# Print queue won?t delete (and stopping the Print Spooler doesn?t help)



## nicorutten

*Print queue won’t delete (and stopping the Print Spooler doesn’t help)*

The problem I’m confronted with –a print queue that won’t delete– seems easy to solve, but no matter what I’ve tried… nothing works. When searching for a solution on forums on the internet, the standard solution that I keep running into is this: go to the _control panel_ > _administrative tools_ > _services_, stop the _print spooler_; this would make it possible to purge the print queue; start the _print spooler_ again; this would make it possible to start printing again. However, this solution doesn’t solve my problem.

First, I’ll explain what my network configuration looks like. Two computers are connected in a network: one laptop (wirelessly) and one desktop computer, both with _Windows 7_. Both computers have two accounts: one for my wife and one for myself. Via the router both these computers have access to a NAS (a _Verbatim Network Attached Storage_). Our printer (a _Canon Pixma iP 4200_) is connected to this NAS. Until two weeks ago printing to this NAS-attached printer worked flawlessly from all four accounts.

Two weeks ago twenty documents were printed from my wife’s laptop account. As these got stuck in the print queue, it was not possible to print anything else anymore afterwards. I tried to delete these documents. These documents have the status ‘delete’ ever since without permanently going away.

These are the things I’ve tried but didn’t work:


Stopping the _print spooler_ and restarting it again.
Manually deleting all twenty print jobs. When I deleted the jobs one by one, each time I deleted a print job it disappeared after waiting for about five minutes. This appeared not to be effective however, because all print jobs reappeared again after a restart.
Deleting this printer and its driver at _control panel _> _administrative tools_ > _print management_ and reinstalling them again (by approaching this printer via the _Explorer_ and following the missing-driver instructions).
Resetting the router. This is not really a solution that makes sense in relation to this problem, but I was running out of possible options.
Resetting the NAS to factory settings. As there was really no other possible solution I could think of, this was the last thing I tried. It didn’t work.
By the way, my wife’s account doesn’t normally have _administrator rights_. Trying above solutions from my wife’s account after assigning _administrator rights_ to the account doesn’t make a difference.
 
I hope someone on this forum knows a solution that I’ve overlooked.


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## aciid

*Re: Print queue won’t delete (and stopping the Print Spooler doesn’t help)*

Hi nicorutten,

Just to understand your setup:
1 x NAS
Printer connected via USB to the NAS and shared over network
Installed manually on each PC

Do you mean that the jobs are stuck in the printers queue (On the display of the printer) or on the PC (printer queue under Control panel > Printers) ?


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## ROB sandberg

*Re: Print queue won’t delete (and stopping the Print Spooler doesn’t help)*

Try the utility that is attached. I hope this is not breaking rules I am new so if it is please forgive and just correct me.
I found this utlity on majorgeeks.com

Rob S:wink:


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## roto

*Re: Print queue won’t delete (and stopping the Print Spooler doesn’t help)*

Go to Start > Run > CMD and press enter, then Type the following commands at the command prompt. Press ENTER after each command: "net stop spooler" or "net start spooler"


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## nicorutten

*Re: Print queue won’t delete (and stopping the Print Spooler doesn’t help)*

Thank you all for responding to my problem. I’ve tried to fix the problem by applying the solutions you suggested. These are my findings.

@Rob Sandberg) I’ve used the program you had sent me. Unfortunately, this program doesn’t seem to be able to detect the print queue that is stuck in the NAS-attached printer. After starting, this program reports “No Stalled Print Jobs Detected”. I guess this program can only repair a stalled printer in case it is ‘more local’. Our printer –which is called ‘lp’– is located at \\VERBATIMNAS\\lp, which apparently is a location where print jobs can get stuck without being traceable by your program.

@roto) Stopping the print spooler is indeed one of the possible solutions that I’ve considered (see the #1 thing I’ve tried but didn’t work in my initial post). Still, I guessed it was worth giving it another try as the way I did this was by _control panel_ > _administrative tools_ > _services_ > _print spooler Stop_ > _print spooler Start_, and you suggest doing this by typing commands in the command line. The strange thing is that when I follow the steps you suggest (typing _net stop spooler_ and _net start spooler_), each command is followed by the error message “System error 5 has occurred. Access is denied”. As my account has administrator rights, I don’t understand why I’m receiving these error messages. Stopping (and starting) the print spooler from the _control panel_ works without any errors.

@aciid) To answer your questions: we indeed have one NAS and the problematic printer is connected to this NAS via USB, and is shared over our home network (consisting of one desktop computer, one wireless laptop, one router, one NAS and one printer). Installing the NAS resulted in the availability of several shared folders and one folder called ‘lp’. Pointing this ‘lp’-folder with the mouse in Explorer results in the following information popping-up: “Generic dot-matrix printer entry”. The printer (driver) on both the laptop and the desktop computer have been installed by double-clicking this lp-folder and then following instructions to install the missing printer (driver). To answer your last question: the printer itself doesn’t show any error message. The twenty print jobs that are stuck appear after double-clicking the lp-folder that I mentioned before.

