NETWORK PRINTER ERROR I HAVE NEVER SEEN BEFORE

[drewber]

HEY GUYS HERE THE SITUATION

10 PCS ON A SMALL NETWORK
1 NT SERVER
9 WORKSTATIONS

2 OF THE WORKSTATIONS HAVE PRINTERS ATTACHED TO THEM. THEY HAVE BEEN WORKING FINE FOR ALMOST 2 YEARS NOW. TODAY IF I PRINT THE LOCAL MACHINE IT WORKS FINE.
IF I TRY TO PRINT FROM ANOTHER WORKSTATION IT SAYS A UNKNOWN SYSTEM ERROR OCCURED PRINTING TO //<PC NAME>/<PRINTER NAME>, RESTART WINDOWS AND TRY TO PRINT AGAIN.

IF I TRY TO PRINT FROM THE SERVER IT SAYS CANNOT PRINT TO <PRINTER NAME> ACCESS DENIED
(R)ETRY OR (C)ANCEL. IF I HIT RETRY 5 TO 10 TIMES IT WILL PRINT ?!?!?
THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN TO JUST ONE PRINTER, BUT BOTH. HERE ARE THE SOLUTIONS I HAVE TRIED

REBOOT ALL WORKSTATIONS
DELETE PRINTER AND REINSTALL DRIVER
SCANREG /FIX
UNINSTALLED ALL NETWORKING COMPNETS ON WORKSTATIONS AND REINSTALLED
TRIED NEW HUB
AND I TRIED NEW NICS IN THE WORKSTATIONS WITH THE PRINTERS?
I TRIED TO SWITCH FROM SHARE LEVEL TO USER LEVEL RIGHTS,

THE MACHINES ARE USING DHCP, WHICH IS LEASED BY A INTERNET SHARING DEVICE THAT USES A EXTERNAL 56K MODEM, IF YOU CAN HELP PLEASE REPLY

[cYbErAnKhAmUn]

Virus?

[Deity]

The "pritning to ///" makes me think of some type of sharing or network communication problem. However, I wouldn't know where to start. If you have the time and availability, try to isolate two systems, one with a local printer one without. Setup both systems on their own network, or perhaps a subnet of your main network. Play with the TCP/IP setting for the two machines. In essense, break it down to as simple of a setup as possible. Honestly though, I can't think of any single thing that could cause this, except perhaps the virus that was mentioned already.

[drewber]

WELL I DID A FULL SYSTEM SCAN AND I COULDNT FIND A VIRUS ON ANY MACHINE, WITH MCAFFEE, NORTON OR INNOCULAN , WITH THE MOST UP TO DATE VIRUS DEFS. WELL IF YOU GUYS HEAR OF A VIRUS THAT DOES THIS PLEASE LET ME KNOW, ALL DATA TRANSFERS ETC, OVER THE NETWORK ARE FINE, THATS WHY I SCANNED THE MACHINES ALSO THINKING VIRUS, BUT JUST CAUSE THEY CAME UP CLEAN DONT MEAN ITS SOMETHING WE'LL SEE ON MCAFEE.COM IN A WEEK. THANKS AGAIN, ILL TRY JUST RUNNING A CROSS OVER CABLE BETWEEN THE 2 MACHINES WITH THE PROBLAM AND SETUP STATIC IPS ETC, AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS

[Higg]

Shouldn't it be "printing to \\\" (not '///')as in normal case it would say "printing to \\servername\printername"?
Perhaps the keys for the names are empty in the registry, but the queue still exists...

BTW: writing in pure capital letters means screaming and is hard to read...

[drewber]

well all thanks for the help, but i did fix the problem, all i had to do was delete the files in the c:\windows\spool\printers folder..only took me a total of 4 hours trying to fix it over 3 days.

i still dont understand how the local machines could print if it was a problem with the spool folder, but oh well it works

thanks again