Group Policy was unable to add per computer connection. PrintServer Event ID 513

Question

Hello,

We deploy a lot of Printers via Group Policy. These are all targeting the Computer side and NOT using Group Policy Preferences. I haven't had any complaints on this but we have a few walk-up machines where a lot of students log into them quickly to Print and we randomly see the Printer Connections not being made. Sometimes they have to wait 30-45 seconds which is normal but other times the Printers just do not show up. It doesn't seem to coincide with anything else, or be any particular users. These particular machines have also been imaged in the past and the issue has existed on Windows 10 1709, 1809, and 1909. When the issue occurs, I see the following under the 'PrinterService' node in Event Viewer:

Group Policy was unable to add per computer connection \PrintServer\Printer. Error code 0x57. This can occur if the name of the printer connection is incorrect, or if the print spooler cannot contact the print server.

Source: PrintService
Event ID: 513
OpCode: Spooler Operation Failed

Any ideas?

Answer 1

Hello @ACJ

Restarting the printer spooler service on the printer server / client might help.

Please check this thread:
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/itmanagement/en-US/a225d71c-be8b-4530-bf50-63001559a978/windows-can-not-connect-to-the-printer-0x00000057?forum=itmanager

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Best Regards
Karlie

Answer 2

@ACJ

You are hitting an invalid parameter message
C:\>winerror 0x57
87 ERROR_INVALID_PARAMETER

Can the client systems manually connect to the print spooler / shared printers from this server when this issue is experienced?

A client spooler restart would read from the policy again. If the connection is achievable after a restart it is possible this has to do with the network layer when a new user logs onto the system.