Print Jobs Fail to Print to Printer Pool if Printer is Offline

• Microsoft Windows NT Workstation versions 3.5 and 3.51
• Microsoft Windows NT Server versions 3.5 and 3.51

SYMPTOMS

When you print to a printer pool configured under Windows NT, if a printer on one of the ports is unavailable, a job sent to that port times out and has to be deleted.

WORKAROUND

If a printer that is part of a pool is unavailable, remove that port from the pool.

MORE INFORMATION

When printing to a printer pool, the spooler will send waiting jobs to alternate ports. If the original or alternate ports are not available, either from the network being down, the printer being off-line or turned off, or a parallel or serial cable being unplugged, the spooler will still send a job to the unavailable port and all other jobs will continue to print on the available ports. This is normal behavior under Windows NT.

If a printer is unavailable, the spooler always attempts to print to it and produces an error when the print job times out. A printer pool with multiple ports still results in the same behavior on a port-by-port basis.

Currently, the spooler cannot redirect jobs from one port to another, so once the job has been directed to a port that is not available, the job will have to be canceled.