Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

Resolved Question

Print spooler service not running

Aug 8, 2011 7:44AM PDT

Hi
Can anyone help.

System is a Dell Latitude D630 running windows XP 2002 with SP3.
Printer is a laserjet 3055 printer/scanner connected as network printer on a netgear router.

I tried printing and got an error "Print spooler not running". I can scan from the 3055 without problem.

Looked in printers and faxes and there weren't any installed. Clicked add to reinstall, then got the same error message.

Looked in admin/services and it said print spooler wasn't running. Manually restarted. Still can't add printer.

Tried system restore but it tells me there mave been no changes

looked on the internet and someone had suggested deleting contents of -.my computer - c drive - Windows folder - system32 folder - spool folder - printers folder to remove any corrupt files. Looked there and it was already empty.
.

Any suggestions of what else I should try ? Thanks in advance.

Discussion is locked

Hollean has chosen the best answer to their question. View answer

Best Answer

- Collapse -
What I would try.
Aug 8, 2011 9:27PM PDT

With the computer turned off, disconnect the printer/scanner.

Boot up the computer and head back into Services, locate the "Print Spooler" service. Double click the entry then in the new dialog box, set the Print Spooler to start automatically.

Shutdown the computer.

Re-connect the printer and restart the computer. Check to see if the Print Spooler service is running.

If so, see if the printer works. If the printer does not work, shutdown the computer, disconnect the printer, restart the computer. Then find the printer/scanner setup CD,insert that, and reinstall the software. Shutdown again, re-connect the printer, and restart and test again.

See if that works.

Mark

- Collapse -
Tried that. Answers follow. Any other ideas ?
Aug 11, 2011 7:34AM PDT

Hi Mark
I've followed your suggestions as far as I can, but still no success.See following notes. Any other ideas ?

With the computer turned off, disconnect the printer/scanner. OK

Boot up the computer and head back into Services, locate the "Print Spooler" service. Double click the entry then in the new dialog box, set the Print Spooler to start automatically. OK. It was already set to automatic, although wasn't running. I started it manually. I also checked RPC and RPC locator both set to automatic and running.

Shutdown the computer. OK

Re-connect the printer and restart the computer. Check to see if the Print Spooler service is running. It wasn't

If so, see if the printer works. It didn't.

If the printer does not work, shutdown the computer, disconnect the printer, restart the computer. Then find the printer/scanner setup CD,insert that, and reinstall the software. I ran into problems re installing. Received message that Symantec firewall was stopping the installation program from running. I do have Symantec anti virus . It doesn't specifically have anything called a firewall but it does have a feature called tamper protection, so I switched that off. The installation program still didn't work


The 3055 Printer is a Network printer I have verified that it prints correctly from another computer on the network. The 3055 is also a scanner and that part of the system does work from my computer. Hence my belief that my issue is with print spool service on my computer, and not with the printer. Any other ideas ?

- Collapse -
Other options to try.
Aug 11, 2011 7:44AM PDT

First of all, has this printer ever worked whilst connected to this computer? If so, what has changed since it last worked?

Have a look at the suggestions in this Tech Support Guy forum discussion;
http://forums.techguy.org/windows-xp/568893-solved-print-spooler-service-not.html

There are a number of suggestions, some of which may be suitable.

About Symatec. I don't know what Symantec Tamper Protection is, but you will need to open that Symantec's Control Panel, (try right clicking its Notification Tray icon, near the clock, and seeing what options there are), to search for this Tamper Protection to make sure it doesn't prevent the printer software from installing. Or, if that warning gives you the option to disregard and continue, select that. I see you have already done that, but perhaps a reboot after doing that was needed.

But that printer software install comes last.

Mark

- Collapse -
Update
Aug 11, 2011 11:15AM PDT

Hi Mark
Yes this computer has worked with that printer ( and others) for all its life, around 3 years.
What has changed. I did get a virus on 6 August. I thought that a combination of malaware and symantec had dealt with it as everything else seems to run fine, but this might be a left over of that. I can't remember if I've tested printing since cleaning the virus. I've just run TDSkiller and that also didn't find anything amiss.

I followed some of the tech guy stuff.
The microsoft fix didnt make any difference
Turing on data execution prevention for everything excep C:\WINDOWS\system32\spoolsv.exe made no difference
System restore to 4 August says it can't because there are no changes since 4 August.

When system starts up the print spool isn't running even though it's set to automatic. It can be started manually. I can Then see it as a process in windows task manager.
However if I select printers and faxes, it immediately terminates and disappears from the list of active processes. An event appears in the system error log to say the proces terminated unexpectedly.


Anything else ?

- Collapse -
Ahh, malware
Aug 11, 2011 8:37PM PDT

Sadly malware damage often runs deep.

I would now suggest following Grif's advice here;
http://forums.cnet.com/7726-19411_102-5128854.html?tag=posts;msg5128854

That advice was for a specific problem, but the method applies to all. If you decide to do that, follow his guidance precisely.

If that fails, then the last resort seems to be a repair or reinstall of the OS.

You could try a System File Checker scan, ( sfc scannow ). This is a Windows command that scans system files and attempts to replace corrupted or damaged files, but in XP SFC will often call for the XP Setup CD. Not always though, so it is worth a try. More information on that here;
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/toolsofthetrade/ht/sfc-scannow.htm

Mark

- Collapse -
sorted !
Aug 12, 2011 12:14AM PDT

Hi Mark
i didn't follow all griffs steps, but it has worked.
the first bit seemed to be required if you couldn't get anything to run, so I skipped that.
The second step was to load and run Malawarebytes, which I had already done, so I skipped that.
The third step was to load and run superantivirus, so I jumped to that.
That ran and found 4 issues, which it then quarantined.


Good news, that enabled me to see my printers
Bad news, it also corrupted my file associations so I couldn't run ANY .exe file
.
Luckily I had another computer which directed to me to dogknox.com , which had a downloadable fix for registry association errors. i downloaded that and transferred it over, and now I think its working

Thanks for your patience. I believe I'm sorted now.

Andy

- Collapse -
That's great news.
Aug 12, 2011 6:03AM PDT

Glad you got it sorted, even with the side effect of losing all file associations, and well done for knowing of Doug Knox's fix for that.

It is sad that, when we think we have 'done enough' to secure our systems and scan for malware, that something else crops up and we have to review our utilities. MBAM is usually very good a rooting out such infections, but as you have found, we have to build up our arsenal and try and keep ahead of the game.

But yours was a strange situation anyway. Affecting the Print Spooler is one I haven't seen before.

Congratulations, and a good job well done.

Mark