11 Clients: Windows 7 Enterprise x64 with SP1 Randomly a client running Windows 7 Ent x64 SP1 will have their network printers go 'Offline'. Restarting the local clients printer spooler brings the printers back online. When the printers went 'Offline' I tried adding another printer from the print server that all the printers were offline and I receive Errror 0x00000002. Interestingly enough though when this happens I'm able to add a printer from a different print server. I have noticed that this seems to happen more frequently with users that remote into their Windows 7 machine from another computer. Hope some of the information will help narrow down a culprit. Like Dominik I have been unable to reproduce the issue. Looking through event logs hasn't narrowed down a culprit either.
May 20th, 2011 7:12pm

Hi Leo, I've been out of office for a week of holiday. I will try your last suggestion after I've read into the function you proposed tomorrow morning but as far as I've read on the internet in the last five minutes this is a server option - nothing regarding the client. I'll dig further into the matter tomorrow morning. I've yet to find a way to reproduce the problem. When tracking stubborn and persistent problems it is quite easy to get empiric evidence on the culprit - but this one is giving me headaches. Whatever I tried to provoke the problem - nothing helped in a reproductive fashion. In fact I wasn't even able to provoke it at least once. So whenever it happens - it just happens and it still seems to happen on a random client. Dom
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May 22nd, 2011 4:22pm

Hi mrbsl Do you also use the office 2010 x64 platform on your clients? What antivirus product/version do you use? I'm trying to collect some similarities in our environments, maybe that helps cracking this hard nut. Dom
May 22nd, 2011 4:23pm

I will try your last suggestion after I've read into the function you proposed tomorrow morning Hi Dom, Please kindly update the result whatever the last suggestion work or not. Thank you. Regards, Leo Huang TechNet Subscriber Support in forum. If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.com Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.
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May 22nd, 2011 9:57pm

Clients run: Office 2010 x32 (we don't use Office 2010 x64), Microsoft Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010 Print Server: HP ProLiant DL360 G7, Server 2008 R2 with SP1. We are NOT using group policy to deploy printers. When I first acquainted myself with the the print server I noticed we were setup using WSD ports. I have since moved them to Standard TCP/IP (I did not completely remove the shares and recreate them just pointed them to new TCP/IP port). We use PCL and PS drivers. A majority of the users who have this problem also RDP to their Win7 desktops from other Win7/XP machines.
May 23rd, 2011 4:20pm

Hi Leo. After testing your last suggestion I'm still experiencing the problem, so your last note seems to be inapropiately marked as an answer. Please fix that so others may find this thread more useful. Back to topic: Do you have any other suggestions on how to tackle this problem? Thanks Dom
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June 3rd, 2011 4:16am

Thank you for your update. I will escalate this case. Another senior engineer will help you to solve the issue. Thank you for your understanding. Regards, Leo Huang TechNet Subscriber Support in forum. If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.com Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.
June 3rd, 2011 4:58am

This used to be an issue with W2k3 that was later fixed. I havent seen much issues with printers offline in w2k8R2 There is only one other reported case with w2k8R2 that i found where the customer decided to disable SNMP and hence was not investigated further. Reading through your notes, you will most likely need to open a support incident to investigate this in detail. Before that you can try installing the follwing hotfixes on a client to put the binaries to QFE/LDR and see if the issue goes away. Article ID: 981070 "Windows can't open Add Printer" error in a 64-bit version of Win7 or of Windows Server 2008 R2 Article ID: 2526028 Printing performance decreases in Windows 7 or in Windows Server 2008 R2 Article ID: 2493115 "Access is denied" error when you try to open the Properties dialog box of a shared printer that is connected to a computer that is running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 Article ID: 2466040 Post-install customization does not start after you use Group Policy to configure a deployed printer in Windows Vista, in Windows 7, in Windows Server 2008, or in Windows Server 2008 R2 I'd also like to know what is the frequency of the issue within the same machine. Do you see a print job failure in eventviewer just before the printers go offline? Do you see any other events in event viewer? To rule out SNMP, if you disable SNMP on a given box, does the issue reappear in that PC? Sumesh P - Microsoft Online Community Support
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June 6th, 2011 12:34am

Were you able to go through the steps above? Sumesh P - Microsoft Online Community Support
June 9th, 2011 9:00am

Also try out the hotfixes i mentioned on one of the boxes. Sumesh P - Microsoft Online Community Support
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June 10th, 2011 5:23am

Dom\mrbsl, Experiencing the same issue myself. Print Servers - Windows 2008 R2 Printers - Xerox WorkCentre 7556, Xerox Phaser 6500 & HP LaserJet 4515 Client PC's - Win 7 64bit with Office 32bit New virtual Windows 2008 R2 print server, SP1 and patched every month. The server containers mutliple print queues for HP and Xerox devices, all whql compatible drivers. Our client machines are Win 7 64bit with Office 2010 32bit (as recommended by Microsoft). The print queues on our server are pushed via group policy to all client machines. On a very small propotion of the win 7 client machines i have witnessed the printer "offline" issue (not at the same time) which is resolved by restarting the print spooler on the client machine. Like yourself, not been able to work out the cause of this issue or reproduce. Once the client PC experiences the issue i'm unable to add any other queues from this server. I am, however, able to add a queue from another print server (same issue as mrbsl). I have seen this issue both locally and when a user remotes into another machine (queues are fine on their local machine at the time though). Interestingly enough, i see a GPO error in the affected client PC's application log when the issue occurs. Event ID 4098 - "Group Policy object did not apply because it failed with error code '0x800706ba The RPC server is unavailable.' This error was suppressed." There is also the following "error" in the "Microsoft-Windows-PrintService/Admin" log. Event ID 808 - "The print spooler failed to load a plug-in module C:\Windows\system32\spool\DRIVERS\x64\3\UNIDRVUI.DLL, error code 0xc1". Keen to understand and resolve this issue - not very efficient running around restarting spooler servers on clients PC's.
June 11th, 2011 3:59pm

