Printing Capabilities keep getting corrupted

chadillac · Jun 11, 2024

It seems after a Windows Update, the Printing capabilities get corrupted.

Symptoms

Trying to print from any browser, the browser hangs, have to force close and restart.
Trying to print from MS Word, I get error:
Go to Printers and Scanners in windows settings, doesn't list any printers....unless I stop the Printer Spooler service...as soon as I do, all the printers are displayed.

Attempted Fixes

tried to repair via sfc / scannow, DISM /restorehealth (not the exact command, but you get the point)
Print Troubleshooter just hangs
tried copying spoolss.dll and spoolsv.exe from a good computer.
I've worked with MS Support the first time this happened, and they couldn't really help. An in-place reinstall of Windows wouldn't work. I forget the errors now, but I tried and researched, etc for multiple days
Ended up having to do a fresh Windows install after spending 4 days not earning a living attempting to repair

Frequency of the Issue
This happened once in Aug '23, once in Mar '24, again now (Jun '24) on the same PC and now also on my Wife's PC again in Jun '24

Other Attempts to Fix
I have been making OS partition backups with Aomei Backupper, but restoring is also never easy as their WinPE environment disk creator doesn't include the right drivers so my internal NVME drive is never recognized when I booto the WinPE USB. I've again spent days trying to get this to work to no avail. I'm also trying to connect a cloned SSD external drive to boot into, and run Aomei Backupper while booted into that to restore the internal drive. But having some issues on that front as well.

My Main Question
Given the frequency of this issue, the total PITA that it is to fix, I'm surprised I can't find other's suffering from this. Regardless, anyone know what causes this and is there anyway to repair the printing functionality without doing a full windows re-install?

antspants · Jun 11, 2024

Hi, thanks for the clearly organised post. I wish everyone asked questions this way. It is appreciated.

Can I ask the printer model please, also how it is connected to your PC?

chadillac · Jun 11, 2024

antspants said:
Hi, thanks for the clearly organised post. I wish everyone asked questions this way. It is appreciated.

Can I ask the printer model please, also how it is connected to your PC?

I have many printers configured...some from my home office and some from my work office, all are via network connections, not local printers. I have mostly Brother all-in-one printer/scanners and a Zebra thermal label printer, for what its worth.

antspants · Jun 11, 2024

Thanks for that.

When you stop the Printer Spooler service and the printers show up, is the one you’re trying to print with set as the default printer and is it set to let Windows manage it or do you have a locally installed driver interface downloaded from the product manufacturer?
Have you by any chance brought one home and connected directly?
Have you exhausted network related issues?

BobOmb · Jun 11, 2024

Are you using “HP Universal Print Driver” by chance for any of them?

Idk if you have any HP you said “mostly” Brother, but there is a HP driver that is ‘intellegent’ that searches out printers every time its used, not sure if any of your printers use anything like that, which might interfere with normal print operations

chadillac · Jun 11, 2024

antspants said:
Thanks for that.

When you stop the Printer Spooler service and the printers show up, is the one you’re trying to print with set as the default printer and is it set to let Windows manage it or do you have a locally installed driver interface downloaded from the product manufacturer?
Have you by any chance brought one home and connected directly?
Have you exhausted network related issues?

I can't get to the point of even selecting a printer. Based on the error MS Word provides in obtaining the default printer, I'm guessing this has to do with Windows process of obtaining the default printer. I have "Let Windows manage my default printer" turned off in attempts to bypass this, but it still seems it get's stuck. Maybe the explicitly set "Set as Default" printer setting got lost so no printer is the Default explicitly, and since Let Winows Manage Default Printer is off, it can't determine the default?

All my printers that do show when I stop Printer Spooler service:

chadillac · Jun 11, 2024

BobOmb said:
Are you using “HP Universal Print Driver” by chance for any of them?

Idk if you have any HP you said “mostly” Brother, but there is a HP driver that is ‘intellegent’ that searches out printers every time its used, not sure if any of your printers use anything like that, which might interfere with normal print operations

One of my office printers was an HP at one point, but we got rid of it and now have just Brothers. So it is possible that maybe that driver was installed on my machine, but no current printers configured are HP. Here is list of current printers:

BobOmb · Jun 11, 2024

whenever I see “not connected”, I usually uninstall and reinstall them.. they are probably using WSD ports, create TCP/IP ports and use IPs instead

and i always leave “Let Windows Decide” off, it doesn’t make sense that if I decide to print something to a certain printer that I automatically want that to be default. When using multiple printers there are usually different reasons to send prints to each. I’m not sure if that eventually learns your habits, but in my experience, it just sets the last printer you use as default every time.

antspants · Jun 11, 2024

chadillac said:
Maybe the explicitly set "Set as Default" printer setting got lost so no printer is the Default explicitly, and since Let Winows Manage Default Printer is off, it can't determine the default?

