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Microsoft printing issues - huge list of fixes???

16K views 9 replies 6 participants last post by  jenae 
#1 ·
Hi, :smile: allow me to explain why the below copy/paste is messy.
It's because I'd been having issues with both HP 6L, and now HP 5L printers. My issues practically mimic problems cited by the below OP. So for clarity, I culled the below from within a thread on a support forum affiliated with microsoft.

The below posters were helping each other, since Microsoft's moderator wasn't. The below represents some key solutions which I culled out of a zillion posts on that thread.

Since the numerous proposed solutions are mind boggling,
...is there anyone quite technical here who can help sift out the wheat from the chaff, and prioritize the best solutions below (arranging them from best-to-worst?

PRINT JOBS STUCK - WON'T CANCEL

This has been going on for way too long. It's been happening with XP and now Vista. It happens with several different printers from several different manufacturers. It happens most recently with my Lexmark Vista compat. printer.

Print jobs won't print; but, when you try to delete the print job, it just stays there. Cancel does nothing. Delete does nothing. Stopping the spooler via services does nothing. Powering off the printer then re-powering does nothing. Rebooting does nothing. After everything...still...."1 document pending". It won't go away. The only way to fix it is to delete the printer and re-install. This is getting really flippin' old!

There are about 42,500 web pages about this problem, yet Microsoft seems to know nothing of it? Yea right.

Is there a REAL solution to this problem?....or must I just go buy a computer with a real OS??
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I have a very similar problem with my printer and so does my brother with his EPSON printer.

When I print a file, the file will print but then in the printer status window after the print job is completed it shows that the file is trying to delete itself but it for some reason can not delete. If I try to print another file it will get stuck behind this file that has not deleted. The work around solution that I have done is I have to cancel all print jobs (even after this the job still looks like it is trying to delete), then I turn off my printer and turn it on again and the file seems to delete itself. This is a very cumbersome problem if I have a lot of files to print and I have to keep turning the printer off. In the case of my brother he has another model EPSON printer (newer version just bought a month ago) and as his printer is in his basement and he works wirelessly upstairs with his lap top it is a MAJOR pain (he has to keep going downstairs to turn the printer off and on again).



Please note, my old lap top (DELL Inspiron) used ME and it worked fine with the EPSON printer (and still does). I must admit I feel like the technology re VISTA operating system has made things worse (I thought creating a document and printing it was a pretty basic function for a computer).


NUMEROUS PROPOSED SOLUTIONS (MIND BOGGLING):

If you are on Vista Home Premium, go through the following steps to clear "deleted" print jobs from the print queue.

1) Go to Control Panel

2) Select System and Maintenance

3) Select Administrative Tools

4) Double-click on Services

5) In the list of services, scroll down until you find one called "Print Spooler"

6) Right-click on "Print Spooler" and select "Restart"

7) The "deleted" jobs will disappear and any queued jobs in your print queue will print


Hope this helps. I figured it out on my own without any assistance from the paid professionals

=======================

Just wamted to share my experience with this. Restarting the spooler by itself did not work for me. With an additional step I have been able to resolve as follows: First stop spooler using instructions in previous comments. Then open task manager and stop the process associated with your printer. Then restart the spooler as indicated in previous comments. This worked for me... I hope it helps someone else.

===========================

I was just able to get it to work and wanted to pass it on. I turned off the spooler described about and left it off. I then went to software add/remove and removed all HP software. I then reinstalled this software after turning the spooler back on and it worked! Hope this helps some of you.

==============================

I don't know if anyone answered you. I know this is old, but if you press contol and alt at the same time with delete, the task manager will open or it will ask you, and you select task manager. It the printer will appear on the first tab, and you can select it and click end task.

