Print Spooler Keeps Crashing
Bethann Gendernalik
I ran across Microsoft's Application Verifier but am unsure whether this will provide the information I'm looking for. I also want to minimize disruption to the client. Print Spooler is currently set to always restart upon a crash, and it does so every time with no noticeable impact to print services. If I have Application Verifier monitor the Print Spooler and related processes, will Application Verifier stop Print Spooler from rebooting when it crashes? The crashing doesn't occur often enough for me to watch for a crash and manually restart the Print Spooler.
When you will know the one that bug, start by validating that your print driver are in Isolated Mode. Such mode isolate the driver, thus when it fail only the print queue related to that driver fail and it recover.
The print spooler keeps crashing even though I have tried and re-tried the recommended solutions of a) deleting spooled print jobs, b) going into Services and re-starting the print spooler, c) verifying it is set to start automatically and that the recovery modes are to restart, d) verifying that the RPC is running and dependent, etc. It continues to crash a few moments after manually restarting. Very frustrating.
The printer is working just fine, but the computer just can't seem to find it using wireless access or USB connections. Would appreciate other suggestions for how to solve this. Could it be a driver problem?
The problem began first as not being able to print messages or attachments from Firefox gmail. Initially I could print from WORD. But, now I can't seem to do any printing because the print spooler keeps crashing.
Thanks for taking an interest in the HP Support Forums After reading your post I see that you require assistance regarding issues with printing because of print spooler crashes. It will be a delight to assist you here.
Then download the latest full feature driver from -en/drivers/selfservice/swdetails/hp-officejet-pro-8620-e-all-in-one-printe... and install it on the computer after selecting the correct operating system.
Perform all these steps patiently as it is critical to resolving the issue. Good luck to you. I will keep a watch for your response. Please note that I am not overloading you with steps but instead, giving you more information to work with. We are as eager as you are to get the issue fixed. I request you to perform all these steps till the issue is fixed.
Unfortunately, I have also had to follow Tim's advice - but I learned the hard way. I originally got an error in Vista Business (ick) saying "Spooler SubSystem App has stopped working." Then no printers would work HP, Epson, or otherwise. Could not get the Spooler to start again without crashing. So I followed similar advice from another source (basically the same instructions as what Tim has linked) that had me completely uninstalling Adobe Reader and all my other printers, deleting printer keys from the registry, deleting from C:/Windows/System32/Spool, and then uninstalling and reinstalling Windows Scan and Print functionality. As long as I don't ever reinstall Adobe Reader (any version - and I've tried as far back as 7), then I'm fine. I've found Foxit to be a good substitute to Reader.
You'd think Adobe would have a fix for this already. Especially when people are migrating away from their software. I can never install another piece of Adobe software on my system again because it crashes the printers, so my plans for Photoshop or Acrobat are out the window. I've got a system that's only a couple of months old, too. This sucks - big time.
Other forums - especially those from Windows and Adobe - will tell you it's a problem with your print drivers. I had 3 different newer printers go down and none would function - even when installed alone with the latest and greatest drivers - once Reader was installed. They all work fine on their own when Adobe software is not installed. As soon as Adobe Reader (7,8,or 9 versions) is installed, the print spooler crashes again. I guess I'm sticking with Foxit.
I have a client that has been dealing with this issue on a large scale. Close to 200 computers running Adobe, most with HP 1022 printers as local printers. Since Adobe isn't responding to the issue with an update, we (they) are migrating away. For most users downloading Foxit reader and using that to view and print .PDF's solves the issue. Shame that Adobe is losing customers over this but when you don't fix the problem there isn't much of a choice.
Our problem is we heavily use Adobe Pro and Adobe Standard to create documents. HP was zero help. But, I hooked up a Dell 1110 printer to one of the computers and the problem disappeared. So we are replacing the printers using a volume purchase from Dell. This was less expensive than continuing to waste labor cost on trying to solve the problem of driver/software incompatibility.
Every program that prints that I have tested so far releases these temporary files after the print job is over and they are deleted (presumably by the spooler). Printing with Adobe Reader leaves them in the folder. Next time you start a print job, the spooler crashes.
