Event ID 1116 Printer autocreation failure. Reason AddPrinter() failed with status 0×3EB

Symptoms For – Event ID 1116 Printer autocreation failure. Reason: AddPrinter() failed with status 0×3EB

You get the error “Event ID 1116 Printer autocreation failure. Reason: AddPrinter() failed with status 0×3EB” when a clients auto created printers are using specific native drivers or the citrix universal printer driver.

Event ID: 1116, AddPrinter() Error 0×3EB appears in the Application Event Log.

Converting 3EB from hex to decimal gives:

1003

Running the net helpmsg 1003 command from a command line gives the following output:

Cannot complete this

Systems Affected

The citrix systems that are affected by the error “Error: Print settings could not be saved, access is denied” are, Citrix Presentation Server Version 4.0 4.5 Xen App 4.0, 4.5, 5.0.

This error code is returned when the driver cannot be loaded by the spooler’s local print provider. This can be caused when the caller (in this case the Citrix Print Manager Service) does not provide sufficient privileges to perform this action.

Citrix Presentation Server 4.0 needs the Ctx_SmaUser privilege to call the OpenPrinterW() function for the client printer autocreation process. In Presentation Server 4.5, the account requiring this privilege is the Ctx_cpsvcuser.

To confirm, add the Ctx_SmaUser (or Ctx_cpsvcuser) to the local administrators group, or change the Citrix Print Manager Service to start with the Local System Account. If either of these changes allows for the successful creation of the client printers, a permissions problem is indicated.

Additionally, if specific printer drivers that call the OpenPrinterW() function with a System Account privilege are used, client printer autocreation fails with Access Denied (0×5) in the OpenPrinterW() function.

The citrix universal driver has become corrupt

Resolution For – Event ID 1116 Printer autocreation failure. Reason: AddPrinter() failed with status 0×3EB

Use filemon or regmon to monitor the files and registry on the citrix presentation server to see if you are getting any access denied messages.

Re-created the Ctx_SmaUser local user account on the citrix presentation server.

If you believe the citrix universal driver has become corrupt reboot your machine and run a chkdsk, Reinstall the Citrix Universal Printer Driver using the repair function under Add or Remove Programs.

As a last resort, Citrix recommends using the Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools Spooler Cleaner (Cleanspl.exe) to remove all print jobs, printers, printer drivers, and spool files from the system.

Attempt to reinstall the Citrix Universal Printer Driver.

Have you got any other fixes for the error “Event ID 1116 Printer autocreation failure. Reason: AddPrinter() failed with status 0×3EB” if yes please post them below in a comment.  Thanks