Can't cancel document from print queue - printer hung

[Guest]

I have a document printing in the print queue that is hung up and I can't
cancel/delete it.

My firend bought an Apple laptop. I helped him connect to his home wireless
network. He has a desktop with WXSP2 running and a printer shared on the
network that he uses for his windows laptop to print to. I got the Apple to
recognize the network, and printed 3 documents.

On the printer status window for the HP Officejet 5600 on the desktop the
document appears in the window with Owner "Guest", and the first document
under 'size' has something like 68K of 128K... Nothing else happens, it
never finishes downloading the file and never prints.

Now it was late and I decided to leave it to figure out this weekend. His
wife calls today and says she can't print anything from the desktop. So we
open the printer window and cancel all documents. The 2nd and 3rd disappear.
The 1st one says deleting but never goes away! It has the thing hung up and
won't allow anything else to print.

So, we try cancelling the document again via the menu bar and with the right
click. Unplug the printer, unplug the USB cable, reboot, it's still there.
I figure the print spooler in the background is hung up. Go to printer
advanced properties and try to disallow sharing the printer, get an error
message saying it's busy and can't cancel sharing, come back later. Try and
change the option for print spooled documents first but again error message,
can't change it while it's busy. Next I try to just nuke it, delete the
printer - says it's deleting but nothing happens. Reboot to no avail. Try
and install the printer again, hoping to go around the hung one, but can't do
that - won't recognize the printer while it's busy.

Next went to 3 finger ctrl-alt-del Task Manager and kill spoolsv.exe
process, thinking that would free it up - no luck. Boot into safe mode - the
printer doesn't even show up.

I'm at a loss as to what to try next. I assume the print spooler is trying
to retrieve the rest of the print job and is hung and since it's a system
process won't let the user interrupt it's train of thougt.

Any ideas out there? (except for what I've tried above) I'm afraid I've
jeopardized my friends marital bliss.

 

[Joe]

I have a document printing in the print queue that is hung up and I can't
cancel/delete it.

My firend bought an Apple laptop. I helped him connect to his home wireless
network. He has a desktop with WXSP2 running and a printer shared on the
network that he uses for his windows laptop to print to. I got the Apple to
recognize the network, and printed 3 documents.

On the printer status window for the HP Officejet 5600 on the desktop the
document appears in the window with Owner "Guest", and the first document
under 'size' has something like 68K of 128K... Nothing else happens, it
never finishes downloading the file and never prints.

Now it was late and I decided to leave it to figure out this weekend. His
wife calls today and says she can't print anything from the desktop. So we
open the printer window and cancel all documents. The 2nd and 3rd disappear.
The 1st one says deleting but never goes away! It has the thing hung up and
won't allow anything else to print.

So, we try cancelling the document again via the menu bar and with the right
click. Unplug the printer, unplug the USB cable, reboot, it's still there.
I figure the print spooler in the background is hung up. Go to printer
advanced properties and try to disallow sharing the printer, get an error
message saying it's busy and can't cancel sharing, come back later. Try and
change the option for print spooled documents first but again error message,
can't change it while it's busy. Next I try to just nuke it, delete the
printer - says it's deleting but nothing happens. Reboot to no avail. Try
and install the printer again, hoping to go around the hung one, but can't do
that - won't recognize the printer while it's busy.

Next went to 3 finger ctrl-alt-del Task Manager and kill spoolsv.exe
process, thinking that would free it up - no luck. Boot into safe mode - the
printer doesn't even show up.

I'm at a loss as to what to try next. I assume the print spooler is trying
to retrieve the rest of the print job and is hung and since it's a system
process won't let the user interrupt it's train of thougt.

Any ideas out there? (except for what I've tried above) I'm afraid I've
jeopardized my friends marital bliss.

After stopping spoolsv.exe you have to go to the default spool
directory, c:\Windows\system32\spool\PRINTERS

Delete every file found there and restart Windows

Another post I found on the subject:

1) Open Services and stop and then start the print spooler.

2) At the command prompt run the following commands:

NET STOP "Print Spooler"
NET START "Print Spooler"

After doing this refresh your printer window and all should be well.

 

[Bill Sharpe]

After stopping spoolsv.exe you have to go to the default spool
directory, c:\Windows\system32\spool\PRINTERS

Delete every file found there and restart Windows

Another post I found on the subject:

1) Open Services and stop and then start the print spooler.

2) At the command prompt run the following commands:

NET STOP "Print Spooler"
NET START "Print Spooler"

After doing this refresh your printer window and all should be well.

I have had success with turning off everything, unplugging the printer
from its outlet, then replug it, and turn everything on again. And this
is with an HP printer on an HP pavilion. Doesn't happen often, though...

Bill

 

[Randem]

That has been a Windows "feature" for years. You just have to cancel the job
and if it does not cancel properly you need to restart the computer to clear
the queue of that job.

--
Randem Systems
Your Installation Specialist
The Top Inno Setup Script Generator
http://www.randem.com/innoscript.html
Disk Read Error Press Ctl+Alt+Del to Restart
http://www.randem.com/discus/messages/9402/9406.html?1236319938

 

[John John - MVP]

Stop the Spooler service then delete all the files in the
C:\WINDOWS\system32\spool\PRINTERS directory and then restart the
Spooler service. If this is something that happens often you can create
a small batch file to automate the process.

John

 

[Nate Grossman]

Hopefully the original poster will comment if he's still around here.

You got lucky, because you posted some detail about your problem. In
the future, it would be smarter to start your own thread, rather than
to post to one that is over two years old.

 

[HeyBub]

OK, I know how to cancel the print job now, but this happens every
time I try and print from my Macbook Pro to the printer connected to
the PC, is there anyway to solve this?

Create the following batch file

@echo off
echo.
echo Purging the print queue . . .
net stop Spooler
echo Deleting all print jobs . . .
ping localhost -n 4 > nul
del /q %SystemRoot%\system32\spool\printers\*.*
net start Spooler
echo Done!
ping localhost -n 4 > nul


Put a link to it on your desktop.

 

[Elmo]

OK, I know how to cancel the print job now, but this happens every time
I try and print from my Macbook Pro to the printer connected to the PC,
is there anyway to solve this?

Do you have drivers for that printer installed on the Mac? I believe
that with Windows machines it's necessary to have the drivers on each
machine.