samba - Nov 2004 - Slow printing / print properties with CUPS and Samba sort-of-solved

I've been banging my head against some printing problems
that I've been having for quite a while.  This weekend
I am migrating an old server to new hardware and a new
base OS, but the version of Samba and CUPS remain the
same.  Because of this I moved all the config files
and the contents of /var/cache/samba from the old
server to the new.  (Foreshadowing:  this was a mistake,
but not a big one.)  Since the new server would be a
complete replacement of the old no changes were necessary.

The problems I had been having boil down to this:  If
my users tried to go to the printer properties or tried
to select "file->print" from any print menu it would
take a long time for a response.  "Long time" being
30-40 seconds, sometimes more than a minute.

I should mention that this started when I installed
Windows XP service pack 2 on my network and that
this issue ONLY affects XP boxes with SP 2 installed.

I told my users "I'm installing a new server soon,
that will fix it."  Of course it didn't and that's
why I'm still at work at 11:33PM on a Saturday. :(

I've tried a lot of things to fix this, but what I
did to fix it was to stop samba, remove all the
printing tdb's and restart samba.  Upon further
discovery I found that I could just remove
the tdb for the printer I was having trouble with.

Response time has gone from 30-40 seconds to 1-3
seconds.  This is MUCH more reasonable.

Details:

I have a multitude of printers, but the worst one
was one of my Canon ImageRunner 5000.

I stopped samba:

service smb stop

removed the tdb files:

cd /var/cache/samba
rm ntprinters.tdb ntforms.tdb ntdrivers.tdb
cd printing
rm <printername>.tdb printers.tdb

restarted samba:

service smb start

Samba then recreates the tdb files as it starts.

I am not sure that you need to remove anything
other than <printername>.tdb since I removed
everything, but after I did I was able to
remove other printer tdb files and get response
time back.

I hope this helps someone, and sorry for repeating
a lot of things, but I wanted to make sure that
someone would be able to find this fix if they
were searching with google or some other engine.

And John T:  I'm willing to write this up a little
better if you want to add it to the troubleshooting
section of the HOWTO.  Just let me know.  I
can write much better, I'm just exhausted at the
moment, but I figured if I didn't write up a little
something now that I'd be too lazy to do it later.

Key words:  samba print printing slow windows xp service
pack sp2 sp 2 xpsp2 properties right click right-click

--J(K)

Jason,

Lessons like this are hard earned, and therefore worth documenting.
Please communicate with me when you are refreshed. Let's see what we can do
to
better document this. I'm with you in this.

Cheers,
John T.


On Saturday 06 November 2004 22:45, Jason Balicki wrote:
> I've been banging my head against some printing problems
> that I've been having for quite a while.  This weekend
> I am migrating an old server to new hardware and a new
> base OS, but the version of Samba and CUPS remain the
> same.  Because of this I moved all the config files
> and the contents of /var/cache/samba from the old
> server to the new.  (Foreshadowing:  this was a mistake,
> but not a big one.)  Since the new server would be a
> complete replacement of the old no changes were necessary.
>
> The problems I had been having boil down to this:  If
> my users tried to go to the printer properties or tried
> to select "file->print" from any print menu it would
> take a long time for a response.  "Long time" being
> 30-40 seconds, sometimes more than a minute.
>
> I should mention that this started when I installed
> Windows XP service pack 2 on my network and that
> this issue ONLY affects XP boxes with SP 2 installed.
>
> I told my users "I'm installing a new server soon,
> that will fix it."  Of course it didn't and that's
> why I'm still at work at 11:33PM on a Saturday. :(
>
> I've tried a lot of things to fix this, but what I
> did to fix it was to stop samba, remove all the
> printing tdb's and restart samba.  Upon further
> discovery I found that I could just remove
> the tdb for the printer I was having trouble with.
>
> Response time has gone from 30-40 seconds to 1-3
> seconds.  This is MUCH more reasonable.
>
> Details:
>
> I have a multitude of printers, but the worst one
> was one of my Canon ImageRunner 5000.
>
> I stopped samba:
>
> service smb stop
>
> removed the tdb files:
>
> cd /var/cache/samba
> rm ntprinters.tdb ntforms.tdb ntdrivers.tdb
> cd printing
> rm <printername>.tdb printers.tdb
>
> restarted samba:
>
> service smb start
>
> Samba then recreates the tdb files as it starts.
>
> I am not sure that you need to remove anything
> other than <printername>.tdb since I removed
> everything, but after I did I was able to
> remove other printer tdb files and get response
> time back.
>
> I hope this helps someone, and sorry for repeating
> a lot of things, but I wanted to make sure that
> someone would be able to find this fix if they
> were searching with google or some other engine.
>
> And John T:  I'm willing to write this up a little
> better if you want to add it to the troubleshooting
> section of the HOWTO.  Just let me know.  I
> can write much better, I'm just exhausted at the
> moment, but I figured if I didn't write up a little
> something now that I'd be too lazy to do it later.
>
> Key words:  samba print printing slow windows xp service
> pack sp2 sp 2 xpsp2 properties right click right-click
>
> --J(K)
-- 
John H Terpstra
Samba-Team Member
Phone: +1 (650) 580-8668

Author:
The Official Samba-3 HOWTO & Reference Guide, ISBN: 0131453556
Samba-3 by Example, ISBN: 0131472216
Hardening Linux, ISBN: 0072254971
Other books in production.