bluebones.net

Adventures in Computer Programming

1. tiffsmartypants 2004.04.27

   I could’ve told yer that. don’t knock the ex support monkey nollidge..
2. Thomas Baker 2004.04.27

   Yeah I know it is dead simple but when you have a “doesn’t believe in error messages” and “one button that just flashes” HP Deskjet 3650 you suddenly discover you NEED to know this stuff. Strangely it never came up in the 9 months I did helpdesk (or my memory is shot). Must have just told them to reboot and not worried about it because it wasn’t my time!
3. CG 2006.05.29

   Very many thanks for this frozen print queue fix. Now I may be able to get my university assignment in on time. Clever too of Google to steer me this way.
4. Tony 2006.07.19

   Thanks for the tip man. Worked like a charm.
5. Brad Kovach 2006.08.08

   I wrote a utility that takes care of print spooler problems:
   http://www.bradkovach.com/2006/printflush/
6. Wheto 2006.11.02

   Thank GOD!! I never thought the printer would work again!
7. slickwilly 2006.11.05

   Thank you, thank you, thank you. I was about to go nuts. Windows Help was useless in trying to solve this. Your solution worked like a charm.
8. Danny Dyer 2006.11.07

   Wow, thanks so much — I knew about the net stop/net start but I didn’t realize Print Spooler was on there. Thanks for the tip-off, I was having some trouble clearing the queue.
9. Dave Gordon 2006.12.22

   Brad:
   Thanks for that sweet little utility! It’s AWESOME!
10. Matthew 2007.01.02

    Worked like a dream! I thought my crappy HP was history!
11. Bob Williams 2007.02.15

    Thanks. It worked great.
12. tomray 2007.02.16

    thanks for the original solution, and the utility they both work great. I didnt even know there was a way of fixing this, after five years of having to mess with the printer before it cleared.
    thanks!
13. Greg 2007.02.16

    Still did not clear.

    I uninstalled printer, rebooted, unplugged printer, rebooted, did spooler thing several times.

    Please help.

    Greg
14. cyberdan 2007.03.15

    excellent tip thankyouthankyouthankyou!

    this has been a problem for what, almost 15 years now? I remember this problem in Win 3.1 and every single version since.

    probably was in win 1 & 2 too, but i started with 3.1
15. Lewis 2007.04.09

    TXS DUDE–my wife has offered to marry you as husband number two (think carefully whether that’s a good thing or not)- we can actually get her resume out tomorrow!!!
16. Renee 2007.04.16

    Google rocks! - thanks to all!
17. Paul D 2007.06.14

    After midnight and my frustration was just alleviated by your mention of this easy to perform fix. Thank you.
18. Stacey 2007.06.30

    Brad - Thanks for this utility. It cleared up my spool even after i rebooted, turned everything off/on, cleared the spool (or tried to but failed). This worked like a charm! You rock. Once I tried the utility, the thing cleared everything up and I was able to use the print spooler again with my printer.
19. Mike 2007.07.08

    I just had this same problem, stuck print job in the print queue. I thought there had to be a better way than the ultimate Windows error resolution of “REBOOT”, and a post mentioned to try from the printer dialoge window menus “Printer->Cancel All documents”. So I did that, and the stuck print job went away like POOF !

    - Mike
20. Matlock 2007.07.12

    Yeah, thanks for it. I couldn’t quite remember how this is done but know I’ll remember it for next time.
21. nick 2007.07.19

    ok it didnt work for me. i have a laptop and my mom has a laptop and the printer is hooked up to my sisters desktop were the family network is from. my mom jammed up the spool service with a 20mb file and it would not go or delete, so to clear it i went to the folder “c:\windows\system32\spool\printers” and then opend up the command prompt “run>cmd” and typed in “net stop spooler” at this point the spooler server should have stopped. then delete all files in the printers folder, go back to the command prompt and type “net start spooler” now go to the printer queue and right click on an empty spot in the queue and clear all jobs. then it cleared up for me. in the end i just compressed the pictures on the page for my mom and it turned out fine. hope this helps
22. Heahter 2007.07.25

    It still hasn’t worked. I’ve tried all of the suggestions, and nothing works. The last print job still reads “Deleting- Printing” I’ve restarted, stopped and started spooler, and repeatedly cancelled print job. HELP!
23. James 2007.07.30