Hopefully, this information provides a clearer picture of what the problem is. I hope to hear from you.


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## aciid

*Re: Print queue won’t delete (and stopping the Print Spooler doesn’t help)*

Alright so we have 2 different stages where this process could go wrong.

1. The PC at fault may still be sending out incorrect printerjobs to the printing queue on the NAS. Resulting them to repopulate.
2. The NAS queue has been locked and needs to be resetted/restored.

How to fix:
1. Make sure no printing jobs are in any of the attached PC's. (Go to Control panel > Printers > Double-click the printer > Check the queue). If any documents are present, delete them.
2. Make sure all jobs are deleted on the NAS lp queue, if possible, see if the manual offers a reset of the printing queue on the NAS(Not stopping the spoolers on the PC's). And you should'nt do this by removing files in the \lp\ folder, there should be an option to reset the printing queue in the NAS software.
3. Reboot the NAS.
4. Try sending a print-job again.

IF the problem still persists after this, the problem lies within the NAS's printing queue. As you mentioned they're stuck in an "lp" folder, this is typically the default queue for the LPD printing protocol. IF you don't find any ways restoring the printing queue after all this, contact the support for the NAS or get back to us with the exact model/make and I can take a look. Because the problem is then not in the PC's.


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## nicorutten

*Re: Print queue won’t delete (and stopping the Print Spooler doesn’t help)*

@aciid) My guess would be that the print queue problem occurs at what you call the second stage (The NAS queue has been locked and needs to be resetted/restored). Unfortunately, it’s not possible to apply your solution (there should be an option to reset the printing queue in the NAS software), because the software of this NAS appears not to have this option.

When I log in as an administrator at http://verbatimnas the Print Server sub menu only has one option, which allows for enabling or disabling the printer. I searched all menus but an option to reset the print queue seems to be lacking.

Two days ago I mailed to [email protected] to ask them whether they have a solution to this problem. As I haven’t received any response until now, I just mailed them again via [email protected].

To get a better idea of the model/make of the NAS, this page Verbatim 2TB HDD Gigabit NAS 2TB - Netwerk harde schijven - Conrad Electronic could be helpful (even though this page is in Dutch, I guess the NAS specifications in the middle column probably won’t be hard to decipher; let me know if there are specific properties that need translation). And the screen shot in the attachment shows the actual stuck jobs.


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## aciid

*Re: Print queue won’t delete (and stopping the Print Spooler doesn’t help)*

Alright, so if you could try this:

On both your PC's, check this folder:
C:\WINDOWS\System32\spool\PRINTERS

And delete every files that are located in this folder.

Then logon to the NAS, and delete all the Jobs in the queue.
Reboot the NAS and see if they repopulate.


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## jenae

*Re: Print queue won’t delete (and stopping the Print Spooler doesn’t help)*

Hi yes aciid's last post should do it requires just a little more, run this from cmd prompt as admin on both machines:- (press enter after each command)

net stop spooler
del %systemroot%\system32\spool\printers\*.shd
del %systemroot%\system32\spool\printers\*.spl
net start spooler


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## nicorutten

*Re: Print queue won’t delete (and stopping the Print Spooler doesn’t help)*

@aciid & jenae) Thank you very much for your ideas. I tried to solve the problem by following your suggestions. However, the problem doesn’t seem to be related to this folder: the folder _C:\Windows\System32\spool\PRINTERS_ is empty on both computers. I included a screen shot to show you the results of running jenae’s commands from the command prompt.

So I guess a logical conclusion would be that the problem is in the NAS itself. I believe that what aciid suggests (Then logon to the NAS, and delete all the Jobs in the queue) would indeed solve the problem, but I just don’t succeed at doing this. The only way I know to approach the NAS, is by opening this ‘lp’-folder (that I mentioned in previous posts), but the queue of print jobs that appears after opening this folder (the screen shot in my last post) just seems impossible to delete.


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## aciid

*Re: Print queue won’t delete (and stopping the Print Spooler doesn’t help)*

Alright, atleast we got that out of the way then, it's definately the NAS that needs to be fixed. From what I've found about the Verbatim NAS line is that it should have a User Interface to install, to manage installations etc, possibly on a CD in the box, have you installed that software?


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## nicorutten

*Re: Print queue won’t delete (and stopping the Print Spooler doesn’t help)*

Verbatim indeed provided a cd with this NAS with some software (see the screen shot), but I don’t think their software will bring me much further in solving this print queue problem. As far as I know, the only way to access this NAS is by approaching //verbatimnas (which is in our case renamed to //ruttennas).

