5250 Print Jobs Fail If Connection to Printer Lost/Recovered (167195)

SYMPTOMS

AS/400 print jobs fail to print. The 5250 print session configured in SNA Server Manager changes to a spooling state after the job is sent from the AS/400 and the Print Manager in Windows NT may also briefly show the print job as spooling. However, the job does not print.

CAUSE

This problem occurs after the network connection to the printer is lost and then reestablished. The 5250 print provider does not recognize that the connection to the printer was lost, therefore it does not reestablish its connection to the printer. Any print jobs sent to the printer by way of the 5250 print session fail to print after the connection drop.

RESOLUTION

To work around this problem:

Stop and restart the SNA Server Host Print service after any network connection outage between the SNA Server and the network printer.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in SNA Server version 3.0 and 3.0 SP1. This problem was corrected in the latest SNA Server version 3.0 U.S. Service Pack. For information on obtaining this Service Pack, query on the following word in the Microsoft Knowledge Base (without the spaces):

S E R V P A C K

MORE INFORMATION

In the fix referenced above, the 5250 print provider has been updated to correct this problem. Whenever a new print job is started, the 5250 print provider checks to see if it still has a valid connection to the printer. If it does not have a valid connection to the printer, the 5250 print provider will close the current connection and will open a new one.

Please refer to the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base for information on another problem with 5250 print sessions recovering after a connection outage between the SNA Server and the AS/400:

165310 5250 Print Sessions Don't Reconnect After Connection Outage