Update: I’ve gotten an insane amount of hits for “you do not have sufficient access to your computer to connect to the selected printer”, “windows cannot connect to the printer 000006be”, and “hp printer You do not have sufficient access”. (start reading at the 3rd paragraph if you want to jump straight to the details of my incident) If you want to jump straight to what the solution was for my issue, please see this Microsoft bulletin. I highly recommend reading this (PDF) HP document for a more detailed technical explanation. Also, if you could do me the courtesy of letting me know if this resolved your issue, whether via comment or email, I would greatly appreciate it.
Today’s post will be an exercise in troubleshooting. It addresses a problem I believe I’ve solved regarding our printer issues at work, as well as what was actually implemented.
So, two weeks ago we rolled out new network printers to our organization (I was not present at the time, I attend school fulltime). All the printers were the same make and model as the ones they were replacing, with the exception of a small P3005 (All our network printers are HP). Since the network printers were replaced, there have been a number of issues. Some people randomly can’t print to printers. Others can’t add printers to their local machine, receiving an error message ‘You do not have sufficient access to your computer to connect to this printer’. Initially we tried adding the users to the local power users and then local administrators group. This did not solve the issue. According to an employee from our finance department, the problems she had seemed to start she said the problems she had seemed to start when the printer near her was replaced. Interesting coincidence.
Our second level support tech told me that it was a problem with the local machines, and that they all were using the same standard image from June 2008 that I’d created. Interestingly enough, NOT ALL computers using that image were having the permissions issue. I then asked him if he’d updated any drivers on the server. He replied that he hadn’t updated any, except the driver for the P3005, the little printer, and that it was impossible for it to affect the other network printers. So I decided to do some more digging.
I found this Microsoft KB, KB954367. Microsoft’s bulletin describes a problem with an older HP driver, and an error message with:
Windows cannot connect to the printer.
Operation could not be completed (error 0x000006be).
You do not have sufficient access to your computer to connect to the selected printer.
Microsoft also says that “You may experience one or more of the following symptoms on a Windows Vista-based or a Windows Server 2003-based computer”. I tried to connect to one of the ‘affected’ printers using Windows Vista, and the spooler promptly crashed on the server, another symptom described in the bulletin. Microsoft suggests that the problem is due to a driver using HPBmini.dll of earlier than 1.0.0.19, or HPcdMC32.dll version less than 1.0.2.35. I went and checked the version of the driver on the server. The HPBmini.dll file is 1.0.0.19, but the HPcdMC32.dll file is 1.0.1.17, quite a bit earlier than the max threshold set by the Microsoft KB. Armed with this knowledge, I felt that it was very likely the driver that caused the issue. I then went and checked out the HP bulletin linked to from Microsoft’s KB, and found that among the affected products, the driver shipping with P3005 is one of the affected.
I brought this information to my manager, and he instructed me to talk to the second level tech before I updated the driver on the server. The second level tech refused to allow me to update the driver on the server, saying that it was impossible for the driver to cause the issue, since P3005 is only a small printer and the driver shouldn’t affect any other printer drivers. I tried to explain the fact that it updated files common to all the HP printers, but this was rejected. He ended up installing a new image on the client machines, and the problem seemed to go away. The driver on the server was not updated.
Note: To be perfectly fair, the knowledge bulletin specifies that the issue occurs on a Windows Server 2003 or Windows Vista installation with an HP printer connected. However, in my opinion this does not mean that the same issue won’t occur on Windows XP. In fact, it seems to me even more likely, since Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP use very similar driver mechanisms.
Unfortunately however, it seems the problem might NOT have gone away. Apparently this morning (I’m not in on Mondays) the printspl.exe process on the print server refused to start, and no one on the network was able to print to any printers. Now, (calling any and all people with any IT experience) what’s the common cause of the print spooler not working? A corrupted driver? You guessed right! I did some browsing on HP’s forums, and it seems like their printer drivers or the HP Inject service (which is installed along side the driver frequently) often mess up the print spooler.
Note: There are other causes for a print spooler to fail, but since it’s been functioning fine for the last several years, and the only real change was an updated driver, that the driver is what was causing havoc.
I found out that the way they tried to resolve the issue was by uninstalling every driver till the last modified. Unfortunately however, if the information I’d submitted had been read completely, it would have been understood that the whole reason for the issue in the first place was because the files are timestamped incorrectly. Windows Server 2003 does not look at the file version when updating. Rather, it looks at the time stamp of the file to determine whether it should be updated or not. Uninstalling won’t help. HP says that the only way to rectify this problem is to manually copy over the new dll’s. Uninstalling and rolling back the drivers won’t work. This would have been known had the ‘More information’ been read.
After getting an update from my manager this evening, I found that they’re (IT) is setting up a new print server on one of our other servers. At least it will get the organization printing again. Our main job is to get keep the organization functioning. I’m just disappointed that we had to experience downtime, and that what I suspect was the real cause wasn’t fixed. I’m trying to understand what the big resistance was to following my recommendation to update the driver per HP’s suggestion. I still firmly believe that if we were to fix the ‘updated’ driver on the old print server, things would be up and functional. However, I haven’t been given that liberty, so we’re stuck with our new print server. This means everyone has to re-add their printers, whether they’re having issues or not.
Feel free to leave your comments and/or troubleshooting suggestions. I can’t really implement them now that we have a new print server, but I’d love to hear suggestions for alternative solutions.
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Tags: Microsoft, Print, Server, Troubleshooting
Great post!