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jordanht
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Mapping a printer with UEM only works when not capturing printer settings

We're struggling to get a consistent printing experience in our VDI environment. I was originally using a group policy preference to install and set our default printer, which works for our physical environment, but not consistently in our virtual environment for whatever reason. So I decided to let UEM handle it.

Horizon 6

AppVolumes 2.11

UEM 9.0 (also tested in 9.3)

Zero Client

When I first added the printer to be mapped and tested it, I found in my async log file:

2018-04-02 13:01:17.037 [ERROR] Error 3012 trying to map printer '\\printserver\printername' (tried 21 times; waited 21000 ms) ('Flex Print.xml')

I had heard that AppVolumes can interfere with printers so I tested an account with no appvolumes and got the same result. Then I decided to try deleting the Printers.zip file under my UEM profile, and then the mapping worked! I logged off, logged back on, and again a failure with the same error. Deleted Printers.zip and it works again. If I disable capturing the Windows common setting for printers, the mapping works every time. It also works if I uncheck "run asynchronously", but it adds 30+ seconds to log on time, which is not acceptable.

Any ideas why this might be? I'd like to capture printer settings and I'm not sure what I might be losing by disabling those settings.

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DEMdev
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Hi jordanht,

Very interesting to hear that removing the profile archive has this effect – that's a new data point for printer-related issues, as far as I know.

Does the printer mapping fail consistently (i.e. the same printer failing, after the same wait time, etc) if the Windows Common Setting is in play? Are the printer drivers installed in the base image?

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jordanht
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

UEMdev​,

We seem to be exceptional at finding strange new problems.

With the error pasted above, it is always the exact same failure with that printer - error 3012, tried 21 times, waited 21000ms. And yes, completely consistent in my testing (probably 20 logons) when the printers common setting is enabled. Since you asked that, it made me think to try another printer. Similar but slightly different results.

I first logged in with the printer common settings enabled and got:

2018-04-03 12:32:39.999 [ERROR] Error 3012 trying to map printer '\\printserver\Flex-Print' (tried 21 times; waited 21000 ms) ('Flex Print.xml')

2018-04-03 12:34:43.654 [INFO ] Successfully mapped printer '\\printserver\PlotterHP6200' ('Plotter.xml')

2018-04-03 12:34:43.654 [DEBUG] Processed 2 UEM printer mappings (1 successful, 1 error)

I logged out, didn't change anything (common setting still enabled), and logged in again (twice) and got:

2018-04-03 12:46:28.414 [ERROR] Error 3012 trying to map printer '\\printserver\Flex-Print' (tried 21 times; waited 21000 ms) ('Flex Print.xml')

2018-04-03 12:46:51.274 [ERROR] Error 10 trying to map printer '\\printserver\PlotterHP6200' (tried 21 times; waited 21000 ms) ('Plotter.xml')

2018-04-03 12:46:51.274 [DEBUG] Processed 2 UEM printer mappings (2 errors)

So it seems as if once the printer is picked up by the UEM common setting, it will then fail to map. Though the new one got a different error number.

I disabled the common setting and got:

2018-04-03 12:56:55.596 [INFO ] Successfully mapped printer '\\printserver\Flex-Print' ('Flex Print.xml')

2018-04-03 12:56:55.596 [INFO ] Set printer as default

2018-04-03 12:57:22.532 [INFO ] Successfully mapped printer '\\printserver\PlotterHP6200' ('Plotter.xml')

2018-04-03 12:57:22.532 [DEBUG] Processed 2 UEM printer mappings (2 successful)

And yes, the drivers for both of those printers are in the base image.

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DEMdev
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Hi jordanht,

Sorry to hear about your knack for finding strange problems... In this case, I'd say it's not so much a strange problem (there are quite some issues around printer mapping, as you also encountered with GPP), as that you're the first to highlight the link between mapping errors and managing printer settings.

As for the different error number: errors 10 and 3012 are exactly the ones for which we've determined empirically that it's worth retrying the mapping for. If we receive any other error code, we stop, but for these two we perform a bunch of retries. This generally eventually succeeds before reaching the maximum number of retries, but clearly that's not the case for you. Would you mind trying to increase the number of retries via the Advanced Settings ADMX template?

Also, is there anything related to printer or spooler errors in the Windows event log around the time the printer settings profile archive is imported, or around the time the printer mapping occurs?

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jordanht
Enthusiast
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UEMdev​,

I haven't found any errors regarding printers in the Windows event log.

But now we are onto something - I increased the retries to 100 using the GPO template, and the mapping worked with printer settings enabled. The number of tries varied a bit. Here are a few results:

2018-04-04 10:56:41.454 [INFO ] Successfully mapped printer '\\printserver\Flex-Print' (took 23 tries; waited 25300 ms) ('Flex Print.xml')

2018-04-04 10:56:41.454 [INFO ] Set printer as default

2018-04-04 10:57:00.521 [INFO ] Successfully mapped printer '\\printserver\PlotterHP6200' ('Plotter.xml')

2018-04-04 10:57:00.521 [DEBUG] Processed 2 UEM printer mappings (2 successful)

2018-04-04 10:25:01.530 [INFO ] Successfully mapped printer '\\printserver\Flex-Print' (took 37 tries; waited 66600 ms) ('Flex Print.xml')

2018-04-04 10:25:01.530 [INFO ] Set printer as default

2018-04-04 10:25:06.266 [INFO ] Successfully mapped printer '\\printserver\PlotterHP6200' ('Plotter.xml')

2018-04-04 10:25:06.266 [DEBUG] Processed 2 UEM printer mappings (2 successful)

2018-04-04 09:55:00.429 [INFO ] Successfully mapped printer '\\printserver\Flex-Print' (took 39 tries; waited 74100 ms) ('Flex Print.xml')

2018-04-04 09:55:00.429 [INFO ] Set printer as default

2018-04-04 09:55:05.273 [INFO ] Successfully mapped printer '\\printserver\PlotterHP6200' ('Plotter.xml')

2018-04-04 09:55:05.273 [DEBUG] Processed 2 UEM printer mappings (2 successful)

I think 39 tries is the maximum I saw, so setting it to 50 would probably work. Any thoughts as to why this would be so high? And, is it safe to implement this setting in a production environment?

DEMdev
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Hi jordanht,

That's great news! I have no clue why it would take so long, to be honest... I expect that importing the previously saved settings triggers some printer-related actions that affect the printer subsystem for quite a while, but I don't know enough about that to say for sure.

Increasing the maximum number of retries has no negative side effects – it'll just retry for longer.

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alisampras
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi Jordan,

 

Can share, how did you increase the retries? Where can I find the retries settings?

 

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DEMdev
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Hi @alisampras,

You can configure the number of retries via the Advanced Settings ADMX template.

 

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alisampras
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi DEMdev,

Thanks for reply.

I planned to increase the retries setting.

Can show me how and where you actually do it?

Thanks for your kind.

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