Can No Longer Print

About two weeks ago I suddenly noticed that my system can no longer print. I have a Brother HL-3170CDW color laser that I've had for years and it was working fine in Windows 10 and 11.

When I try to print now I get notified of a printer spooler error (it's stopped and stops anytime I access anything related to printing). So I tried removing and reinstalling the latest driver (well, 2014 is the latest driver for that printer) and that fails too. It gets an error telling me I'm out of end point nodes.

I'm at a spot now where the printer isn't even installed and any attempt to reinstall it turns off the print spooler and thus then errors out the install procedure.

I'm down to reinstalling Windows 11 from scratch, but worry that I'll go through all of that just to have this same issue on the other side.

Win11 Pro Version 10.0.22000 Build 22000

I'm not optimistic that it would fix things, but have you run the printer troubleshooter? (System, troubleshoot, other troubleshooters)

bobkn said:

I'm not optimistic that it would fix things, but have you run the printer troubleshooter? (System, troubleshoot, other troubleshooters)

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Yep. No luck there. It's really a mess.

Before going to a clean install, I'd try a repair install. While it's not absolutely guaranteed, it usually preserves installed programs.

I strongly recommend imaging the boot drive before doing anything major.

Have you tried a firmware update? Downloads | HL-3170CDW | United States | Brother

MadScientist said:

Have you tried a firmware update? Downloads | HL-3170CDW | United States | Brother

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Yep. The last firmware was from four years ago and I'm pretty big on updating firmware for my stuff so it won't be that simple, sadly.

bobkn said:

Before going to a clean install, I'd try a repair install. While it's not absolutely guaranteed, it usually preserves installed programs.

I strongly recommend imaging the boot drive before doing anything major.

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That sounds like a decent option. The challenge I see for it is that it suggests it needs an ISO or USB image and I have neither. This was installed from Windows 10. Oddly it appears as if a full wipe doesn't require that.

Agrajag said:

That sounds like a decent option. The challenge I see for it is that it suggests it needs an ISO or USB image and I have neither. This was installed from Windows 10. Oddly it appears as if a full wipe doesn't require that.

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You can download an ISO. Download ISO tutorial

Once you have that, you can mount the ISO as a virtual DVD drive just using File Explorer. (You don't need a separate physical drive.) You can run the upgrade-in-place from that. Pretty painless.