Stopping of the Print Spooler 1

[techwtr]

In the last 9 months I have rolled out a large amount of Windows XP Professional desktops and laptops. What I have been running into from time to time is for some reason the print spooler will stop and the customer can't print. I go to the workstation and restart the spooler, but no sooner than I try to print that document again the spooler stops. These documents aren't large massive documents. Most are small one page basic fax cover sheet or medium sized coorespondance. A couple of those print jobs had several pages with alot of detail that had to print.

Sometimes deleting the network printer and re-adding it clears it up. I have also noticed that when it happens it occurs on the same small group of computers for several days in a row then it doesn't happen again. This has been a frustating problem when it occurs because I can't get the customer up and running again quickly. Wondered if any has seen this and if you have any suggestions.

Regards,
Techwtr

 

[bcastner]

. See this section entitled "Error Messages Typically Due to Local Port Monitor Issues"

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=314073

. Norton Antivirus Corporate 8.x can do this. See the Symantec site;

. Remember that the spooler service is dependent on the Remote Procedure Call (RPC) service. Make sure the security patches for blaster are installed, and make sure that RPC is running.

 

[sp2003]

It may be due to Virus problem. You try to always update your XP by using "XP update wizard". If possible clean all your system and load firwalls with latest antivirus sw and latest update then load driver. It may help you.

 

[techwtr]

We have been pushing down alot of patches and upgrading the virus software here since the August 12 virus attacks. I will check those machines out to see if these suggestions help my problem.

Thanks.
Techwtr!

 

[bcastner]

The usual reason that the Print Spooler service is not running is because a printer driver has failed, either during its initialization or when you tried to print on a printer that uses that driver.

Printer drivers can fail for all kinds of reasons, but a very common one is that it was built for an earlier version of Windows (e.g. Windows 95) and can't work under Windows XP. You could have such printer driver without realizing, by, for example:

a. Upgrading from an earlier version of Windows without first deleting your printer.
b. You put the CD that came with your printer into your CD drive and it automatically started the printer installation process even though there are no Windows XP drivers on that CD.
c. You added a network printer and an incompatible driver was automatically downloaded from the print server.

Regardless of how the driver got installed, you have to uninstall it to overcome this problem, then install a Windows XP compliant driver for your printer. Windows XP comes with printer drivers for many, but not all printers. If Windows XP does not have a driver for your particular printer, there's a good chance you can download one from the printer manufacturer's web site.

3. Removing an errant printer driver is not always easy, particularly if the Print Spooler service crashes during startup. If the Print Spooler service can be restarted successfully, the easiest way to uninstall a printer driver
is to use the Printers and Faxes folder. If the Print Spooler service won't restart, then you have to uninstall the printer driver the hard way.

If you have multiple printers and don't know which one is causing the problem, you may find the easiest thing to do is to delete all of the printers and printer drivers, then add the printers again, ensuring you are using printer drivers that are specifically for Windows XP.

Here's the easy way:

a. open a Command Prompt window and key the command:
i. net start spooler
ii. If you get a "completed successfully" message proceed with the remainder of the "easy way". If you get a message that indicates the Print Spooler could not be started or failed during startup, you'll have to use the "hard way".
b. open the Printers and Faxes folder
c. right click on the printer and select "Delete"
d. after the printer is deleted, click File, Server Properties e. select the Drivers tab
f. select the driver that is causing the problem and click Remove
g. if you don't know which printer driver is causing the problem, repeat step 6 for all of the drivers

Now you're ready to add the printer(s) again making sure to use only Windows XP compliant driver.
Check in Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs; if there is an entry relating to one of the printers, select it, then click Change/Remove. Follow the dialog and "uninstall all" or "remove all" as appropriate. Some "printer software" have programs that show up here and it will be a good idea to remove those before going any further.

If the Print Spooler service is operational:

a. Open the Printers (Printers and Faxes on Windows XP) folder
b. delete all of the printers
c. click File, Server Properties
d. select the Drivers tab
e. for each entry:
f. select the entry
g. click Remove

Usually, this will do a pretty good job of cleaning out drivers with Windows 2000 and later (not so with Windows NT 4).

If the Print Spooler service is not operational, or you want to make certain there are no printer driver remnants:
Warning! be very careful using regedit - if you delete the wrong things, you may render your computer inoperative!

a. open regedit (e.g. click Start, Run, regedit and press Enter)
b. navigate to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Environments\Windows NT x86\Drivers
i. under this key, there will be the keys Version-2 and Version-3 (one or the other of these may be absent - not a problem)
ii. the sub-keys under these contain the printer driver configuration information
iii. delete all the sub-keys inside Version-2 and Version-3, but not these keys themselves
c. open a Command Prompt window (Start, Run, CMD)
d. key the commands
net stop spooler
net start spooler
e. open Windows Explorer
f. navigate to %systemroot%\system32\spool\drivers\w32x86 (%systemroot% is usually Windows, but it might be winnt or something else; this is set when the OS is installed).
g. inside w32x86, there will be folders with the names 2 and 3 (one or more of these may be absent - not a problem)
delete all of the files and sub-folders in each of the 2 and 3 folders, but not the folders themselves
inside w32x86, there may be other folders with names starting with "hewlett_packard", "hphp" or something else; delete these folders also
h. restart the print spooler (see steps 8 and 9 above)
i. At this point, the system should be pretty well back to the way it was before any printers were installed.