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I just discovered that if you go the "Printers Folder" and do right click on the printer that has the problem and got to "Properties" then go to the "Ports Tab" and check the "Enable Bidirectional Compatibility" option, the spooler will delete the jobs automatically since that was the problem with my case the Lexmark printer and Vista where not comunicating
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Since I just went through this *** just recently I have found 2 solutions other than the standard restart:

1. Restart the spooler service as shown by those above - I preffer the GUI method but thats just me:

Control Panel -->Admin Tools -->Services-->Print spooler-->Stop and start

2. Delete the actual files telling the spooler it has something to print:

C drive --> Windows--> System32 --> spool--> PRINTERS --> There will be 2 files for every document that is in the queue. Delete them and restart your computer.
==================================
Stop the print spooler service as mentioned above

Go to C:\windows\system32\spool\printers\

Delete all the .spl and .shd files in there from the time when the jobs were stuck.

Restart the print spooler service
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lso had similar problems...what i did was to stop the spoolsv.exe. by pressing CTL-ALT-DEL brings up the windows task manager. goto to the Processes tab and look for the image name 'spoolsv.exe', select it then press the End Process button. a confirmation dialog will appear. press yes. Then go to this folder: 'C:\WINDOWS\system32\spool\PRINTERS' you will see a bunch of files, delete all these files. After deleting said files, then press the Start button, press Run. A run prompt will appear. type this 'C:\WINDOWS\system32\spoolsv.exe'. Then goto to your 'Printers and Faxes' folder and try to refresh your printer. I do this everytime when i can't delete the spooled printer. Hope this helps...
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How to force delete print jobs

Fortunately, there is a way to delete the hung print job without having to save all your work, close all your applications, and restart your computer. Here's how (note that this is intended for Windows XP systems, but a similar approach works on other systems - if this doesn't work for you reply below with your Operating System and version):

Browse to Start -> Run... and type in "NET STOP SPOOLER" (this will stop the print spooler service)

Browse to your windows\system32\spool\PRINTERS\ folder

You should see files there ending in .SPL and .SHD created around the time you tried to print - delete these files.

Browse to Start -> Run... and type in "NET START SPOOLER" (this will restart the print spooler service)

Double click the printer icon in the lower-right corner of your taskbar to examine your print job queue and browse to View -> Refresh.

Voila :) You should see that annoying hung print job finally disappear completely and you should now be able to resume printing without having to restart your computer.
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I found an alternate solution that worked perfectly on my laptop and the Lexmark x6150. Please note that this means disabling a security feature in Vista.

Turned User Account Control off

Open Printer Properties and click on Advanced

Click on Print Processor

Change the printer's processor to RAW

I'm not sure which of the steps above actually solved the problem, but I do not want to experiment more since it is working now. I ran several test documents and each time the job was cleared. I hope that this will work for others out there.
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For those who have installed Win 7
[actually I have XP]
here is how I resolved it:
Control Panel
Systems and Security, Find and Fix a Problem
Hardware and Sound, Use a Printer
This opens a troubleshooting dialog box, click next
and the spooling problem gone and the doc in the queue printed.
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I have HP D1600 with XP. Go to printers, properties, advanced. Uncheck send documents to print spooler- check print directly to printer. The damn spooling can be bypassed!!
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Here are a few other possible reasons that files may be getting stuck in the print que;

1. The size of the document is too large

2. Print preferences are set too high (should be 300 dpi or less)
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This was exactly what worked for me. My drivers worked fine when I was using Vista, but once I upgraded to windows 7 every document would hang in the spooler until turning the printer off and then back on. Enabling bidirectional compatibility (as noted above) is what did it for me. That's the only adjustment I had to make.
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The reply by R. Thompson worked after fixing a duplicated printer driver.

I cleared the spooler as indicated but it still wouldn't print.

After checking the printers folder there were two version of the printer driver, the main one (set to default) and a second one postfixed with "(copy 1)" in the name.

I deleted both sets of drivers. Unplugged the printer USB cable. Replugged the printer. Let Windows Vista search for and install the drivers again. Then everything worked fine and dandy.
 
#3 ·
My issues are very similar to the posts by the above 2 OP's which i cited above (and note, too, that a zillion others seem to have this issue as you can see by the numerous posts.)

I print to my HP 5L printer. (sometimes there can be a problem where it prints junk, due to problems printing PDF, such as in Firefox or whatever.