Can you try the hotfixes listed above? Does this happen with all OEM printers or just with specific printers? Sumesh P - Microsoft Online Community Support
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June 13th, 2011 5:26am

Thanks for the information Jaydubya1980. I just had another user experience this. I checked the Event Viewer and found four of the following ERRORS in succession: Source: Print Service Event ID: 808 Task Category: Initializing Logged 6/14/2011 1:58:37PM to 2:00:13PM General: The print spooler failed to load a plug-in module C:\Windows\system32\spool\DRIVERS\x64\3\PS5UI.DLL, error code 0xc1. See the event user data for context information. Any other error or warnning logged in PrintService/Admin is three weeks away 05/25/2011. So there may be a connection with that error.
June 14th, 2011 6:44pm

Can you please get me a dump of the spooler when the issue occurs on one of the clients? Use the procdump tool with the procdump -ma spoolsv.exe http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/dd996900.aspx You can upload the dumps along with the following details in a zipped format: Event logs, network trace from client when selecting a printer, time of issue, print server name, IP, one or more of printer name showing offline Workspace: https://sftus.one.microsoft.com/choosetransfer.aspx?key=1233c330-b1e9-4858-99ee-1d0d61aedf16 Password: @5RKVnm)[aDQw I will run a preliminary check on the dumps to see if we can find the cause. Sumesh P - Microsoft Online Community Support
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June 15th, 2011 2:26am

Hello Sumesh, I've read through the mentioned KB articles and confusingly found that non of 'em addresses the problem I and the others are experiencing. Despite this I requested the fixes and tried to download them. I was only able to download the first one mentioned. Trying to download the other three I only got "HTTP 500 Internal Server Error" messages. As for the question of which printers are affected: I do think I've already answered that question. I've various models from HP, Canon and Kyocera Mita. I chose the whql driver for each printer model. As it turned out, the whql printer drivers are universal for all printer models of each vendor so I have three printer drivers in total. As already stated: Until now I was unable to rule out one of the drivers. I have various combinations of printers on the client machines but I have yet to find a driver combination that is not affected by this problem. To make the confusion even more complete I seem to have exactly one client where the driver isolation mode seems to work - the other clients still have the problem. I've downloaded the procdump tool and will upload the requested information as soon as the problem reoccurs. Until then I will try to read through some more event logs on other machines. Maybe I can find some similarities that will give us a hint. Thanks so far Dominik
June 15th, 2011 7:50am

Hello Sumesh, were you able to to take a look on the files I've uploaded? Did they give a hint on the problem? Dom
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June 21st, 2011 6:50am

Yes. We looked at the spooler dump and see 12 network printers connected to \\CSR|FP0001 with client side ports all in the off-line state with the PRINTER_SERVER_OFFLINE status set. The problem is this snapshot is after the fact so there is no “smoking gun”. The issue needs more indepth troubleshooting. I would request you open a support case because this is going to take some digging. Things to investigate during a support incident- 1. Check the System Log for network disconnections. 2. A TTT trace (in circular mode) with a Procmon, and netmon trace during the problem would be very beneficial. 3. Check if you have anything in the Admin PrintService Analytical log ? If not, you should enable the Debug or Operational logs (Actions-> Enable Log) for the Print Service. Please visit the below link to see the various paid support options that are available to better meet your needs.http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?id=fh;en-us;offerprophone Sumesh P - Microsoft Online Community Support
June 21st, 2011 1:10pm

I have the same problem, but maybe a more acute version. I am pretty sure the problem started when I installed SP1 on Windows 7 about one week ago on a virtual machine on my laptop. All network printers are consistently offline. Restarting spooler service returns them online, but only temporarily. After every job I print, they all go back offline. Restarting spooler service restores them all. One of the network printers is a direct TCP port connection. Another goes through a print server (not sure what the server is running). Different makes and models of printers. I do have a variant of the error quoted above repeating periodically in my print service error log: The print spooler failed to load a plug-in module C:\Windows\system32\spool\DRIVERS\x64\3\UNIDRVUI.DLL, error code 0xc1. See the event user data for context information. I do not see any other interesting clues related to network events in the system log.
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July 6th, 2011 7:01pm

Can you try this on one of the clients? To disable SMB1 client functionality run the following commands: sc config lanmanworkstation depend= bowser/mrxsmb20/nsi sc config mrxsmb10 start= disabled Sumesh P - Microsoft Online Community Support
July 7th, 2011 7:19am

Still having this issue. None of the suggestions above helped. Printers are still randomly going offline for no reason. This is getting really annoying.
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August 1st, 2011 8:05pm

We've contacted MS Support about this issue. So far we've gone through two action plans but to no avail. As soon as I#ve got news I will let you know. Dom
August 2nd, 2011 2:59am

Thanks for keeping us up to date Dominik (I check this thread weekly for updates). I'm am still having this issue crop up from time to time as well (in my case it really seems to show up with individuals that use RDP heavily to remote into their machines from home and lab PCs on a separate network). If I find anything I'll let you guys know.
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August 2nd, 2011 6:47pm