    I’m with heather. I hate to reboot.
    Heahter said,
    July 25, 2007 @ 6:29 pm

    It still hasn’t worked. I’ve tried all of the suggestions, and nothing works. The last print job still reads “Deleting- Printing” I’ve restarted, stopped and started spooler, and repeatedly cancelled print job. HELP!
24. James 2007.07.30

    In opposition to what I just posted, I may have found the answer:
    Where rick said to use the command “net stop spooler”, it should be to
    (at the CMD prompt “net stop “print spooler”", and likewise for net start “print spooler” ….then
    the clog goes down the drain much easier.
25. Heather 2007.08.07

    I want to give you some money for this tool. How can I do this?
26. Chip Bayko 2007.09.29

    9-28-2007 Thank you; I was convinced I was going to have to re-format my hard drive!!! This worked. God Bless you!
27. Kongoeasy 2007.09.29

    Thanks for the solution. Was driving me nuts. It worked like magic
28. Brenden 2007.10.05

    beautiful. worked like a charm.

    thanks.
29. Donna 2007.10.26

    excellent - thanks much!!! Can’t tell you how many times I rebooted out of frustration - reboot not an option today!
30. lynann 2007.10.28

    hugs and kisses for saving my mind and investment. was seconds from throwing this printer out of a window!
31. Mary 2007.11.23

    Blessings on you. I’ve argued this with many a printer (and not just HP, I might add). This time none of my “fixes” were working. Reboot? Nothing. Unplug the printer power cord. No help. Unplug the USB’. cable. Nuthin’. Had to do the start stop with the print spooler a couple of times and then refresh the print queue, but it worked!
32. JohnW 2007.11.23

    I have the same problem but none of the above clears the queue. The queue status is “processing.” The queue contents have no file name. The contents of the printer folder is empty. I even deleted the folder itself. Stopped and started the spooler, or print spooler, manually and via services. Thanks in advance.
33. Thomas David Baker 2007.11.24

    I assume you’ve tried rebooting. Uninstall and reinstall the printer?
34. SRS 2007.12.03

    Thanks, man. Little late but thanks… well a lot. I was like beserk around here from my printer. To get the sense of what it was i will say that i’m using my new keyboard now. (Don’t worry about the old one, it was old anyway and i sent it for recicling)
35. Travis 2008.01.22

    I’m having the same problem as JohnW above. The printer says “Processing” but nothing happens. I’ve tried all the fixes above, including the utility, but nothing works. I have 11 documents with unknown file formats (and the only other information is N/A for pages) in my print queue. Yesterday there were 4 documents in there and it’s been building ever since. When I try to cancel them, I get a message saying “Error processing command”. I wish any of these fixes would have worked. I’m at my wits end. SOMEONE PLEASE HELP!!!!
36. Jacob 2008.01.29

    Wow! That’s amazing! My stupid broken print job persisted even when I restarted both the computer and the printer–but this fix worked like a charm!
37. Travis 2008.02.12

    In case anyone has the same problem I did, and the fixes didn’t work….try unplugging your router. It was so simple I am still shaking my head at it. What appeared to be a problem with my printer or my computer didn’t end up that way. My router just got stuck and needed a reboot.
38. james 2008.02.20

    I havent tried this tool yet but ill be trying it out later…. when the printer acts stupid again.

    For those who are interested to reboot but still not able to take out the “deleting print” in the spool; here is what i did…

    1. cancel the job in the spooler
    2. remove usb from back of your cpu
    3. restart pc, restart printer
    4. check the status of your printer in the “printer and faxes”. the status should be offline.
    5. double click the printer icon, if you still see the print job, cancel it again….
    6. attach usb back into the cpu… viola…

    been doing this for past few days. restarting cuts the crap out of me. i talked to 2 hp tech via online chat. so far… so good?

    thanks for the tool. i know it will come in handy.thanks more power
39. Chris 2008.04.16

    wow the command prompt thingy worked a treat! now my printer prints again…. thanks so much
40. Vince 2008.06.05

    Thank you!
41. BWP 2008.07.13

    Thank you! And I didn’t have to restart my PC! Kudos to Google as well for making this the number 1 search result.
42. Dave 2008.07.30

    Much obliged! Worked like a charm…

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