I have a strange issue and this is the case:

All users have Windows 8.1, including me, who is doing the test and reproducing the problem on my computer.

A large number of users have a print queue on their computers named safecom_hp_black, which is a print queue configured on a 2008 R2 server and a HP Universal Printing PCL 6 driver. They are complaining that this queue goes offline several times a day, and when they want to recollect their documents, of course, they are not there.

I have this queue and another queue named safeprint (another printserver) on my computer. I added the safecom_hp_black queue to reproduce the issue on my own computer.  The offline state lasts for 10-15 seconds on my computer, and then goes back online, so that I am able to print perfectly while its state is online. In other words, I experience the same problem as our users. It goes offline just like that, without me doing anything. It never goes offline on the printserver, only on my computer. I have done a ping test to and from my computer to/from the two printservers to see if a network drop was ocurring at the same time, but no. Network connections seems to be OK. They are however in different office subnets, but I don't know if this has anything to do with it, as long as I don't see network connection drops.

The safeprint queue never goes offline, and works all the time. That is set up on a 2003 server. I use the safeprint daily and have never had problems with it.

Both printqueues have a HP Universal Printing PCL 6, but the version of the safeprint queue is one version earlier.

Any ideas?

EDIT: I forgot to mention, that on some printed documents, pages are missing aswell, if the printserver was unable to finish processing the printjob

EDIT: I have tested with a Windows 7 computer, and the issue does not exist on Windows 7, both print queues are online all the time.

EDIT: All printqueues coming from the 2008 R2 server goes offline intermittently, sometimes at the same time, the one from the 2003 server is OK.

• Edited by CesarTabares Wednesday, February 04, 2015 2:57 PM

When the spooler on the client machine detects the spooler on the print server as unreachable, the printer is marked offline.

Microsoft released the fix for this last May.  It's included in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2955164

2961042       (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2961042/            )     Printer server goes offline when you wake up the computer at another network location in Windows RT 8.1 or Windows 8.1

If this does not address the issue, contact Microsoft support.  They may still be tracking this issue.

The {99853F71-4139-4583-81D5-10825592932C} printer name can be located in the registry

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Providers\LanMan Print Services\Servers

You can locate the key under one of the server names.

I have a Windows 8.1 computer With the KB2955164 installed, and the printserver with the KB2713128, as recommended in the first reply. I've also installed the latest HP Universal driver I found online. The issue is still there guys, and I keep getting this 304 events in my eventlog on Windows 8.1, but not on my Windows 7 computer.

I'm sorry if I don't understand.

Do you mean I should check if the Windows 8.1 computer has the KB2961042, alternatively has it installed through the rollup pack KB2955164, or do you mean I should install KB2961042 on the server? From the article for KB2961042, where it says Prerequisites, it looks like this hotfix should be installed on the server.

The Windows 8.1 machine I am testing from actually has KB2955164 installed.

By the way, I could not find the printers in that part of the registry. They were all listed here instead:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\SWD\PRINTENUM

By the way: I see that the KB2961042 fix, is for a computer waking up from sleep mode. Just to clearify: In my case we are not talking about sleep mode. The computers are always running during daytime.

EDIT: I have installed the KB2961042 update on the printserver to see if it helped, but the problem is still there, so I think I'll contact MS Support, or move the printqueues to another server, although I don't always like workarounds.

• Edited by CesarTabares Thursday, February 12, 2015 12:13 PM

I am in contact with MS Support these days, I'll update once I have info

We concluded that KB2775511 was the solution in this case