I've been communicating with Microsoft Support directly as well. Provided several logs and installed various hotfixes, but nothing solid so far. Latest batch of NetMon logs I provided might have something, so I will update this thread if I have anything new.
August 2nd, 2011 8:44pm

so far we've installed a dozen hotfixes and patches, submitted dozens of logs and dumps and also had a few remote sessions. so far nothing worked. on friday we got another email with with instructions and links to a kernel hotfix. i will let you know whether on not that did the trick. -- Dom /edit: one thing keeps nagging me: listening to your problem tells me i#m not the only one with this problem and as far as it seems this problem also is NOT linked to a specific printer or printer vendor. this hardens the impression that we're dealing with some kind of internal windows bug. let's see if that kernel hotfix does the trick or if we've gotta dig even deeper
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August 8th, 2011 5:58am

To people who are experiencing this: What antivirus are you guys running? We're running Sophos and MS reckons that's what might be blocking network traffic to the print server.
August 9th, 2011 9:03pm

We are using Microsoft Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010.
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August 18th, 2011 12:54pm

Has anyone tried disabling the SNMP status on the print server ports?
August 18th, 2011 1:16pm

Hello Dominik, We just started having the exact same problem as everyone else in this forum is having today during our Windows 7/Office 2k10 deployment. It is really sad Microsoft is having issues with something as simple as printing to network printers. It is totally unacceptable as well that it has taken them, from what I can tell, over 4 months to address this issue. Too bad for Microsoft as a company. At any rate, I am not sure if this solution might work for you but it is worth a shot. Check out this tech article and let the group know if you have any success: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2027593. This fix work for us today (who knows if this really is a long term fix). Hopefully this works. Matt
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August 23rd, 2011 1:36pm

Hi Dom We are also having this issue with our Ricoh 1107 printer in our Windows 7, Server 2008R2, Office 2010 environment. so far having tried pretty much all the steps listed above to no avail. it's quite annoying knowing the fact that it's not an exclusive problem to anything but the OS. A fix at some point would be lovely, until then telling the staff that the printer is online despite saying otherwise is the way forward JohnJohn Miller MCTS
August 26th, 2011 5:56am

Hi, The solution for an offline error of a printer is to check the proper connection of the printer. Two options exist to turn off the offline mode. If you choose the first option to change the offline state of the printer, then go to Control Panel and then ‘Printer and Faxes’ option on the Control Panel. Double-click on the printer you want to change to online mode from the displayed window. A pop-up window will open and you need to select ‘Uncheck Printer Offline‘ option from the menu bar. Get more information to fix windows 7 printer offline error : http://printers.iyogi.com/help-support/windows-7-printer-offline.html Hope this information helps you.
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August 29th, 2011 12:37am

Hi All New to this but may have a solution, I have just turned off the SNMP Status enabled tick box in the port properties and my printers are now working again. Cheers Phil
August 31st, 2011 7:39pm

Hi Phil, thanks for your contribution. Unfortunately that's only a solution if you don't need SNMP. If you do need SNMP e.g. for monitoring purposes - there's still no valid solution Dom
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September 1st, 2011 7:09am

All of our printer servers are running off Hyper-V, we've only experienced it on Win 7 clients, none of which have SP1. We've temporarily turned off SNMP and so far it's been ok, but we aren't excited about this "fix".
September 9th, 2011 3:19pm

After posting we researched the Print Service Event log of some of the users that reported the problem. We found that most of the users reporting the problem have Adobe CS Suite installed. We also found another common entry which refers to CSRImportFailed ErrorCode 800f0247. The enty points to the 7345's driver and cab file. Since this was a common variable we upgraded the driver for this device over the weekend. After running test pages we reviewed the log again and see that the error is still being logged although the spooler has not hung, nor have the printers gone offline. On the server, we have the jobs set up to render on the client side. By default SNMP has been disbled. We have not had any printing issues so we will be leaving SNMP disabled. For now all we can do is monitor it. On another environment we noticed that Adobe ReaderX caused Adobe conflicts and hung the spooler. Event log would display an application hang error though instead of the spooler. Not ruling this an application issue though since it also happens with Microsoft Office Suite. I am curious to ask if those users within your networks (A) have CS Suite installed (B) reflect any printer driver error logged within EventVWR>Applications and Services>Microsoft>Windows>PrintService>Admin. Perhaps we can find a common variable between our networks that lend a helping hand to a solution.
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September 12th, 2011 1:11pm

Same problem here with our Windows 7 (x64 and x86) sp1 clients with 2008 R2 server (x64) printers.. at random.. no solutions thus far i take it?
September 21st, 2011 1:01pm

It may be to early to tell but a potential workaround may be the following (it invovles disallowing printer redirection for RDP sessions): 0. On the machine having printers go offline... 1. Goto HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Printers\ remove all keys ending with "(redirected #)". Note: on the machines I'm working on all the keys have "(redirected #)" so no keys are left under HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Printers\ 2. Run gpedit.msc. Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Remote Desktop Services\Remote Desktop Session Host\Printer Redirection\ "Do not allow client printer redirection" - ENABLE *I've had a week go by and three machines I've done this on no longer have printers go offline. If the issue crops up again on one of these machines I'll remove this post as a potential workaround but I figured someone else might want to give this a try too.
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September 29th, 2011 12:53pm

Thanks for the suggestion mrbsl, I'll give it a go on some of our machines. We have been leaving redirected printers on and our users remote into machines a fair bit. Fingers crossed!
October 18th, 2011 12:32pm

After installing a dozen hotfixes, registry changes and other modifications according to the action plans from microsoft we now have a potential solution. We're going to figure out wether a single hotfix may be a stand alone solution for the problem or if the whole bunch of fixes and changes needs to be processed to reach a solution. As soon as i reached a conclusion I will let you guys know. Dom
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October 20th, 2011 5:10am

