WritePrinter() Error Recovery with SNA Server Print Service (276288)

SYMPTOMS

The Print Service of SNA Server uses the WritePrinter function call to send data to the printer. Errors may sometimes occur when this function is called, which may cause such problems as incorrect output (dropped characters) to be printed.

CAUSE

Because all errors to WritePrinter are intermittent and appear to be related to stress conditions, Print Service was modified as follows:

If an error occurs, a retry loop is entered, where the call is made five times with a 20 millisecond delay, which usually resolves stress-related errors.
If the WritePrinter call still fails, the failure is marked as a job error, and printing of the job is stopped.

RESOLUTION

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Host Integration Server 2000. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

328152 How to Obtain the Latest Host Integration Server 2000 Service Pack

The English version of this hotfix has the file attributes (or later) that are listed in the following table. The dates and times for these files are listed in coordinated universal time (UTC). When you view the file information, it is converted to local time. To find the difference between UTC and local time, use the Time Zone tab in the Date and Time tool in Control Panel.

File name	Date	Time
Winvprt.dll	08/29/00	12:00
Ppd3270.dll	08/29/00	12:00
Ppd5250.dll	08/29/00	12:00

NOTE: Because of file dependencies, the most recent fix that contains the preceding files may also contain additional files.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article. This problem was first corrected in Host Integration Server 2000 Service Pack 1.