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Q165506: Print Job Continuously Restarts Spooling But Never Prints

Article: Q165506
Product(s): Microsoft Windows NT
Version(s): 3.51,4.0
Operating System(s): 
Keyword(s): kb3rdparty kbprint
Last Modified: 25-FEB-2002

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The information in this article applies to:

- Microsoft Windows NT Workstation versions 3.51, 4.0 
- Microsoft Windows NT Server versions 3.51, 4.0 
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SYMPTOMS
========

When you print to a line printer remote (LPR) printer port from Windows NT,
print jobs may not print, and you may experience the following symptoms:

- The print job may appear to spool, then restart and spool from the beginning.
  This behavior continues until it is cancelled.

- The print job hangs in the queue with an error status.

- The print job hangs in the queue with a spooling status

CAUSE
=====

This is caused by the idle-timeout setting on the printer's TCP/IP settings
being set too low. The default setting is 90 seconds. When this value is set to
an extremely low number, such as 1, the printer will respond to the computer
sending the print job with a frame size of zero. This can be seen in a network
trace by checking the Window setting in the TCP portion of the printer's
acknowledgement frame. That number is the largest frame size the printer will
accept.

RESOLUTION
==========

Increase the TCP/IP idle-timeout setting using the printer's control panel or by
using a telnet session. The default setting is 90.

Consult your JetDirect manual for information on how to make this change. If the
setting is low enough to cause this problem, it may be extremely difficult to
use a telnet session to make the change, since the session will constantly
time-out before the commands can be entered.


MORE INFORMATION
================

The different symptoms appear according to how the printer responds. If the
printer responds with a zero Window size but does not include the Reset flag,
the server will hang in an error state until the printer responds with a larger
window size. In the trace you can see the server retrying the connection, and
the printer responding with an acknowledgement, but still with the zero Window
size.

If the printer responds with a zero Window size, but does not include the reset
flag, the server will re-spool the job and try again from the beginning. In the
printer window, the job will spool to its full size, sit for a moment, then
start spooling over again, until it is canceled.

Additional query words: hung

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Keywords          : kb3rdparty kbprint 
Technology        : kbWinNTsearch kbWinNTWsearch kbWinNTW400 kbWinNTW400search kbWinNT351search kbWinNT400search kbWinNTW351search kbWinNTW351 kbWinNTSsearch kbWinNTS400search kbWinNTS400 kbWinNTS351 kbWinNTS351search
Version           : :3.51,4.0
Issue type        : kbprb

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