I downloaded Foxit, and without any other changes, it works fine. No crashes. Unambiguously, the problem is with Adobe. Should be fairly easy to fix (probably Adobe just has to release the files so the spooler can delete them).
I'm (a) really disappointed that Marjon01 had to reinstall Windows OS to fix this, but (b) really pleased that we seem to be coning down on the problem. When I originally discovered the problem 2 years ago it was with a Dell Inspiron computer with a Vista 32 bit OS, which required reinstallation by Dell remote tech support (what a hassle - 1.5 days of downtime prior to the fix). However, in the intervening period I have discovered progressively more efficient ways to fix the spooler problem and reduce downtime. I think that this combination generates corrupt registry keys (which we are told not to fool with, and also to avoid registry cleaners), but there was no way to efficiently delete and reinstall the printer driver because the printer spooler kept stopping before I could delete the printer driver. However, I purchased an online application called "Printer Spooler Fix Wizard" for about $29 which deletes the corrupt registry keys and the HP 1020 printer driver simultaneously (sorry, I do not know where I purchased that application, but it enjoys a coveted place on my Start menu!). This wizard allows you to become functional very quickly and delete the offending document in the printer cache in order to start over again. Now when this happens, I either (a) convert every incoming PDF to a Adobe 9.X-compatable PDF and then print it on the HP 1020 printer (which is somewhat time-consuming) or (b) if I am feeling lucky, just try to print the PDF on its own without conversion using Adobe 9.X. If I then get a spooler alert, then I simply run the wizard (as discussed above), reinstall the 1020 driver and then re-render the incoming PDF using Acrobat 9.X.
Here is where it gets potentially really interesting. I mentioned this problem to a colleague a couple of days ago, and it sounds like he has a problem very similar to this (HP 1018/1020 printer + certain incoming (???scanned PDF) documents = spooler alert). This indeed may be the root cause. Sound off everyone, we may be on our way to a definitive solution here - and this occupies a lot of chat on Adobe, Microsoft and HP user groups bulletin boards (and wastes a lot of our time, until we get a definitive solution...).
Jon - you really do seem to have hit the nail on the head. We generate PDF invoices, reports and other documents - and they all print out fine. PDFs originating from scanners almost always fail to print though.
I am having the same problem. I have confirmed that the problem is related to using Adobe Reader to print out scanned documents. I am using Windows 7, Adobe X, an HP LaserJet 1018, and I have scanned documents that were generated in PDF form. When I scan the documents using STANDARD PDF compression, there is no problem printing at all. When I scan the documents using HIGH PDF compression then the problem occurs as discussed in this thread. In my case I am using a Canon Scanner LIDE 35 and CanoScan Toolbox version 4.9. I can only guess that at least in this case, the software used in the CanoScan Toolbox to generate the HIGH compression PDF has some kind of bug or incompatibility with Adobe Reader when it prints, or some kind of incompatibility with the HP printer. I am going to simply use STANDARD compression when I scan documents. If people send you scanned documents, and you have some control over the situation, you might be able to find out if they are using HIGH compression and ask them to use STANDARD, to see if this helps in your case.
Just thought I would check in with a "we're in the same boat". Hopefully anyone else who comes across this article will create an adobe account just for the purpose of adding their $0.02 to this issue (We have about 20 computers but it's only happened on a couple thus far). In case it's of any help:
I've been having these exact issues for awhile now.. I can't pinpoint if it was when we pushed out XP SP3 or if it was an Acrobat Reader push.. but it's been happeneing for awhile. We've experienced it with more than just LSJ 1020's too... multiple deskjets and personal LSJ's have had the same error. We learned early on that you could avoid it by printing to a network printer but some locations are remote and don't have access to a shared printer. It's pretty sad that so far, the fix noted on the Adobe forums is to load Fox-it reader... I like Fox-it, don't get me wrong, but as far as corporate standards go, we want to stay with Acrobat Reader, however, we'd like it to function on local and network printers.
c80f0f1006