Exactly the same problems here. Print queues are reported to go randomly offline. On a server side everything is fine. Print spooler restart on client helps. SNMP is used in print ports. Various print drivers. Hard to debug of reproduce. No common denominator found so far. Problems have started at some point before summer and seem to be on a client side, not server. Problematic clients: Windows 7 x64 SP1 (maybe SP0 also; Windows XP x86 have no problems) Print Server: Windows Server 2008 x86 Thank you Dominik for doing the really hard work fighting against the support and not settling for "disable snmp"-solution. Mikko Järvinen-- Mikko Jrvinen Computing Centre University of Turku Finland
October 23rd, 2011 2:42pm

Great news Dominic, Even after turning off SNMP I've still had issues with my site, just maybe less (or maybe I think it's less). mrbsl's solution wasn't an option for us in the end. If you want help with testing hotfix combinations you can list out a couple and I can install them to see if they make an immediate change or not. Thanks for your hard work!
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October 26th, 2011 1:01pm

Dominik, Thanks for such a great thread. Did you ever find the correct solution to this problem? We have seen the same problems with various Windows 7 SP1 64-bit clients.
November 14th, 2011 11:57am

After reading through this thread and other similar ones, I was able to resolve my issue after trying nearly every suggestion posted to no avail (unless you count the cheap and temporary band-aids such as system restore and/or reinstall of printers) - it turns out to be some sort of permissions issue that decides to rear its head at different times on different computers, perhaps after a specific update? My environment/Problem: All users on Windows 7 64bit SP1, old print server is Server 2003, new print server is Server 2008R2. Almost randomly, users would report not being able to print anymore - the easiest resolution for me would be install the printer locally, but this is obviously not ideal. On my personal computer, I was able to print for months to shared printers on both print servers, but recently all shared printers through both the 20003 server and the 2008r2 server went offline on my computer, although I could still print to any of those printers after installing them locally on my box. My fix: I made my user account a local admin on my 2008r2 server and now the printer shared through that server is online and works just fine. The same printer shared through the 2003 server, however, shows as offline still. Local admin rights, therefore, provides a satisfactory fix for me. This works as a resolution for my company as we can give users local admin rights for our new print server (it's dedicated for this purpose, unlike the 2003 server from which we're slowly migrating away as it did nearly everything at one point), but I'm sure there is a more specific permission that one of you can find to resolve the issue without giving basic users too much power. I hope this helps you, -Adam
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November 18th, 2011 11:02am

Having the same exact issue over here. AdamD, glad that worked for you, but unfortunately not an option for us. Dominik, would really like to hear if you got this resolved with Microsoft?
November 18th, 2011 3:27pm

Hey guys! I've (almost) literally gone through hell and back to track that...BUG(!)...down with the patches, hotfixes and instructions provided from Microsoft wich allowed us to resolve the problem on the one client we used for the case we opened. Unfortunately I've not been able to isolate a single setting, patch or hotfix wich would resolve the issue on its own despite all the cominations we've tried. At the moment I'm clutching at the last straw before retreating to disabling SNMP. I'll keep you updated on the result. As for now, If anyone of you is willing to try out youself here are the steps we've done on the Win7SP1x64 clients: We installed the following patches in the order listed: Windows6.1-KB981070-v2-x64.msu Windows6.1-KB2462317-v2-x64.msu Windows6.1-KB2480118-x64.msu Windows6.1-KB2493115-x64.msu Windows6.1-KB2494427-x64.msu Windows6.1-KB2526028-x64.msu Windows6.1-KB2254637-x64.msu Windows6.1-KB2444328-v2-x64.msu Windows6.1-KB2465772-x64.msu Windows6.1-KB2534366-x64.msu We made changes to the TCPIP settings via registry: Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters] "EnableTCPChimney"=dword:00000000 "EnableTCPA"=dword:00000000 "EnableRSS"=dword:00000000 I'll try to gather the steps we've done on the server within this week for you. Good Luck! Dom
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November 22nd, 2011 1:23am

Hey Dom! Thanks for the post, I'm going to play with those updates and see what I can find.
November 22nd, 2011 5:47pm

Looks that in our case the offline problem may have been caused by an excessive load or amount of network connections on a print server and how SMB2 or RPC connetions on Windows 7 react on that. We've run Microsoft Network Monitor on a client (Windows 7 x64 SP1) and examined the network dump at the time when problem occurs. We have been able to reproduce the problem by launching e.g. Word 2010 and selecting File, Print. Then We've also indications that computers with static ip address (non-dynamic) and/or dns-name matching the name of computer account in AD seem to be immune to the problem as well as Windows XP (or SMB1). Here's a small part of the dump. Two last rows show 10 second timeout before client makes a new connection. This pattern repeats again after about 30 seconds and then client's printers come back online. Date Time Time Offset Process Name Source Destination Description 17.11.2011 13:57 0.1240795 spoolsv.exe client server TCP:Flags=...A...., SrcPort=51190, DstPort=DCE endpoint resolution(135), PayloadLen=0, Seq=3556645384, Ack=2234976660, Win=63220 17.11.2011 13:57 0.4360844 spoolsv.exe client server TCP:Flags=......S., SrcPort=51204, DstPort=51208, PayloadLen=0, Seq=1324957217, Ack=0, Win=8192 ( Negotiating scale factor 0x8 ) = 8192 17.11.2011 13:57 0.4393355 spoolsv.exe server client TCP:Flags=...A.R.., SrcPort=51208, DstPort=51204, PayloadLen=0, Seq=0, Ack=1324957218, Win=0 17.11.2011 13:57 0.9509055 spoolsv.exe client server TCP:Flags=......S., SrcPort=51204, DstPort=51208, PayloadLen=0, Seq=1324957217, Ack=0, Win=8192 ( ) = 8192 17.11.2011 13:57 0.9518289 spoolsv.exe server client TCP:Flags=...A.R.., SrcPort=51208, DstPort=51204, PayloadLen=0, Seq=0, Ack=1324957218, Win=0 17.11.2011 13:57 10.8735453 spoolsv.exe client server TCP:Flags=...A...F, SrcPort=51190, DstPort=DCE endpoint resolution(135), PayloadLen=0, Seq=3556645384, Ack=2234976660, Win=63220 -- Mikko Jrvinen Computing Centre University of Turku Finland
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November 25th, 2011 7:41am

