Problem with local printers slowly sweeping our site.

[PaulBM]

We've having problems with local printers here. It started about a week ago, when one teacher reported that their local printer didn't work. Since then we've had about 7 or 8 cases of print jobs just disappearing, not being printed, but not reporting an error.
Until today it seemed only the 1000/1005/1020/1022 HP laserjets were being affected. Today an Epson C1100 that is shared between two office worker's PCs has the same problem. We've just tested the printer on another PC and it's fine. It seems to be a fault with the print spooler. Some of the PC's reported that the 'print spooler was faulting' in Event Log.

Some I've managed to fix by using cleanspl.exe from the Windows Resource Kit, some just needed the drivers removed and reinstalled, but some absolutely refused to work and have needed a re-install Windows.

It's almost virus like, the way it's slowly going around the system, but Symantec AV hasn't thrown any alerts anywhere.

Has anyone else experienced this? And more to the point has a definitive fix.

[richard.thomas]

How strange. Yesterday evening our printer server lost all its print queues... Spooler just died on us. We tried to restart the service, then as soon as you opened Printers and Faxes on the server an error message cmame up about spooler...
We even did a repair of windows server 2003... in the end it was cleanspl.exe that fixed it at about 7pm

[PaulBM]

Update on the Epson... printed test pages from both PC's and they just sat there, then I noticed 'Paused' in the title bar of the printer window.

That's how easy it is to overlook the obvious when you have an ongoing problem.

Still have one PC here that refuses to print after repeated spooler cleans, un-installs of drivers etc. It's a Laserjet 1000.

[Andrew_C]

You haven't become a victim of THIS LITTLE GAME?

[DMcCoy]

Hmm, my print server had some stuck jobs on it for some reason too. Might be worth looking at the most recently applied windows updates.

[PaulBM]

I've been wondering about Windows Updates too. We have a WSUS machine here, I couldn't spot any likely candidates, but I don't think they'll be labelled, 'Update to mess up HP Laserjet printers printing'.

Another printer has just been reported, it will only print the first page of a document, which is exactly what happened to our Deputy Head's PC.

[sahmeepee]

Another printer has just been reported, it will only print the first page of a document, which is exactly what happened to our Deputy Head's PC.

We had that specific problem on some small mono laserjets. I seem to remember reinstalling the driver using the latest one from HP hit the spot.

[Minkus]

Recently installed the .NET Framework 3.0?

Try this:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/944203

[Michael]

That's a good find Minkus, I would never of thought the .NET Framework would cause printer problems.

Recently, (if you search Edugeek), many users have reported driver problems with HP printers...

[contink]

Thanks for the heads up Minkus... bookmarked that one.

[PaulBM]

Thanks for the Update. After requesting the hotfix and applying it to the Deputy Head's PC, still only page one printed.

We found a Samsung printer and removed his HP 1005, now he can print all the pages in his documents. So our problem is HP related.