How many times have you had a windows 2003 server print queue go offline even though the printer is on and working? I have seen this problem off and on for awhile and never found a good answer until now.
Whenever this came up as an issue for me, I would delete the entire print queue and create a new one. This is not a clean solution, as it affects the clients, and users will need to delete and re-add the printer. Not a good situation if you have a lot of computers printing to a particular queue. This issue looks to be a result of SP2 for Windows 2003 Server. Another typical symptom is when you restart the spooler service, the printer will be briefly available, maybe 30 seconds to a minute, and then it will reset to offline status again.
“Problem: MS has changed the way SNMP-enabled printer are handeled in SP2. I don’t have the full detail, but apparently any printer that is marked as SNMP enabled (by the driver, I assume) will REQUIRE (by default) SNMP to be setup correctly and working on both the printer and local server (community names). Never mind if these printer all have SNMP actually disabled” [1]
Option One:
Check TCP/IP port settings and disable SNMP checkbox.Option Two:
Enable SNMP on printer network card and leave SNMP checked on TCP/IP port settings.Option Three:
Delete printer queue, delete port, recreate all and make sure snmp is disabled, then fix printers on client PC’s.
References:
[1]episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/12009443/m/752004225831