One of my users who had experienced the problem near daily has so far gone 2 days without issue with the following subset of Dom's solution: Windows6.1-KB2254637-x64.msu Windows6.1-KB2444328-v2-x64.msu Windows6.1-KB2526028-x64.msu Windows6.1-KB981070-v2-x64.msu + registry key's he mentioned "We made changes to the TCPIP settings via registry: Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters] "EnableTCPChimney"=dword:00000000 "EnableTCPA"=dword:00000000 "EnableRSS"=dword:00000000" Not all of these may be necessary but so far they seem to be working, I'm going to expand them to a few more machines and see how it goes.
November 28th, 2011 2:52pm

Quick update: I just had it reoccur twice to 2 users with my subset of Doms patches. pretty annoying back to square 1.
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December 8th, 2011 4:51pm

Try this: http://winplat.net/post/2011/11/18/Troubleshoot-Printer-status-showing-offline.aspx
December 10th, 2011 4:05pm

Not an option - we want to solve the problem - not to hide it -- Dom
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December 11th, 2011 6:39am

Techtalker, how did it work with the patches? We do have same problem... surprise surprise... have tried a few things in the past with SNMP and so on, but it didn't help. We just changed from Xerox printers to Sharp printers and I had a small hope that the problem would go away, but unfortunately not. For now we just tell our users to restart the local spooler service if their printer shows as offline when they try to print.
December 23rd, 2011 4:20am

Out of curiosity how many others have affected clients with intel gigabit nics? One of microsofts suggested steps was to update nic drivers, not holding my breath but...
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January 5th, 2012 8:09pm

We have had this problem for quite some time now and it really needs to be sorted. Have many people opened a support case with Microsoft? The more cases they have about the same issue the higher they will prioritize fixing it. Also are any of the people experiencing this issue using only ip addresses to connect? For example connecting to the ip address of the server instead of using a dns name like \\print\printer. Because i have read posts saying that while it is offline the DNS name of the server will no longer resolve so i am thinking of using this as a possible workaround. However none of our users are back for a couple of weeks so i will be unable to test.
January 10th, 2012 9:12pm

Thanks for the trying and telling the truth. That's annoying to restart the computer everytime, just for to reconnect the printer. You can try to reconnect the printer server using ip address instead of print server domain name. Hope the problem can be fixed soon!
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January 10th, 2012 10:29pm

Are these client and print server machines using ipv6? If they don't have a ipv6 addresses assigned, has all of the automatic ipv6 tunnels and addresses been disabled so that things like ipv6 6to4 tunnels are not trying to be used?
February 1st, 2012 2:20pm

IPV6 and all associated adapters/tunnel adapters have been disabled for our site. I have another registry key people can test, so far it appears to be working but my sample size is small and it's only been a week. Disable Asynchronous RPC on the Windows 7 client by adding the following registry entry: HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\Printers\EnabledProtocols Type: DWORD Data: 6
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February 7th, 2012 6:08pm

Try the following: On client - apply update 2457866 and test. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2457866 If the behavior continues after the update - apply the following changes: Disable Client Side Rendering via policy on Windows 7 client- Enable the "Always render print jobs on the server" policy setting in the following Local Group Policy container: Computer Configuration | Administrative Templates | Printers (http://blogs.technet.com/b/askperf/archive/2008/02/10/ws2008-client-side-rendering.aspx) On the client machine, set the DestinationReachablePollingInterval = 5 seconds (default is 30 seconds if it is not set) Registry location: HKLM\software\policies\microsoft\windowsnt\printers Disable Asynchronous RPC on the Windows 7 client. Registry location: HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\Printers\EnabledProtocols Type: DWORD Data: 6
February 15th, 2012 10:27am

Microsoft is aware of this issue and currently investigating. As a possible workaround, follow the steps below on the Windows 7 SP1 client and let me know if this resolves the Offline printer status. 1. Install Fixes. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2577795 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2459530 2. Assuming client is Windows 7 SP1 - Create Registry Key TdxPrematureConnectIndDisabled described in the following KB Article. If client is Windows 7 RTM, install the Hotfix below and create the registry key. http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;981344 In Registry Editor, locate the following registry subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\Tcpip\Parameters If you are running a 32-bit operating system, perform the following step: Right-click the Parameters registry subkey, point to New, and then click DWORD Value. If you are running a 64-bit operating system, perform the following step: Right-click the Parameters registry subkey, point to New, and then click DWORD (32-bit) Value. Rename the new registry entry to TdxPrematureConnectIndDisabled and set the value to 1.John Dickson Microsoft Platforms Core Team
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February 23rd, 2012 11:52am

@John: Is ist neccessary to apply this modifications also for the Windows 2008 Server(s) if printers on the client-side are shared printers?
February 24th, 2012 1:16pm

We opened a support case in October 2011,because we had the same issue on our print servers. The solution jdickson289 posted above,is the solution for this support case. But we did the mentioned changes onlyon our print server (Windows 2008 R2 SP1), we didnt touch the clients. In our exchange environment,we had a similar issue (RPC timeouts, connection wasnt stable). We did the same changes there and the problem was gone away. I hope,that someone may find this fix useful - we spend a lot of time and effort in investigating, delivering logs and testing to/for Microsoft.
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March 7th, 2012 4:59am

