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

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 will try to sum up all actions taken up until today, because after the last fix, I have not seen the issue anymore appearing in the eventlog.

I started first with updating my computer and the printserver with everything available from Windows Update

Then moved on to run a couple of diagnostic packages given to me from Microsoft

Then checked for a few specifix updates/hotfixes asked by Microsoft, but it seems that, what made the situation a whole lot better was KB2775511, the rollup pack. Only that one. Not the other updates mentioned in that article

Now, the only thing appearing in the Microsoft-Windows-PrintService/Operational when i dont print anything, is this EventID 306

Settings for printer {EB5CDDBF-DB88-4EB7-8A17-4E7C84D5908E} were changed. No user action is required.

Microsoft is investigating this event ID for me, just to be sure nothing is wrong