Then I press Reset on my printer
(Additionally I try canceling or deleting a job from the print queue.

Whereupon it can "seem" as if it cancelled the job, but then next time i turn on the computer, it can print a job from yesterday despite my memory of having Reset & cancelled/deleted a zillion times.

In any case, I have yet to try the complete list of solutions above, since that's awaiting the next time I run into these problems.

What I mainly sought, was for someone to prioritize & weed out the above list-of-solutions reorganizing from best to worst. (since apparently many people have been affected by this.

By the way, it used to happen with my 6L printer too, and at that time I used mostly IE, so from this I doubt it's a printer issue, but rather a glitch in Windows. Maybe it's because the printer queues independently, and that sets up a conflict of coordinating with Windows? I gather that was a problem with Lexmark.

but whatever the case, Windows should have set up a feature where people can easily access a Reset of all queues (to whichever printer) in the event of such problems.

Similar to turning off a water main - don't you think? :rolleyes:
 
#4 ·
The memorys based on the printer.

I noticed printing big sized pdfs made a college laserjet fall over. It simply couldnt handle the document even though it wasnt that big.

Restarting the printer is the way to go, you should be able to delete the task from the print queue, if you cant then you are best to restart the print spooler.

If you cant delete the queud jobs after a restart of the spooler then I'd be surprised if you have the permissions setup properly.

Is it a network printer or local?
 
#6 ·
If a print job gets stuck in the queue and refuses to leave, and stopping the Print Spooler service doesn't work, Right click the Printer then delete the printer from the Printers and Faxes, then unplug the USB cable from the computer end. Restart the computer. When the computer has loaded plug in the USB cable. Be sure to plug into the Back USB port of the computer not the front and not through a HUB. it will load a fresh driver for the Printer. Check for an updated driver on the the manufactures Web Site. Right click the printer/Properties/Advanced/Driver/New Driver, switch between the PL6 and PL5 driver or any newer version. Follow the above steps if that doesn't work.
 
#7 ·
Actually, the printer cable is not USB, rather the old-fashioned with many pins. I need to use a PS2/USB converter on this older thinkpad, to use my mouse.

..interestingly, you added another option to the long list of options cited above.

Since the first option re: Spooler worked for so many people, I guess I'll try that first (next time it happens). Anyway thanks, though my analogy to shutting the water main is still in limbo - unanswered (as well as prioritizing the long list above, in order of "most likely to work". After all, those solutions did seem to work for the individuals who posted them :rolleyes:
 
#9 ·
Also be aware that if you're using HP print driver software that isn't the universal print driver, they will install quite a bit of additional services, helpers, and replace files they should not. HP print drivers for the 5,6, and z series were the absolute worst at causing print spooler instability in Windows, and while the Universal print driver isn't necessarily the best, it does fix most (all?) of the issues (like these) that you will find with the non-universal print driver.

Part of the reason that you won't get much help from Microsoft on print jobs and spooler issues short of starting over is that the print drivers do most of the work, especially when it comes to rendering, submitting, and deleting print jobs. These are all driven by the driver, and the spooler simply does what it's told (you can see this if you want to spend lots of time debugging spooler issues). Hence, since it's not really a problem with Microsoft's code, they're likely to be reluctant to give more than generic advice without getting HP involved, which generally they won't do without an actual support case.
 
#10 ·
Hi, since you posted a number of solutions and wanted our opinion on the most likely candigate, I will respond. It is very difficult to arrive at a one solution outcome I just checked our database and at last count since 1996 (the last purge) we have 1.2+ million stuck in que type requests. Cluberti indicated correctly the problem is the diversity of printers available the users that install them, often not following instructions and the spooler left to deal with the lot. It can get very technical so this is the best response to the problem:-

From an elevated command prompt (especially Vista, Seven) at the prompt type pressing enter after each:-

net stop spooler
del %systemroot%\system32\spool\printers\*.shd
del %systemroot%\system32\spool\printers\*.spl
net start spooler
 
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