We have a Windows Server 2012 that we are using as an application server. We have several dozen users that RDP into the server each day. Most of the users are outside partners that work with us and the rest are employees. The employees that remote into the
server have their local printers redirected. The outside partner users do not redirect their printers when they remote into the server. We control printer redirection through Local Users and Groups on the Server. On the user accounts of employees, we have
the 'Connect client printers at logon' option in the 'Environment' tab under 'Properties' enabled. For the non-employee users, we have that option disabled.
About once or twice a week, the server's RDP services will begin to degrade. What first happens is that employees that remote into the server will not have their printers redirected. After a while, all users will have trouble remoting into the server at all.
When they try to remote in, their RDP screen will just stay black for a while before the client just closes. A server reboot is necessary to alleviate the problems.
I looked at the server's System logs in Event Viewer and saw error messages referring to some services timing out:
A timeout (30000 milliseconds) was reached while waiting for a transaction response from the WPDBusEnum service.
A timeout (30000 milliseconds) was reached while waiting for a transaction response from the UmRdpService service.
The Portable Device Enumerator Service service failed to start due to the following error:
The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion.
The following service has repeatedly stopped responding to service control requests:
Remote Desktop Services UserMode Port Redirector
Contact the service vendor or the system administrator about whether to disable this service until the problem is identified.
I checked the server's Print Management Console and saw that there were hundreds of terminal service ports in there. Most of the ports seemed to be for the local printers of the non-employee users that were logged in. I found it strange that the server is
creating TS ports for printers that are not being redirected. I did some troubleshooting and discovered that if I remoted into the server with the option to redirect printers enabled on the Remote Desktop client, the server would create TS ports for my printers
even if my user account on the server has that option disabled. Is this normal behavior?
In addition, I saw many inactive TS ports as well.
Troubleshooting I have done so far:
I deleted all third party printer drivers, third party print processors, third party print providers and third party port monitors.