By the way, it’s already been four days ago since I mailed [email protected] and [email protected] with my request for help with my problem, but I haven’t received a single response. I think at least a message that they did receive my question would be nice. So much for technical support…


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## aciid

*Re: Print queue won’t delete (and stopping the Print Spooler doesn’t help)*

Alright, well there should be an application aswell, a userinterface to set it up properly. Most commonly via a webpage aswell.

I dropped the support an email myself, we'll see if they respond to me or not, i'll get back to you on that! Meanwhile i'm gonna do some research and see if I can find out anything else. I will get back to you as soon as I know more, hope thats fine!


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## nicorutten

*Re: Print queue won’t delete (and stopping the Print Spooler doesn’t help)*

It would be really great if you’d want to do that, as I still haven’t been able to solve the problem myself. I hope Verbatim support responds to your request and that there are still some alternative ways to tackle this problem.


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## aciid

*Re: Print queue won’t delete (and stopping the Print Spooler doesn’t help)*

Yea I emailed them, 1 week ago...Just got my reference number. Will post back when/if they reply.


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## aciid

*Re: Print queue won’t delete (and stopping the Print Spooler doesn’t help)*

So I finally got this reply, give it a shot:

There isn’t any way to restart or remove the print queue from the Web interface. You can set the drive back to default or use Telnet protocol.

It is possible to login to the NAS drive directly using the telnet command from a PC. Telnet must first be enabled by following the instructions in the attached document. 

Once you login to the NAS drive change to the queue directory: 

cd /var/spool/lpd/lp 

Check that you are in the correct directory by issuing the command 

pwd 

this should give the directory name: /var/spool/lpd/lp 

you can then remove the files here using: 
rm –f * 

Shutdown the NAS drive from the web interface. Wait a minute and power on again and everything should work.


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## nicorutten

*Re: Print queue won’t delete (and stopping the Print Spooler doesn’t help)*

@aciid) This morning I received the same e-mail. The stuck print jobs can indeed be removed by following their instructions (see the attachment for their howto-document). Unfortunately, the mere removal of these stuck print jobs doesn't appear to be the end of my print problem... because I still can't print: new print jobs simply lead to a new queue of stuck print jobs...


Here's the mail I've sent to Verbatim Euro Support:

To: [email protected]
CC: [email protected]
Subject: Option to reset the printing queue in the NAS software MHR110727-006
Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2011 16:04:50 +0200

Dear Verbatim Euro Support,

Thank you very much for responding to my request for help.
I followed the instructions you had provided. Even though
I believe it has gotten me one step closer to a solution,
it hasn't completely solved the problem.

What is absolutely great, is that your instructions indeed
caused the stuck print jobs to go away. It was certainly
a great relief to see that these print jobs that have been
stuck for months by now had finally disappeared. However,
sending a new job to the NAS-connected printer appears
to cause the same problem to start all over again: sending
new print jobs doesn't lead to jobs that actually get printed,
merely to a new print queue of stuck jobs...

Apparently, the solution you provided has indeed solved part
of the problem -the removal of stuck print jobs- but the core
of the problem seems to remain unsolved: whether there is
a queue of stuck print jobs or not, new print jobs do not end
up at the NAS-connected printer anyway. They just lead to
a new queue of stuck print jobs (see the screen shot).

Hopefully you also have a solution to this problem.

Kind regards, Nico Rutten


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## aciid

*Re: Print queue won’t delete (and stopping the Print Spooler doesn’t help)*

Alright, glad you can remove the jobs.
So, theres's definately a software issue either with the driver or the application that you're printing from.

Are you using a PCL or PS driver?
Could you try deleting all jobs and send a Test page?


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## nicorutten

*Re: Print queue won’t delete (and stopping the Print Spooler doesn’t help)*

@aciid) For a moment, the stuck print jobs really seemed to have disappeared, but unfortunately right now all those print jobs are back again. Indeed, I even seem to have two queues of stuck print jobs (see the attached screen shot). This has probably been caused by myself trying another way to solve this problem: resetting the router. As you can see this router reset resulted in both an ‘lp on 192.168.2.1’ and an ‘lp on RUTTENNAS’. These printers now both have their own stuck print queue. The strange thing is that the Telnet protocol doesn’t work anymore: following this protocol doesn’t lead to the removal of either of the two stuck print job queues.

You asked me whether I’m using a PCL or PS driver. As I’m not sure, I included a screen shot with my printer’s properties. Does the screen shot provide you with enough information to answer your question?


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## aciid

*Re: Print queue won’t delete (and stopping the Print Spooler doesn’t help)*

Do you know if the IP adress to the printer/NAS has changed? Or was it always this one? I would advise you to remove one of the instances from your computer.

