Print jobs disappear
I have a 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium PC (SP1) with a strange print spooling problem. The printer is on the network (a Brother HL-5370DW), and I'm using the latest driver from the printer manufacturer. I can print fine from some applications (MS Word, IE, Firefox), but with others (Adobe Reader, notepad, etc.) I get the "Printing" dialog (with page progress if the job is large enough), but nothing ever goes to the printer, and the print queue is empty. What's the solution to this problem?
June 9th, 2012 10:17am

Follow recommendation from Answers (Author Shekhar): 1. Run Printer Troubleshooter: Then, try the Printer troubleshooter, which will attempt to automatically diagnose and fix your problem. Open the Printer troubleshooter by clicking the Start button Picture of the Start button, and then clicking Control Panel. In the search box, type troubleshooter, and then click Troubleshooting. Under Hardware and Sound, click Use a printer. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/Open-the-Printer-troubleshooter 2. Rename the spool printer and driver files: 1. Click Start type cmd and right-click cmd.exe, select Run as administrator. If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type your password or click Continue. 2. At the command prompt, type the following commands (press ENTER after each) 3. Rename %systemroot%\System32\Spool\Printers Printers.old 4. Rename %systemroot%\System32\Spool\Drivers\w32x86 w32x86.old 5. Exit 3. Restart Print Spooler service: To restart the Print Spooler service You must be logged on as an administrator to perform these steps. 1. Open Administrative Tools by clicking the Start button , and then clicking Control Panel. In the search box, type administrative tools, and then click Administrative Tools. 2. Double-click Services. If you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation. 3. Right-click the Print Spooler service, and then click Properties. 4. On the General tab, next to Startup type, make sure that Automatic is selected. 5. If the service is not already running, under Service status, click Start, and then click OK. If you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation. Regards Milos
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June 9th, 2012 1:49pm

Make sure the apps that don't print are selecting the correct printer. Jerry
June 9th, 2012 3:25pm

Thanks for the suggestions. The printer troubleshooter didn't have anything to offer. The instructions under #2 need to be altered and perhaps merged with #3: I had to stop the spooling service in order to be able to rename the files as suggested. Unfortunately, that didn't solve the problem. I will mark your post as helpful, though, as I had never noticed the search box in the control panel, which makes it much easier to find what you're looking for. Appreciate that tip. I did find this in the event logs: "The document xxx.pdf, owned by xxx, failed to print on printer \\xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx\xxx. Try to print the document again, or restart the print spooler. Data type: NT EMF 1.008. Size of the spool file in bytes: 24838144. Number of bytes printed: 0. Total number of pages in the document: 1. Number of pages printed: 0. Client computer: \\xxx. Win32 error code returned by the print processor: 0. The operation completed successfully." Not very informative. Any clues on how to get the printing subsystem to give me some hints on why it failed? Error code 0 isn't much to go on.
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June 10th, 2012 1:22pm

Make sure the apps that don't print are selecting the correct printer. Jerry I had verified that, but I appreciate the thoroughness behind the suggestion -- you never know!
June 10th, 2012 1:23pm

Maybe it is still a driver issue. Please remove the network printer and then add it again with previous driver for Windows 7 x64. Do not print large files at the same time, you'd better print documents one by one.Ivan-Liu TechNet Community Support
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June 11th, 2012 4:16am

Maybe it is still a driver issue. Please remove the network printer and then add it again with previous driver for Windows 7 x64. Do not print large files at the same time, you'd better print documents one by one. Thanks for the suggestions. Unfortunately, none of them solved the problem.
June 11th, 2012 8:25am

Have you tried isoliating the printer drivers in the print manager?
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June 12th, 2012 12:23am

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