Hi All, Since my last post we have installed this workaround on our W7 clients and they are not seeing the issue again. About 2 weeks now so keeping fingers crossed. Dave
March 7th, 2012 7:59am

This is good news to see this is working.. we will be trying it here in our environment soon too and will report back.Tech, the Universe, Everything: http://tech-stew.com
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March 7th, 2012 10:33am

@Techtalker: Could you try the following procedure to find out, if we are talking about the same problem: 1. Determine on which random RPC high port the spooler service is listening portqry.exe -n [IP/Name] -e 135 -p TCP Search the output for Spooler function endpoint Download Portqry: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=17148 Reference for the RPC high ports: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/832017 2. Ping the RPC high port you have to use a 3rd party tool because you cant ping on a specified port with ping. I recommend this one: http://www.elifulkerson.com/projects/tcping.php tcping.exe -t -d [IP/Name] [RPC-Port] In our case the RPC-Port wasnt reachable all the time. When the RPC-Port is offline, the printer queues in Devices and Printer went also offline.
March 12th, 2012 10:10am

@Tynaarlo: Is this RPC-Port not being reachable somehow tied into the issue with the firewall on the machine not knowing its location correctly. Information on issue and the hotfix for it is: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2524478
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March 12th, 2012 1:45pm

@sjbauer: I suppose there is no relation between the "RPC-Port not reachable"-problem and the "wrong firewall profile"-problem. In our case the RPC-Port was not available once per 3 minutes for 9-12 seconds. In case of a wrong firewall profile, the RPC-Port wouldn't be reachable until the profile switch back (my assumption). For testing purposes you could turn your firewall off. How to configure RPC dynamic port allocation to work with firewalls: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/154596
March 13th, 2012 3:42am

Hi All, I've been following this thread with interest. Is there a proposed solution yet? We are having similar issues and had the feeling it was the HP universal print driver but we cannot confirm that.
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March 26th, 2012 6:13am

We have a Canon network printer shared on a Windows 2003 Server R2 print server. On the Windows 7 clients the printer sometimes shows offline. This happens daily and randomly on the clients. Sometimes it helps to reboot the client. The problem occurs only on the clients with Windows 7 SP1 installed. All the clients with Windows XP installed can print without any problems. What I have already tried: - Reinstalling the printer - Install other printer drivers - Disabled SNMP on print server ports - Disabled firewall and anti-virus software - Installed latest Windows updates - Installed fixes mentioned in this topic The problem still persists.
March 28th, 2012 5:50pm

Hi Guys Same problem SBS 2011 (2008R2 SP1) and Win 7 64x with Office 2010. Printers are all Konica Minolta.
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March 28th, 2012 6:09pm

We have the same problem in citrix with session printers. Our printers go offline in existing citrix session and if a new user logs into the same citrix servers she doesn't get her printers mapped in the session. Manually adding the printer fails also with the same error described in this topic. The only way to fix this is to restart the print spooler and citrix print management service. We have 2008R2 SP1 citrix servers and a 2008R2 print server.(150printers) Our printers are mostly HP printers but we have few multifunctionals from Canon,Ricoh and Sharp. We use Universal and native drivers but we are going to try to put everything on universal. 
April 5th, 2012 9:44am

This may be relevant to the Offline problem. Several users saw their networked Canon iR C copier/printers as 'Offline' after I experimented with disabling SNMP v1 protocol in the Additional Functions (Add.Func. > Custom Settings) of the Canon printer's own web configuration. The change does not take effect until a power off-on of the printer; a soft restart is not enough. It seems that the printer driver is using SNMP rather than TCPIP to determine whether the printer is online. Although the printer can be pinged, it still appears offline. Enabling SNMP v1 and power-cycling the printer immediately restored the print function. This problem affected both Win 7 SP1 and Win XP SP3 clients. I thought it worth adding this as everyone on this thread has concentrated on the SNMP flag in the printer driver on the PC. Maybe the printer's own config should be checked. And don't always trust Ping.
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April 11th, 2012 12:51pm

Hi All, Bad news. Since my last post 2 months ago I have had a W7 client with fixes installed show the printers offline problem this morning. Re-booting printer was only way to get it to show online for this user.
May 3rd, 2012 6:42am

Hi All, I have just opened a case with Microsft Premier support over this - I'll let you know how I get on. MS have been made aware of this thread.John Tirocchi
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May 23rd, 2012 3:43pm

Hi Nicols, No solution in fact more clients are experiencing the problem now that have had the workaround applied. It seems to cure the problem temporarily but it has returned. Lets hope John has better luck with MS but it needs escalating. David
May 24th, 2012 4:35am

Just to note: I have built and fully patched a new Server2008r2 SP1 VM. Patched client (Win7 SP1 x86) Latest Canon WHLQ driver (copier is IRAdvance C5045) TWO printer queues using this driver and one virtual for Uniflow Secure print SNMP is OFF on the TCP/IP ports There is no driver isolation/sharing set on the drivers I experienced the online/offline issue myself for the first time yesterday. This occured to only MY workstation after rebooting the server. After around 20minutes the print queues stabilised on my laptop. During this time other users were able to print OK. I'll let you all know what MS come back with.John Tirocchi
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May 24th, 2012 3:06pm

Hi All ... Just a quick one ... I came here because I was looking into the same problem ... but I've managed to sort mine by simply checking the Bindings on My LAN Card ... the file and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks bindings were not selected in my instance .. enabling this brought all my printers back online while printing thru Outlook for example ... So just as a suggestion ... check your bindings ... Network Sharing Center, Advanced Adapter Settings, Press ALT, Advanced, Advanced Settings .. .Bindings ...
May 31st, 2012 6:29am

