Problem Printing Over VPN Connection

[jenious]

Having a strange problem.

LAN1 => Internet <= LAN2

Am able to creat tunnel, and communicate back and forth between VPN machines without a problem.

LAN1 machine can see printer share on LAN2 machine, connect to and install it. However, whenever I try to print I get a network error.

Print job doesn't show up on Print Queue on LAN1 machine but does show up on LAN2 machine's local print queue and is listed as spooling. Sticks there and does nothing.

Printer is connected to LAN2 machine directly. LAN2 machine is running win98se and LAN1 machine is running WinNT 4.0. Both machine and router MTUs at both end are set to 1300, both TCP and UDP ports 809 are being forward. Thanks

[Pascal]

Two quick questions

- what make and model printer is it?
- what network error do you get?

Reason I ask for the printer model, I have a similar problem at home, except it is on the local LAN. The print-server can print fine, all the other machines spool correctly through to the print server, but it never prints.

That said, I assume that printing from a machine on LAN2 other than the printer-sharing box is fine?

[organekd]

I had this issue. Found that this is caused by the extreme overhead required by NT4 in how it spools the printer. May want to invest in a Print Server, capable of Direct TCP/IP Printing. AKA LPD/LPR. This will reduce the overhead and allow the print job to actually print from any NT/Unix based machine. I suspect this issue is caused by NT's rigid TCP/IP structure and its overhead on ADSL. Found the investment in the TCP/IP print servers is well worth it. Anywho, I hope you find your solution soon! The team here seems to have answers that I wouldn't have.

Thanks,

Dan.

[jenious]

Would seem that it is indeed some sort of overhead issue. Printing works fine in the evening when there is no load on the network, however won't work during the day. Also it seems to be a problem with NT4 as the issue isn't repeated when the host machine is switched over to an Win2000 box. Thanks.