4. Additional information is available at:

http://members.shaw.ca/bsanders/CleanPrinterDrivers.htm

 

[techwtr]

Thanks Bcastner! You might be on the right path. I use NDPS to push printers down. When we started rolling XP out, we weren't able right at the beginning to get the broker to take XP printer drivers so NDPS could install the printers like it did in NT. Possibly an NT driver got installed on an XP machine and this is causing the spooler to fail. I'll let you know how this works out.

 

[techwtr]

Thanks a bunch Bcastner. I just had a print spooler problem at work today. I printed these notes and tried it out. It worked like a charm.

 

[bcastner]

You are welcome. Glad you got the issue sorted.
Bill

 

[ftechguy]

I am having a similar problem with Dells running XP, connected to Brother HL-1440 printers. I followed bcastner's instructions and installed the latest XP drivers available from the Brother website but the problem keeps coming back. It seems to be completely random--some machines are not affected while it is an almost daily problem on some others

SO I checked out the Brother website and checked version numbers and....they're using the same driver for Win2K and XP--probably the source of the problem. I will contact Brother about this, but in the meantime, has anybody figured out a workaround??

 

[techwtr]

My office is an HP shop. I believe ftechguy might be on to something. I too have noticed that when you look for a driver, alot of the printer vendors use the same driver for both XP and Windows 2000. The instructions that Bcaster gave has worked for me, but I noticed that it is sporatic as to what pc has the problem. When a particular pc has the problem, that issue will occur again and again on that same machine. Normally it takes a couple attempts of following those instructions before the problem goes away.

I have a HP laserjet 4050TN on the network that NDPS pushes down to the workstations. Because I was able to get a true XP driver for that printer I never have a problem with those people who use those two printers in another office I support. In my second office where I have over 50 people and several other HP make network printers, this spooler issue is a constant matter. I just recently went out to HP and downloaded XP drivers for the network printers. Each were drivers that were both for W2k & XP combined.

I too may address this to HP to see if there can shed any light on this. Printers were the very last problems I ever had with my customers. You get printer jams and other issues with the printer itself, but since converting all my supported offices from NT to XP, Print Spool errors have become an old friend I would like I would like to see go back home now( I have the notes from this thread attached to a clip on my shelf at work so I can quickly access before going to a call).

Whatever anyone finds out on this, do share with the group. Thanks!

 

[bcastner]

Two additional thoughts:

1. Some HP printers (their drivers actually) do not conform completely to Windows Plug-and-Play standards. See if your model is resolved with this link:

http://support.microsoft.com/defaul...port/kb/articles/q298/3/70.asp&NoWebContent=1

2. You have to be certain that the drivers network-wide are consistent. XP will automaticly download a driver set from a remote printer server if its local driver cache is at odds with the remote printer server driver. If you look in the Event Viewer on a local machine with problem, you likely will see this Event noted.

If you go to the print server machine, Start, Printers and Faxes, File, Server Properties, Drivers, Properties, Properties you can examine exactly what release version of the driver is installed on the print server and then update them as needed.

3. On the client side, you may need to use the command line tools discussed here:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314486

A very good practical discussion of this Win2k/XP facility can be found in this thread: thread779-581142

 

[xproforme]

You might also consider checking the "dependencies" that the print spooler service is referring to under Administrative Tools. In my case certain files were missing after deleting some printers installed on my system. I managed to locate the missing files in the folder, "Last known good configuration." I copied the files back to where XP expected to find them and the print spooler service again functioned as expected.

 

[ftechguy]

I heard back from Brother and their solution was to use the "print directly to printer" option (as opposed to spooling). Not a great solution since I believe this means I cannot share the printer. For now, it seems this prevents the spooler service from stopping but I'll have a better idea in a few more days.

 

[techwtr]

I found the solution to my problem. It is a Novell Client issue. Mid 2003 I applied the necessary NDPS patches to my servers after upgrading to Netware 6. Apparently, there is a patch that needs to be applied to the Novell client that is a NDPS patch. I have applied this patch to two production workstations and no more spooler problems. We are going to have some other locations test this out as well on a few workstations. If this appears to resolve the problem, we will most likely do a corporate wide update to the client.

 

[CaptHarrased]

bcastner,

Do you happen to know what the required command would be to clear all print jobs from the queue? This would be for a batch file.

 

[bcastner]

net stop spooler
net start spooler

 

[dabrat]

i saw that u said that u run the print spooler from the work station, please can u tell me how you do that because where i work,i dont no why the printer just stops and sadly i cant remotely launch the print spooler command from any workstation, it always has to be from the server, can u help me out

 

[techwtr]

All you have to do is go to a dos prompt and enter the commands listed below:

net stop spooler
net start spooler

I found the instructions that bcaster provided dated 10-23-04 were helpful until I found that my problem was with the novell client that I have running on the computers in my offices. As soon as I made the update the problem was solved.