The following update from MS did not fix the problem described in this post: Article ID: 2647753 - Last Review: May 23, 2012 - Revision: 2.0 Description of an update rollup for the printing core components in Windows 7 and in Windows Server 2008 R2 Too bad. I had false hopes of a fix.
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May 31st, 2012 7:40am

I am also having the same issue - have also opened a support case with Microsoft and mentioned this thread to the support engineer - so far nothing outside of other suggestions I've seen on various threads.... Here is what we've tried so far: 1) KB2647753 -> no change 2) opening printers and devices and hitting F5 to refresh when they are showing offline and see if they return without a spooler restart -> their suggestion, no change. 3) Disable Asynchronous RPC Client side key:(Office machine) HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\Printers\EnabledProtocols Type: DWORD Data: 6 Server side key: (Print server) HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print REG Value: "DisableRpcTcp" REG_DWORD 1 **Making the server side change and restarting the print server caused most of our Windows 7 clients the next day to show their printers as offline - restarting the Print Spooler service corrected the issue. 4) Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows NT\Printers] "DestinationReachablePollingInterval"=dword:00000005 This changes the spooler behavior for polling the print servers for the print queue status. Default is 30 seconds, this changes the polling to 5 seconds. Some customers have reported this resolved the issue) ***** So far the only thing that have had a positive effect in our environment (so far anyways...) is disabling asynchronous RPC and changing the polling interval for the print servers. It's only been a few days so I'm still skeptical.
May 31st, 2012 1:55pm

Hi Rustee12, Can you email me at jdickson@microsoft.com with your case number?John Dickson Senior Support Escalation Engineer Microsoft Platforms Core Team
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May 31st, 2012 2:02pm

Nice I haven't seen the polling change yet. Our site is still broken, nothing has really made a difference. I'm going to adjust the polling interval and see if theres any difference.
June 1st, 2012 5:07pm

Good afternoon, I have an update - Microsoft are now aware of the issue and have issued me a private hotfix for test. Looks like a public hotfix is due in July. I've installed it on a few test PC's in my network and will be rolling it out to a few more tomorrow. I should be in a position this time tomorrow to say ifd its been successful or not. Unfortunately as this hotfix is not yet public I am not able to share it with anyone. Suffice to say if you have a case open with MS prem support you should be able to recieve this fix for testing purposes. MS have made it clear to me that this fix is not yet a production fix as it is still undergoing testing at MS.John Tirocchi
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June 11th, 2012 12:06pm

Hallo John, May i refer to your casenumber as i like to receive this fix.
June 12th, 2012 5:28am

the KB / Hotfix number will be 2713128 and it's expected to be public avaliable 10th July.
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June 12th, 2012 8:14am

Its bad news for me I'm afraid. Hotfix has been installed - relevant reg fixes mentioned above have also been installed - all to no avail.John Tirocchi
June 12th, 2012 8:50am

Nothing new to contribute however I am experiencing the same problem: Server 2008R2 print servers. WIN7 SP1 (64-bit) workstations. Users randomly report that their printers show "offline" or "server offline" when the printers are not, in fact, offline. No reports of same from Windows XP users who may be on the same or different (Win2003) print servers. Restarting local print spooler on a user's workstation resolves the problem for the moment. Event logs for PrintService show nothing - Admin, Operational, Debug. Printers are almost all HP laserjets, print queues on servers are standard TCP/IP ports, drivers are the HP UPD PS and PCL5e, both versions 5.1 and 5.4 (depending on exact server and queue). I have opened a support case with MS and will direct them to this thread as well. Love to see this fixed.
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June 13th, 2012 6:23pm

Hooooray! I've resolved (well, identified) my issue. Cisco WAAS WAN accelerators....... Working with Microsoft we had some netmon logs taken from the server and client whilst we were seeing the issue. What we can see from these is an intermediary device (Cisco WAAS) is inserting rogue packets into the data stream - this is generating an unexpected response to the client and hence breaks the communication. Comms will timeout and retry. IF a successful set of packets is sent and subsequently received the print job behaves. Symptoms to look for specifically are: Printer online/offline when using a remote print server, Generic "unable to connect to printer" errors when attempting to map, Strange print behaviour - long time to print/unable to print multiple copies/only one copy printing when selecting multiple copies. We have proved by isolating our client VLAN and server VLAN from the accelerator. ALL issues ceased immediately. Upon re accelerating the issues returned. Unfortunately we use the WAAS devices to shape our traffic so at this junction we cannot simply turn them off so we have resorted to using a local server for the time being until Cisco TAC have a fix. I hope this all helps for everyone and hopefully the patch thats on its way will help everyone else. Peace out folks.John Tirocchi
June 15th, 2012 5:29pm

I have also installed all the updates client/server and still no luck! I'm glad yours is fixed John, however your issue wasn't related to this thread. Anyone starting to think that Microsoft will just wait to fix it in windows 8?
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June 20th, 2012 2:10pm

