2008-01-14 #1

Printer problem

This worked, at least for a couple of weeks anyways.

Today I couldn't print to a customer's printer; it would always time out.

So I tried to browse the computer and get to the printer that way; the server wouldn't let me connect to it.

So I backed down to the big stick of the command prompt and tried to do it:

C:\Users\dave>net view \\server
System error 5 has occurred.
Access is denied.

Now you can't use the /user parameter with the net view command, so instead what you try to do is net use the IPC$ share; if you can use that, you can browse the computer:

C:\Users\dave>net use \\server\ipc$ /user:domain\dave
System error 1219 has occurred.
Multiple connections to a server or shared resource by the same user, using more
 than one user name, are not allowed. Disconnect all previous connections to the
 server or shared resource and try again.

OK, I've seen this before. My laptop has tried to connect with the credentials pegasus\dave instead of the customer's domain\dave account. So all you have to do is un-use the ipc$ with the wrong credentials, then you can use with the correct credentials:

C:\Users\dave>net use /d \\server\ipc$
The network connection could not be found.
More help is available by typing NET HELPMSG 2250.

...uh, WTF?

C:\Users\dave>net use
New connections will be remembered.

Status       Local     Remote                    Network
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OK                     \\saturn\dave             Microsoft Windows Network
Disconnected           \\nas-01\IPC$             Microsoft Windows Network
The command completed successfully.

...ok, the first one is a connection to my samba server at home (which is not reachable from here, I don't know why it says the connection is OK) and the second one is a connection to a different customer's server, which also isn't reachable. Where's the connection to
server?

Oh fuck it, I'm just going to use a direct TCP/IP connection to this printer.

Update: that worked. Of course.