AppleShare: Troubleshooting PrintShare Problems



We have set up an AppleShare network with PrintShare running. We have had
frequent system bombs on the server. Although we made some changes, and
things seem to go well for a while, system bombs recur.

In addition, we get lots of error sheets from PrintShare. Many of them
have to do with "stack underflow". This situation occurs frequently on
another AppleShare network, but without the crashes.

Our server is a Macintosh SE/30 with 4MB of RAM and an external 80MB hard
disk running System 6.0.5, AppleShare 2.0.1, and PrintShare 2.0. We
partitioned the disks with SilverLining Software (for a password-protected
partition).

Our network includes three volumes on the server. The network contains
about 15 workstations, three older LaserWriters (captured by the
PrintServer), and three ImageWriters.

All workstations are Macintosh Plus computers. They run System 6.0.5,
Laser drivers v. 5.0, the Virex INIT for virus checks, and no unusual
INITs, DAs, or cDEVs.

Three things come to mind. First, make sure that the LaserWriter driver
used by everyone (including the server itself) is at least version 5.2.
Versions 5.0 and 5.1 have some known bugs which could contribute to the
problems.

Second, make sure that NO extra INITs or cDEVs are running on the server.
Given the way AppleShare works, these extra INITs can cause a performance
decrease and occasional system bombs. AppleShare is too time-sensitive to
tolerate much interruption.

Third, everything could come down to a defective SCSI driver written to the
hard drive. Make sure that you use the very latest version of SilverLining
and reformat the drive. Make sure that backups are file-by-file rather
than partition-by-partition, as any slight mistake in partition size may
cause lots of problems during the restore operation. After formatting,
re-install the File and Print Servers from diskette, rather than from the
backup.


Published Date: Feb 18, 2012