I'm afraid I can't really contribute anything particularly useful to this thread but I thought it'd be helpful to add weight and say that we're another institution also experiencing this same issue. The environment at our campus for users experiencing the issue: Windows 7 Enterprise X64 SP1 clients running MS Office 2010 32bit. Windows 2008 R2 Print server. The machines almost all solely use the two managed print queues which run the HP UPD (5.1), affected machines have been checked to ensure all print driver files are the correct versions and cleaned up where there may have been inconsistencies. Literally every registry setting and update roll-up mentioned in this thread has been tested and almost all pushed out en-mass to anyone seeing this behaviour - with the exception of the registry setting "[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print]\"SNMPLegacy"=dword:00000001". I tried this on some systems and it certainly had yielded no positive effects but on one system actually seemed to make things worse, a print spooler restart no longer fixed the issue after making this change on the first system I tested it on and with no positive results I decided not to pursue this any further. We don't have any WAN accelerators or do any traffic shaping or indeed anything that could interfere with the network between the clients and print-server.
June 25th, 2012 11:28am

joined this post for help have printer status is "Offline" you blokes seem to be working for a solution ours is a mixed site brother printers server 2008 with the service pack some win7 pro some xp pro our only fix is to stop and start the spooler LOL I'll keep watching you, waiting for THE solution
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June 26th, 2012 8:36am

Opened support case with MS 3rd tier. They provided a hotfix which I installed on the workstation of a user in a small office which has this problem a lot, problem persists so hotfix doesn't seem to be the answer. The nature of the "server offline" issue is such that I haven't been able to reproduce it on demand and it tends to fix itself (temporarily) within a few minutes of a user noticing it, so getting traces while the problem is going on is very tough. John T, we also have Cisco WAAS in use and that was implicated in an earlier problem (unrelated - users getting prompted whether they trust the print server when they attemp to map printers and download the driver). AFAIK all of our print servers are exempt from WAAS acceleration but I wonder if there could be an issue with individual offices (the one I mentioned before is a small local office) using it for other traffic.
July 2nd, 2012 7:27pm

Hi Microsoft, Still no news regarding that issue .... Would you please kindly investigate and provide us the correct explanation in order to fix that issue asap ? A lot of users have been impacted and that "case" has been opened in 2011. We expect to receive the real fix very soon. Thanks very much in advance, Regards, JuliOne MCSE/MCITP
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July 5th, 2012 5:39am

Hi John, Cisco have confirmed to us now that there is a bug in the current version of the WAAS software that wil be fixed in the next release (god knows when that will be). In the meantime they have suggested we turn off CIFS accelleration as a workaround. This was 100% successful for us and we now have no issues. I was seeing the driver install issue that you described also and that problem has also gone away.John Tirocchi
July 6th, 2012 2:59am

Hi Japester79,<o:p></o:p> Do you have any simultaneous network traces from the Print Server and Client when the Offline Printer issue occurs due to the Cisco CIFS acceleration?<o:p></o:p> If so, I would like you to contact me and send the trace files. You can contact me via email at jdickson@microsoft.com<o:p></o:p> Thanks!<o:p></o:p> John Dickson Senior Support Escalation Engineer Microsoft Platforms Core Team
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July 6th, 2012 10:45am

Hi John, I MAY have the trace files still on my laptop at work however Mike Warrington from MS Premier Tech should have all the data. I will have the case ref number for certain if thats any help. And yes, we did take netmon logs from both client and server whilst we were experiencing the issues.John Tirocchi
July 7th, 2012 2:13pm

We've been running the fix on a few machines for a few weeks. So far so good. Fingers crossed! Thanks Craig and Team
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July 11th, 2012 4:59pm

Same issue, same environments, long time listener, first time caller. (I am "tech support" for Canon Authorized Dealer in Manhattan.) The printer going "offline" on client stations is not random at all, at least not for me. I've had this issue in environments of up to 30 different printing devices, and up to 500 client workstations. I'm writing in hopes that immediately being able to recreate the issue will help in solving. How to recreate the issue immediately: On the printer, set the sleep mode to occur after one minute. 1. Add the printer to the print server as you normally would, share as normal; I won't go in to detail here as not to offend anyone. 2. Add the printer to the workstation via the print server, I always use this method (start -> run -> \\server, double click on the newly installed printer, driver is installed, printer will print from workstation) 3. With the printer asleep, restart or power cycle your client workstation. Problem recreated. Printer will appear offline from the workstation, but obviously is online and functional from the server. From workstation, printer can be pinged, RUI can be hit. The issue occurs when the client workstation boots while the printer is asleep. I hope this is relevant to solving this issue. I have this issue in multiple environments, and is presently "randomly" affecting a combined total of about 1,200 users that I'm aware of.
July 12th, 2012 10:29am

cmarcho, When you described the situation in you post you talk about a print server being offline. Is this print server a Windows 2008 R2 server and not the device in the printer (jetdirect, etc.) itself? The reason I am asking is that several of the posts seem to refer to the connection between the network attached printer and a print server while that start of the thread talked about the connection between the say a Windows 7 client to a Windows 2008 R2 server acting as a print server.
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July 12th, 2012 10:33am

So, after having read this entire thread and trying a million things, I finally tracked down (kind of) what was causing the problem in my environment. Our setup: SBS 2011 Standard, serving 4 printers (a Ricoh, a Kyocera, and two HP Plotters). These printers were deployed via Group Policy using a Per Machine policy, not Per User. The clients were a mix a x86 and x64 Windows 7 SP1 and Vista SP2 workstations. Some workstations worked fine, some had the printer offline issues. The divide wasn't along bit lines or anything, with some x86 machines exhibiting the issue, and some x64. If I restarted the print spooler everything was fine, but if the machine rebooted, all of the printers would display offline until I restarted the print spooler again. I discovered that this issue was caused by the Group Policy. For some reason, when GP tried to refresh the printer on reboot it would fail and that would make the printers go offline. If I had 2 printers deployed through GP and the other two manually added to the machine, ALL of them would go offline with a reboot, but if I turned off the GPO for the printers than the two manually added would work through a reboot. The workaround I found was to make the Group Policy a per user policy instead of a per machine. With this change our printers no longer went offline. Hope this helps someone!
October 19th, 2012 4:10pm

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