As for the stuck print jobs, im curious as to what jobs you've been trying to send? The first one in the queue, what type of a document is it, what application was used?

As for the driver you're fine, nothing you need to do there.


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## nicorutten

*Re: Print queue won’t delete (and stopping the Print Spooler doesn’t help)*

The problem with the double stuck print job queues has been solved: I performed a system restore to two weeks ago and now I’m back to the situation with one stuck print job queue. I believe this problem indeed had something to do with a changed IP address. Now it’s back to what it was: 192.168.2.1. This is the IP address for the NAS.

The first document in the line of stuck print jobs is a Word-document. My wife attempted to print several pages from this docx-document. I remember she was sometimes confronted with credential conflicts between our own HomeGroup and her work’s SharePoint on which this document is located.


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## aciid

*Re: Print queue won’t delete (and stopping the Print Spooler doesn’t help)*

Alright. Because a lot of printservers will lock the printing queue if a faulty job appears. That job will then stop all other jobs, as you might've noticed by now.

This is most commonly due to a faulty driver and/or document containing characteristics not executable by the printer.

Are you now able to telnet into it and clear the queue again?
If so, could you do that please.

When you installed the printer to the NAS, did you upload the driver directly to that interface, or how did you install it?


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## nicorutten

*Re: Print queue won’t delete (and stopping the Print Spooler doesn’t help)*

@aciid) Finally, finally, finally, I managed to solve the problem! My NAS-connected printer actually prints again! Underneath this message an e-mail with the steps that resolved the issue. Thank you aciid, for all the support you provided. Kind regards, Nico Rutten



To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: Option to reset the printing queue in the NAS software MHR110727-006
Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2011 16:50:00 +0200


Dear Verbatim Technical Service Center,

Thank you for responding to my request for support. Today,
I’ve finally succeeded at solving the stuck print queue problem.
These are the steps I’ve taken that resolved the issue:



Copy all NAS-data to an external hard drive.
Log in as admin at //192.168.2.1 on the desktop.
_Advanced_ > _Maintenance_ > _Save Configuration_ > _Save_
Turn off the NAS-connected printer.
Delete the lp-printer on the laptop.
Delete the lp-driver on the laptop.
Turn off the laptop.
Delete the lp-printer on the desktop.
Delete the lp-driver on the desktop.
Log in as admin at //192.168.2.1 on the desktop.
_Advanced_ > _Maintenance_ > _Factory Reset_ > _Factory Reset_ >_ OK_
Log in as admin at //192.168.2.1 on the desktop.
_Advanced_ > _Maintenance_ > _Disk Utility_ > _File System Format_ (ext2) > _Format_ > _OK_
Log in as admin at //192.168.2.1 on the desktop.
In _Explorer_ double-click on VERBATIMNAS\lp.
After message about driver that cannot be found, choose _Canon Inkjet PIXMA iP4000_.
Turn on the NAS-connected printer.
_Advanced_ > _Maintenance_ > _Restore Configuration_ > (search for config.tar) _Restore_
Reboot the desktop computer.
Restore all NAS-data from the external hard drive.
 
Of course I’m happy with the fact that I can finally print again
as I was used to before the print jobs got stuck. However,
this sequence of steps can hardly be called a solution: as it
takes about a day to copy my NAS-data to an external hard
drive and another day to restore the data to the NAS again,
choosing this solution means moving files for several days.
I was actually hoping for a solution a little bit less elaborate.

Nevertheless, I’m glad everything works again as I was used to.

Kind regards, Nico Rutten



> Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2011 16:20:45 +0100
> Subject: Re: Option to reset the printing queue in the NAS software MHR110727-006
> From: [email protected]
> 
> Dear Customer, 
> 
> Thank you for this e-mail. 
> 
> 
> We advise you to:
> - disconnect Verbatim NAS drive from the network,
> - uninstall and re-install the Print drivers,
> - reset the NAS drive to it factory defaults,
> - !format the NAS drive (!Please note that formatting will delete all your files on the hard drive. Therefore we strongly recommend to copy the files 
> from your hard disk to your computer for safekeeping.)
> - connect the NAS drive to the network
> - setup the connection from the beginning
> 
> 2.) Please let us know what type of files you want to print (.doc; .pdf....)
> 
> Best Regards, 
> Verbatim Technical Service Center 
> 
> Dutec Limited
> Company Registered in Ireland No: 307480
> 
> Phone: +800 3883 2222 
> mailto: [email protected] 
> Web: Verbatim Europe - Data Storage, Computer & Imaging Consumables 
> Verbatim is a Mitsubishi Kagaku Media Company


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## aciid

*Re: Print queue won’t delete (and stopping the Print Spooler doesn’t help)*

Hi,

Glad you got it working again, seems like a time consuming solution, but as long as it works hehe  No worries at all, I wish you the best of luck with your Verbatim NAS in the future!


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