Print jobs are stuck in the print que under WinXP

[eljainc]

Hello,

I am running into a problem where I print to an HP LaserJet 5 printer
using HP's driver, not Microsofts. I have the latest PCL5 driver
installed.

I am also using the USB Printing support which is installed by
Belkin's F5U002 (USB to Parallel converter). Printing works quite well
a good deal of the time. Every now and then I will get a print job
that gets stuck in the print queue (when I double click the icon it
says Printing). I can select to restart the print job, pause and
unpause but it does nothing. I have tried

net stop spooler
net start spooler

from a cmd prompt, and that does not work.

I have tried to turn off the printer and turn it on again, disconnect
the USB-Parallel device and replug it. Nothing. I've tried

The only solution so far is that I have to restart the PC. Is there
another way I can get these print jobs to restart properly without
having to restart?

Thanks
Mike McWhinney

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Hello,

I am running into a problem where I print to an HP LaserJet 5 printer
using HP's driver, not Microsofts. I have the latest PCL5 driver
installed.

I am also using the USB Printing support which is installed by
Belkin's F5U002 (USB to Parallel converter). Printing works quite well
a good deal of the time. Every now and then I will get a print job
that gets stuck in the print queue (when I double click the icon it
says Printing). I can select to restart the print job, pause and
unpause but it does nothing. I have tried

net stop spooler
net start spooler

from a cmd prompt, and that does not work.

I have tried to turn off the printer and turn it on again, disconnect
the USB-Parallel device and replug it. Nothing. I've tried

The only solution so far is that I have to restart the PC. Is there
another way I can get these print jobs to restart properly without
having to restart?

Thanks
Mike McWhinney

Stopping/Starting the print spooler won't do you much good.
Try running this batch file next time it happens:
@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

 

[Dennis C. Jr., Virginia Beach, VA]

Pegasus,
I am looking at the idea of having a batch file like this run in conjunction
with one of the following activities:

Startup, Login (Unlock), Logout (Lock) or Shutdown

We seem to have run into a regular occurrence of computers going to 100%
resource utilization and where the employee logs into their system, gets a
desktop wallpaper displayed and then can do NOTHING else! Done! End of
story.

So it seems like there needs to be a "clean-up sweep" of print spooler
related activities before / during /after something in our environment or
users' profiles; we do have some "unique" program printing reports via
pdfFactory through a Remote Desktop Connection application. I am suspecting
something about this chain-of-programs-through-connections is inherently
"unstable" and occasionally for whatever programmatic reason, a print job
isn't finishing the way it should (or is being spawned as a 'background'
process the user has no knowledge of).

The users just come to us with statements like, "My computers dead" or
"There's something wrong and I have no idea..." without error messages or any
recollection of having done something that could have initiated this problem.

How can a background service such as a Print Spooler be permitted to hogtie
the resources of an entire operating system? Is it a combination of
unforeseen applications chained together and their dependencies upon each
other that causes these systems to end up in a chinese finger trap?!?

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I think it is by a leap of your imagination to point the finger at
the print spooler while looking for the culprit that ties up your
machines. I think it is far more likely that some non-native
process does the damage. In the past I have traced such
problems to any of the following:
- Virus infections
- Malware/adware/spyware infections
- Virus scanners
- Third-party firewalls
- CD burning software
- File cataloging applications

Your challenge will be to identify the culprit. Lauching the Task
Manager and spotting the task that consumes more than 90%
of the CPU time would be a good starting point. Disabling non-
core tasks via msconfig.exe is another, disabling non-MS
services is a third.


"Dennis C. Jr., Virginia Beach, VA"

 

[eljainc]

I think it is by a leap of your imagination to point the finger at
the print spooler while looking for the culprit that ties up your
machines. I think it is far more likely that some non-native
process does the damage. In the past I have traced such
problems to any of the following:
- Virus infections
- Malware/adware/spyware infections
- Virus scanners
- Third-party firewalls
- CD burning software
- File cataloging applications

Your challenge will be to identify the culprit. Lauching the Task
Manager and spotting the task that consumes more than 90%
of the CPU time would be a good starting point. Disabling non-
core tasks via msconfig.exe is another, disabling non-MS
services is a third.

Your suggestions do seem valid, although we have virus and malware
scanning software on this machine. The problem seems to be with either
the printer driver itself, or something in the printing subsystem.

We do have one possible culprit, DOS programs. One of them being
Peachtree Accounting for DOS. I think this might be the problem. Since
I do not personally use this PC, I do not know the chain of events
that occur that cause this print malfunction to occur. I have taken
this issue up in Peachtree Accounting Forums.

Nevertheless, this print issue is annoying. The best solution at this
point (besides deleting the printer driver, reinstalling it, resharing
it) is to reboot the PC.

Mike

 

[Dennis C. Jr., Virginia Beach, VA]

Pegasus, thanks for your feedback! Much appreciated!

We have had a couple of instances in which the support technician was
fortunate enough to gain access to the computer, delete those spooled job and
find the system recovers nearly 100% (back to normal).

Of the possible other culprits suggested I look for, we have:

Symantec Antivirus 10
No or very little/almost no reported or detected malware
No virus scanner (except Symantec)
No third-party firewall (on desktops)
No or rare use of CD burning applications
and...
File cataloging; what's that?!?

So it seems indications towards the print spooling subsystem(s) remain the
most likely cause. However, many of our systems do employ full disk data
encryption and we feel certain they are more likely to have errors (resulting
in BSoD) with the encryption than without.