Issue trying to query print server with thousands of printers installed

Question

Hi Everyone.

Not sure if this is the correct Forum or not....

I'm having an issue getting a list of printers remotely from a server (2012R2) that has 10,000 local print queues installed.  I've tried both C# and PowerShell code to retrieve the printers and both fail when accessing it remotely.  When I run the same commands locally on the print server with 10,000 printers, it works just fine, just not when I access it remotely.  I originally had 1000 printers installed on the server, and the commands listed below actually worked remotely.  When I started adding more printers, thousands more, it stopped returning any results at all.  It seems there is a threshold that breaks the server depending upon the number of printers installed.  Any ideas?

PowerShell code that fails remotely: 

Get-Printer -ComputerName "ServerWith10000LocalPrinters"

Error message:

Get-Printer : An error occurred while performing the specified operation.  See the error details for more information.
At line:1 char:1
+ Get-Printer -ComputerName "ServerWith10000LocalPrinters"
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidData: (MSFT_Printer:ROOT/StandardCimv2/MSFT_Printer) [Get-Printer], CimException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : HRESULT 0x8007000d,Get-Printer

My C# code that I've tried remotely that fails

PrintServer printServer = new PrintServer("\\\\PrintServerwith10000Printers");
var allPrintqueues = printServer.GetPrintQueues().OrderBy(x=>x.Name);
foreach(var i in allPrintqueues)
{
Console.WriteLine(i.Name);
}

Error message:

System.NullReferenceException was unhandled
  HResult=-2147467261
  Message=Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
  Source=System.Printing
  StackTrace:
       at MS.Internal.PrintWin32Thunk.AttributeNameToInfoLevelMapping.InfoLevelCoverageList.Release()
       at MS.Internal.PrintWin32Thunk.EnumDataThunkObject.GetPrintSystemValuesPerPrintQueues(PrintServer printServer, EnumeratedPrintQueueTypes[] flags, Queue`1 printObjectsCollection, String[] propertyFilter)
       at System.Printing.PrintQueueCollection..ctor(PrintServer printServer, String[] propertyFilter)
       at System.Printing.PrintServer.GetPrintQueues()
       at PrintMgmt.Program.SearchPrinters() in C:\Users\hm3307\Documents\Visual Studio 2015\Projects\PrintMgmt\PrintMgmt\Program.cs:line 64
       at PrintMgmt.Program.Main(String[] args) in C:\Users\hm3307\Documents\Visual Studio 2015\Projects\PrintMgmt\PrintMgmt\Program.cs:line 52
       at System.AppDomain._nExecuteAssembly(RuntimeAssembly assembly, String[] args)
       at System.AppDomain.ExecuteAssembly(String assemblyFile, Evidence assemblySecurity, String[] args)
       at Microsoft.VisualStudio.HostingProcess.HostProc.RunUsersAssembly()
       at System.Threading.ThreadHelper.ThreadStart_Context(Object state)
       at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.RunInternal(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state, Boolean preserveSyncCtx)
       at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state, Boolean preserveSyncCtx)
       at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state)
       at System.Threading.ThreadHelper.ThreadStart()
  InnerException: 

Side note:  Querying WMI for the full list isn't really feasible since it takes around 5 minutes to query 10,000 printers...

Answer 1

Did you find a resolution to this? I recently had this happen with my print servers. I have roughly 4000 print queues on each print server and I am getting the same error when I run get-printer remotely against the print server. Like you, I can run the powershell command locally and it works fine.