Access Violation in SFMPRINT.EXE with IBM or Lexmark Printer (123982)

SYMPTOMS

The Services for Macintosh (SFM) printing services may fail to start or they may start and then stop after installing an IBM4079 Color Jetprinter, IBM 4039 Laserprinter Plus PS (IBM4039P.PPD), or a Lexmark Optra PS Printer. You may also receive an error in SFMPRINT.EXE and a Dr. Watson log will be created. After starting the service, the service may be registered as Stopped. If the service is started you may be unable to stop it. No printers show up on the Macintosh computers.

The following Application exception error is an example that occured with an IBM 4039 Laserprinter Plus PS:

App: sfmprint.DBG (pid=179)
When: 2/2/1996 @ 14:13:15.422
Exception number: c0000005 (access violation)

CAUSE

When the SFM printing services start, they initialize all of the printer's PostScript printer description (PPD) files. If a PPD file has information that is formatted incorrectly or, is missing information, the SFM services fail.

The IBM 4079 Color Jetprinter and the Lexmark Optra PS drivers that are included with Windows NT 3.5 and 3.51 have PPD's with incorrect PSVersion information in them. This causes the SFM printing services to fail; a Dr. Watson Log with an access violation is subsequently created.

RESOLUTION

To correct this problem, modify the PSVersion line in the PPD file:

Use a text editor such as Windows Notepad to edit the IBM4079.PPD file. The file is located in the platform specific subdirectory of %SYSTEMROOT%\SYSTEM32\SPOOL\DRIVERS.
Modify the following line
PSVersion: ""
to read:
PSVersion: "(250.0 )"
Restart the SFM print services.

You should be able to resume printing.

The PPD files are written by Lexmark and IBM, a vendor independent of Microsoft; we make no warranty, implied or otherwise, regarding this product's performance or reliability.