Abend in RMANSRVR.NLM running PAGEN.EXE

Although highly uncommon, we have had reports of PAGEN.EXE causing the server to abend in the RMANSRVR.NLM module.
The issue was caused by a specific printer driver and a defect in RMANSRVR.NLM.

Apply RMANSRVR.NLM dated February 2009 or later. 

1. Go to download.novell.com
2. Choose iPrint from the "Product or Technology" drop down list.
3. Click the "search" button.
4. Click the "Patches" link
5. Choose the download link for the patch containing the filename iprntnw65sp8x.zip or iprntnw65sp7x.zip (sp8a, sp8b, sp7c, etc).

If applying the latest RMANSRVR.NLM is not an option, it will be necessary to narrow down the particular printer driver contributing to the abend.  Once identified, this driver will need to be removed.  However, the process of finding the "offending" driver typically is not practical as there may be hundreds of printer drivers that would need to be validated. 

We highly recommend obtaining the latest RMANSRVR.NLM.

In this specific case we were able to determine that removing the printer driver for the HP LaserJet M4345 MFP PCL 5 for the Windows XP OS resolved the issue.

Unfortunately there is no user interface for removing drivers from the NDPS Resource Management Service.  To find out if this particular driver resides in the RESDIR directory on the server running RMANSRVR.NLM and to determine the location, proceed with the following steps:

1) On the server that is experiencing the abend, unload the NDPS broker through the broker console by pressing Esc.

2) On this same server, locate the volume hosting the broker resources.  This was specified when the broker object was created and can be identified in NWADMIN. 

In NWADMIN highlight the broker object, right click and select Details.  Click on Resource Management (RMS) button on the right and make note of the Resource Path. 

3) Locate the \NDPS\RESDIR\ENGLISH\PRNDRV directory.

4) Typically this directory will have subdirectories named: NT4, WIN95, WIN2000 and WINXP.  Assuming you have drivers for each OS, within each of these directories there will be an NDPSTOC.INI.  For our purposes we are only interested in the NDPSTOC.INI that resides in the WINXP directory.

5) Open the NDPSTOC.INI located in the WINXP directory and search for a reference to HP LaserJet M4345 MFP PCL 5.  If this driver has been uploaded to the NDPS broker you will see multiple references to this driver.

6) Look for a line similar to "HP LaserJet M4345 MFP PCL 5","HP","ZIP=8301969","4921F338","ndps.inf".  It will vary slightly from environment to environment but the 8 character hexadecimal value you are interested in is what is highlighted in red.  Again, this value will differ from environment to environment.  Make note of the value as this is the directory name for the printer driver of interest.

7) Locate the <xxxxxxxx> subdirectory in the WINXP directory.  At this point you need to determine if this is an active printer in your environment and whether or not the driver is still needed.  If it is still needed, you will want to move this directory to a temporary location.  If the driver is no longer needed you can delete this directory.  (As a precaution you may want to make a backup of the directory before deleting it.)

8) Once the directory has been moved or deleted, reload the broker on the server and proceed with the PAGEN process.  If you determined the driver is still needed, when the PAGEN process completes move the <xxxxxxxx> subdirectory back to the WINXP directory and restart the broker.

*Note: As we have only identified one driver that has contributed to this abend, there is a possibility another driver may exist in the environment that could contribute to this abend.  Again, for this reason we highly recommend obtaining the latest RMANSRVR.NLM following the process outlined earlier in this document.