You can only really toggle these settings to try.

The not connected sort of reads like a Network issue?

chadillac · Jun 11, 2024

BobOmb said:
whenever I see “not connected”, I usually uninstall and reinstall them.. they are probably using WSD ports, create TCP/IP ports and use IPs instead

The reason they say "Not Connected", I believe, is because in order to get these printers to show up, I had to stop the Print Spooler service. If I restart the service, this Settings page basically hangs.

BobOmb · Jun 11, 2024

in the properties do they use WSD ports?

BobOmb · Jun 11, 2024

For the most reliable print settings for network printers i do the following:

1) Set statc IPv4 on printer
2) Disable IPv6 on printer
3) In Windows click “Add Manually” and select “Add printer using an IP address or hostname”, select “TCP/IP Device” from the dropdown and enter the printers IP address, add appropriate drivers etc..

chadillac · Jun 11, 2024

antspants said:
You can only really toggle these settings to try.

The not connected sort of reads like a Network issue?

I'm thinking the Not Connected is because the Print Spooler service is off. But if I start it back up, the Settings page with my printers listed hangs.

My network is fine. Interesting if I use File Explorer to view my Network, and then my machine, one Printer shows there, which is the one using the Generic Text Only driver. None of the other printers are there. But I can also view my NAS on my network, and my other PC can still see all these printers.

antspants · Jun 11, 2024

chadillac said:
The reason they say "Not Connected", I believe, is because in order to get these printers to show up

Makes sense.

Is Bidirectional support still a thing?

Open Print Management by pressing Windows key + R, then type printmanagement.msc and hit the enter key.
Right-click on the printer in question and select Properties…
Select the Ports tab
Check Enable bidirectional support.

chadillac · Jun 11, 2024

BobOmb said:
For the most reliable print settings for network printers i do the following:

1) Set statc IPv4 on printer
2) Disable IPv6 on printer
3) In Windows click “Add Manually” and select “Add printer using an IP address or hostname”, select “TCP/IP Device” from the dropdown and enter the printers IP address, add appropriate drivers etc..

I get this, but I don't think this is an issue with how printers are individually connected. It seems higher up than that as I can't even display printers in settings unless I turn off the Print Spooler service. And then if I re-enable it, the Printer Settings page just freezes. So there is no way to add or modify existing printers as you need the Print Spooler service running.

chadillac · Jun 11, 2024

antspants said:
Makes sense.

Is Bidirectional support still a thing?

Open Print Management by pressing Windows key + R, then type printmanagement.msc and hit the enter key.

Right-click on the printer in question and select Properties…

Select the Ports tab

Check Enable bidirectional support.

printmanagement.msc won't even start up....unless I stop print spooler, in which case it shows no real configured data. Trying to view Properties of the print server gives error stating to start Print Spooler, and if I do, then try to interact by viewing properties, it hanges.

antspants · Jun 11, 2024

I don’t know what to say. It’s as if everything on the remote end is sleeping?

I’d assume you have removed all but one printer to see if you can operate properly?

I know there is a way to backup the printers in Windows Server, I am not sure how to migrate printers in Windows 11 so you don’t have to reinstall everything, if you can even do so in your predicament.

chadillac · Jun 11, 2024

antspants said:
I don’t know what to say. It’s as if everything on the remote end is sleeping?

I’d assume you have removed all but one printer to see if you can operate properly?

I know there is a way to backup the printers in Windows Server, I am not sure how to migrate printers in Windows 11 so you don’t have to reinstall everything, if you can even do so in your predicament.

Yeah it's frustrating. It seems the Print Spooler Service is corrupted. And no matter if I have it on or off, it won't let me interact with the printers in any way. I can't edit, remove or add printers. So wondering if there is anyway to "reset/reinstall" the Printing functionality in Windows. Maybe I'll try uninstalling these Features and see if that helps...or then reinstall them. Maybe it will fix broker registry or something like that in the process:

antspants · Jun 11, 2024

Click Windows Search and enter: cmd > Open the Command Prompt as an administrator > Type in net stop spooler and hit Enter key.
In Windows Explorer, navigate to %systemroot%\system32\spool (usually C:\windows\...), and delete (probably best to copy to different folder) the .shd and .spl files you find there, but do not delete the sub-folders.
Again in the Command Prompt, type in net start spooler and hit Enter key.

BobOmb · Jun 11, 2024

i would remove them starting with paperport one by one with the spooler service off until it allowed me to re-enable without an issue.. to test

Printing Capabilities keep getting corrupted

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