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Question

Printing disabled - toggled off?

Oct 15, 2018 10:08AM PDT

I have a generic Windows 10 laptop, an HP Pavilion dv6. It has worked very well until recently. Something happend back at the beginning of summer and I lost the ability to print.
Can't print thru either hardware ports or via WiFi. Can't print to my Adobe pdf generator either.
Windows updates are current. Have installed and uninstalled printer drivers.
Ports work fine for thumb drives and cameras. But no printing. Ever
Sometimes the message "The document could not be printed" is displayed or the printing looks like it acted normally but nothing happened. It is like some toggle connecting the printing system/spooling to my printers is disabled. Cannot find information online to help. Have tried troubleshoot on devices and it reports everything is fine.
I run ZoneLabs Extreme security, and I have personally owned Windows computer for 20+ years.
There is some simple fix someone knows but somehow I blundered into breaking the printing.
Thank you for help in advance.
Phil

Discussion is locked

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Answer
small world.
Oct 15, 2018 10:36AM PDT

I have an old dv6 with the core2duo running W10 as well. But all is well but don't have zone labs.

I know that printing does involve communication over IP networking so as a test I would remove ZL for now and go stock.

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Answer
Have You Checked The Print Spooler Service?
Oct 15, 2018 5:12PM PDT

On Windows 10, type "services.msc" in the search line, then RIGHT click on the "Services" listing at the top, choose "Run as administrator". When the "Services" window loads, scroll to the "Print Spooler" listing and double click on it. In the "General" tab, set the service to "Automatic" and press "Start" if it's not started. You may need to Start it multiple times till it sticks. If it sticks, restart the computer and see if things are working. If not....And....

If the service IS ALREADY started, then press the "Stop" button. Leave the "Services" window open.

Now use File Explorer to navigate to the C:\Windows\System32\Spool\Printers folder. Open the folder and delete all files inside. Don't delete the Printers folder, ONLY the files inside.

Now go back to the "Services" window, click on the "Recovery" tab and make sure "First Failure" , "Second Failure" and "Subsequent Failures" says "Restart the service". Now click on the "Logon" tab and select "Local System Account" and "Allow service to interact with desktop". Click on Apply, then OK.

After performing the steps above, restart the computer.

Once done, you may not have to reinstall the printer. Try disconnecting the local printer (unplug the USB cable), wait a few seconds, and then reconnect it. If that doesn’t fix the issue, you may need to reinstall the printer. Also, be sure to check the settings in the “services.msc” again, just to be sure it’s still set to “Automatic” and the service is started.

Hope this helps.

Grifg