Question : Intermittent TCP/IP Printing failing -- DNS related? EventID 6161 Error 1241

Only a few of my users are having intermittent printing problems. WinXP SP2 reports that the job failed. This generates a System Error in the Event Log with ID 6161. The content of the message is not helpful, but it has an error code in it of 1241 which is ERROR_INCORRECT_ADDRESS.

 I assumed that this would be a DNS problem from the error code. DNS is on Windows 2003 Server that is also running DHCP (w/ dynamic updates from DHCP to DNS). All of the printers have a static IP. All workstations are using DHCP. All workstations seem to resolve fine when the problem occurs. I can ping them and I can not ping the printers. It complains of not finding the host.

When I do an nslookup everything is fine, even when the problem occurs. If I do an ipconfig /displaydns it shows up as something like:

C:\>ipconfig /displayDNS | more
Windows IP Configuration

          printername.domain.com
          ----------------------------------------------------
          Name does not exist.
         
          dnsserver.domain.com
          -----------------------------------------------------
          (Information here is correct) (more stuff not listed)

If I do an ipconfig /flushdns everything is ok again and the print job goes through (without resubmitting). It really baffles me. DNS appears to be working correctly and so is I've run out of things to check. :(

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Jason

Answer : Intermittent TCP/IP Printing failing -- DNS related? EventID 6161 Error 1241

I notice you have an 24.95.80.41 dns server for you workstation. If this isn't an internal DNS server, you maybe be doing lookups against it for internal IP's, in which case it won't resolve. Normally you point all internal clients to internal DNS servers only, and have those DNS servers resolve any requests for external IP's.
This may be the cause of you problems.