Printer spooler timeout

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.print_fax (More info?)

I have a printer spooler timeout problem on Windows XP
Professional (SP1), using a printer connected to an ADSL
broadband router/print server. Whenever the printer is
slow to accept data or times out because of conditions
like paper out or paper jammed, XP automatically restarts
the print job after 15 seconds elapse since the last
packet sent. Monitoring the TCP/IP traffic between the
computer and the router reveals that there is no back
traffic, no error condition communicated by the router,
just this timeout value, after which it is XP that breaks
the TCP/IP connection and reestablishes it to start the
print job all over again.

After having tried to look for possible entries in the
registry used to set the timeout value, I finally found
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Monitors\<Moni
tor>\Ports\FailureTimeout that seems to be exactly the
entry required.

According to its description at
http://www.microsoft.com/windows20 [...] reskit/en-
us/regentry/29606.asp, it "specifies the length of time
that the system will wait for a response from the
printer. If the printer does not respond before this time
elapses, the system will cancel the print job" which is
exactly what happens.

The problem is that adding this entry doesn't solve the
problem. There is a note on the mentioned page stating
that "This entry appears by default in the registry when
adding ports that use this entry." I don't see such an
entry appear, so this might suggest the standard TCP/IP
port monitor doesn't observe FailureTimeout, yet the
symptoms are exactly as described, with the 15 second
timeout actually enforced by the spooler.

The router/print server uses the LPR protocol. I tried
both both the standard TCP/IP protocol and the LPR Port
obtained by installing the Print Services for Unix
component. Neither port monitor seems to observe the
FailureTimeout entry.

Thanks in advance for any ideas,

Gabor