Clearing that last print job

Tech-Archive recommends: Repair Windows Errors & Optimize Windows Performance

From: Andrew King (andrew137_at_gmail.com)
Date: 07/29/04


Date: 29 Jul 2004 04:26:44 -0700

Hello there,

One problem I've had very frequently with Windows NT, 2000, XP and
possibly 2003 Server all over the place (homes, schools, businesses)
with all varieties of networked printers connected to Intel hardware
is that from time to time, the print queue will jam, and when clearing
the queue, all but one of the jobs will clear instantly, but then that
last one (that was at the top of the queue and currently being
processed) will absolutely refuse to delete, and will often sit there
for minutes, hours or days.

In every case, this seems to happen when trying to print to a shared
network printer connected to and shared from an NT/2000/XP
workstation, with the print job being sent from another NT/2000/XP
workstation.

I've tried many things to clear it:

- Deleting the print job. Sometimes many times over.
- Cancelling/Purging all print jobs.
- Waiting. Sometimes this works, but there's never any idea as to how
long this will take. In any case, it's not too profitable.
- Restarting the computer (both client and server).
- Restarting the printer.
- Restarting the print spooler service (both client and server).
- Deleting the printer. This usually won't happen while there's still
that print job there.

Very often none of these work.

I'm hoping that this is a common problem known to every Windows
administrator out there, but a fair bit of time searching google
hasn't shown anything up yet. If anyone has any information that can
help here (other than the two obvious "don't print" or "don't print
using windows"), either to curing the problem or preventing it from
happening in the first place, I'd be very grateful.

Thankyou.

-- 
Andrew King
Preston, UK


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