Citrix states in their article: CTX881017

CTX881017 - Troubleshooting MetaFrame XP Imported Network Print Servers

This document was published at: http://support.citrix.com/kb/entry.jspa?externalID=CTX881017

Document ID: CTX881017, Created on: Sep 30, 2002, Updated: Oct 29, 2003

Products: Citrix MetaFrame XP 1.0 for Microsoft Windows 2000, Citrix MetaFrame XP 1.0 for Microsoft NT 4.0 Server Terminal Server Edition, Citrix MetaFrame XP 1.0 for Microsoft Windows 2003

This article describes the basic issues with imported network print servers and their possible resolutions.

Overview

Imported network print servers make the shared printers available to configured users when they connect to servers in the MetaFrame XP farm. This is an automated process, similar to the manual process of having a user add the printer through the Printer Folder > Add Printer > Network Printer> Microsoft Network wizard in a Terminal Server desktop session.

Troubleshooting this issue can be significantly different than the auto-creation of locally defined, this includes locally attached and network printers, workstation printers as outlined in Troubleshooting Citrix ICA Printer Autocreation.

Importing Print Servers

Use the Network Print Servers tab when you want to import a network print server to make its printers available to the users of the server farm. When you select the tab, you can choose Import Network Print Server from the toolbar or the Actions menu. The command and toolbar button are not available when other tabs are selected.

1. Ensure the driver for the print server is installed on all of the MetaFrame XP servers by checking the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Environments\Windows NT x86\Drivers\Version-2 (NT4)

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Environments\Windows NT x86\Drivers\Version-3 (Windows 2000)

Use the MetaFrame XP feature of Printer Driver Replication to help with this process. See the MetaFrame XP Administrators Guide or the Citrix Knowledgebase Article Printer Driver Replication Failed for Certain Printers and Printer Drivers for more information about printer driver replication. For Windows NT 4.0 print servers imported to a Windows 2000 MetaFrame XP farm, right click in the white space inside the Printers folder and go to Server Properties > Drivers Tab > Add > Choose the driver. The driver defaults to Windows 2000. Change the check box to reflect both Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000.

The mere existence of the driver does not guarantee this process will work. The driver may be corrupted. Citrix Support may ask that the driver be removed and re-added.

2. Novell NDS printer are not supported as Imported Network Print Servers. For additional information, see page 70 of the MetaFrame XP Administrators Guide.

3. Assigning, a user, permission to the Imported Network Print Server(s) does not automatically ensure the user the right to actually print to the printer. These permissions merely allow the user to autocreate the object within the users profile. This information is in the following registry keys:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Printers\Citrix\NetworkPrinters

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Printers\Connections

Additionally, because the object is created within the context of the users profile, the administrator cannot view these objects from the Citrix Management Console or through the Printers folder. It may be necessary to shadow a user in a desktop session to further troubleshoot this issue.

4. Citrix does not recommend importing a print server that is also a MetaFrame XP server as a permanent solution. It may be required as a quick troubleshooting step. By design this is so that users will not be confused. Because the object is created on the MetaFrame XP server, the user, upon logon, sees the object as created on the server and not as it would when created in the users profile. Many users will most likely log on to many different MetaFrame XP servers and those servers will not be acting as print servers. Attempting to import the print server by NetBIOS name gives the error message: "Failed to Add Network Print Server . The server is part of the farm. Error Code:0130001/c0138015." The server will import if the IP address is used.

5. Imported Network PrintServer(s) are not subject to alternate print driver mappings as is the case with a locally defined printer object on the client device.

6. Imported Network PrintServer(s) information is written to the data store. This information can be viewed by running Dsview.exe. The locations are: ServerNeighborhood >FarmName > PrinterRoot > NWPrintServers, AutoCreate, and Printers. Examining these locations may help analyze the more complex Imported Network Print Server(s) issues.

7. With Feature Release 2, Printing Preferences can be set per printer in the Citrix Management Console for autocreated network printers. The preference options are papersize, copy count, print quality, and orientation.

8. With Feature Release 2, you can choose to inherit user-defined network printer properties at each logon. This permits you to ignore the saved user profile data, which causes the common properties to be set for the subsequent logon.

9. When importing or updating a print server with a large number of printers, Error: Failed to refresh print server data for . Operation timed out. C0130006/C0138006. should be applied.

10. Imported Network PrintServer(s) are not subject to the usage of the Universal Print Driver, UPD, as outlined in Troubleshooting and Explaining the Citrix Universal Print Driver, UPD.

Network Print Servers Tab

Use the Network Print Servers tab to view the names of network print servers whose printers can be configured in the server farm. When you create a new MetaFrame XP server farm, the tab lists nothing until you import one or more network print servers. After you import print servers, the Network Print Servers tab displays the name of each print server and the date and time when the console last updated the print server information. The tab uses the time zone of the machine to which the console is connected for the date and time display.

Updating Server Information

If you add printers to or remove them from a network print server, update the print server information to be sure that the console displays the available printers on the Printers tab. To do this, select a print server and use the Update Network Print Server command from the right-click menu, the toolbar, or the Actions menu. You must do this because updating print server information does not take place automatically.

When changing the driver (the actual drive name or OS platform type is changed) on the print server, it is advisable to remove the object from the print server, refresh the printer node within the Citrix Management Console, and ensure the printer is removed. Logon a user and then logoff the user after verifying the printer is
successfully deleted. Add the printer with the new driver to the print server, refresh the print server within the Citrix Management Console, add the user to the imported print server, and retest with the previous logged on/off user.

Changing the share name of a network printer deletes all user names entered in the autocreation list for the printer in Citrix Management Console. These assignments are written to the datastore and associated with the share name of the network printer. When you make changes to the printer on the network print server, make sure the user names are reassigned to the printer in the Citrix Management Console.

Error: Failed to refresh print server data for . Operation timed out. C0130006/C0138006.

Removing Print Servers

Removing a print server removes all of its printers from the farm. This is the opposite of importing a network print server. If you remove printers, ICA Client users cannot print to them. If you want to do this, select the print server to remove, and then choose Discard Network Print Server from the right-click menu, the console toolbar, or the Actions menu. After you confirm the command, the printer server no longer appears on the Network Print Server tab and its printers do not appear on the Printers tab.

This process also removes the object from the users profile upon the next logon attempt. Ensure users are not reconnecting to a disconnected session when troubleshooting this issue.

Known Issues

MetaFrame XP Feature Release 1 had one issue. If a user had access to the Printers folder and deleted the Imported Network Printer object from their profile, the object would not be recreated unless the entire users profile was deleted and a new profile was created. This issue is fixed in Service Pack 2 for MetaFrame XP.