Is your printer connected via network, parallel or USB?

If it is connected via LPR or TCP/IP, check your options (which port does it use, if it starts printing when the first page is sent, lpr bytes count and lpr status). AFAIR, Windows can "hang" printing if it is expecting some kind of lpr status and the printer is not sending any... and then the timeout occurs.

That timeout can be defined and happen in parallel, USB or network printing. It is the time the printer waits for new data before printing (if they haven't received any "job finished" mark). Usually you can see it on your printer configuration pages, and is set to 30 seconds... maybe Windows is expecting some data from the printer, and the printer waits until the timeout happens and then print.

USB. Not this issue at all.

Does not matter if I pace the printing or throw a bunch at it, also the printer is on and ready, which I waited till it stops playing then I send off print job.

Cheers,

What OS and exactly what printer?

I've seen this many times over the years with different printer models and brands.

Sometimes it was because somebody tried to send a webpage to the printer and other times it was just because the print job somehow got corrupted either before it was sent to the printer or something in the printer itself didn't like something.

A lot of the time, manually clearing out the print spooler was the only way to get it to work properly again. (Not just cleaning out the print queue). If you do a Google search, you should come up with the instructions on how to do this for the OS you are using.

Yes, the print spooler is what I'm talking about, stopping it then delete the print queue's folder contents, then start spooler using net commands.

I consider this a bug for printer queue manager, seen this many time in past with different OSes we had.

The printer queue manager is useless and is buggy, would not just do anything whatever I needed that anything done. This should had been rewritten to enforce the actions with no exceptions. This would be nice other than manually net stop/start spooler just to delete the spooler's folder contents.

I checked everything, the printer queue and such is set to Automatic and it is running properly, I never seen a error like queue printer stopped or something like that.

I knew this since we have printers on network at work and they just work great, never had to do anything else. One is HP color laser and other one is Brother all in one.

We don't want, expensive large all in one printer and we print very occasionally.

PS: this is HP photosmart D110 introduced in 2010, bought from Staples.

Cheers,

pentiumspeed wrote on 2023-04-02, 00:17:

I thought this was corrected long ago starting with XP, seen this before. I'm running windows 10 with current version.

No, in my experience it started with XP, and that's only because I don't remember much of when we used ME and a Lexmark Z52 whose problems were usually mechanical 😜

Invariably end up printing something 10 times or so, then you open the (standard Windows) printer status window and notice it's "offline", remove everything but one sticks with "deleting - using offline printer - error" or something very close, restarting the spooling service and refreshing that window usually but not always enough...

So create a batch file that runs the commands to clear the print spooler if you are insistent on using those old HP printers with super buggy drivers.

I haven't used any inkjet printers for around 20 years.

With laserjet, you don't have to worry about the cartridges drying up or the heads getting clogged and print quality is way better as well.

HP has a very bad habit of almost never releasing updated drivers for their printers.

If it works, then it is fine. If it doesn't or has other issues, such as the built in scanner cutting off about 1/4" from two of the edges, which has been an ongoing issue for years and years, then you are stuck with the crap drivers/software and will just have to deal with it and use workarounds or get rid of the printer.

It seems to me like HP couldn't care less about actually putting out good drivers or even fixing issues that have been present for at least a decade.

Hmm, that is what I wanted to hear.

When time comes, this time around, no HP inkjet printers. That D110 was purchased new.

Cheers,

pentiumspeed wrote on 2023-04-02, 18:00:

When time comes, this time around, no HP inkjet printers. That D110 was purchased new.

Be aware that some recent HP products can't scan without an internet connection and registering with HP. I don't know whether this has spread to any other brands yet.

jakethompson1 wrote on 2023-04-02, 19:42:

pentiumspeed wrote on 2023-04-02, 18:00:

When time comes, this time around, no HP inkjet printers. That D110 was purchased new.

Be aware that some recent HP products can't scan without an internet connection and registering with HP. I don't know whether this has spread to any other brands yet.

Ohhhh that stinks.

Cheers,

I'm not sure that the printer is at fault here. The print spooler is usually part of your OS, so I think that you have some kind of communication problem. Some things to try:
- Change your USB cable. It may be failijng.
- Uninstall/reinstall your drivers. When uninstalling, be sure that the drivers are fully deleted.
- In some cases, updating the printer firmware may help.
- Stop the printer spooler and clean temporary files (net stop spooler). Sometimes the printer queue files are not deleted and may lock the spooler.

jakethompson1 wrote on 2023-04-02, 19:42:

Be aware that some recent HP products can't scan without an internet connection and registering with HP. I don't know whether this has spread to any other brands yet.

I think that happens with "e" printers (i.e.: HP Laserjet M209dwe does it, but HP Laserjet M209dw does not). The thing is that "e" printers are cheaper because you must buy HP cartridges; to enforce that, the printer must be able to call back to HP and check if their cartridges are fake. If the printer can't talk to HP or the cartridges are fake, it won't print. And where I say "the printer can't talk", I mean that the printer must be configured and connected to internet via the internal NIC or wireless... if you connected your printer via USB and did not configure the wireless (or configure and connected the internal NIC), it will be a paperweight.

Problem with that theory is that in the past I have go as far as replacing a person's computer that kept having this print spooler problem.

In the end, I made them a batch file that would clear out the print spooler because the drivers / print processor kept jacking up certain print jobs.

This was with an HP CP1215 laserjet.

It really had to do with what the person was trying to print... certain web pages that the driver / print processor couldn't handle properly.

That being said, HP laserjet printers are still some of the best. Currently have an HP m479fdn. Other than having to re-use the original counter chips with aftermarket carts, it has been great.

The m477 range is a little bit older and not quite as good but doesn't have the dumb counter chip issue.