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Andreas GieryicFlag for United States of America

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Windows 10 workstation and its network printers go off-line

  • I have a network with 4 Windows 10 workstations and a Windows server 2016. There is an HP LaserJet Pro P 4015 printer and a lease Minolta Konica copier on the network both configured TCP/IP to the workstation. Three of the workstation's have no issues printing to both printers. One of the Windows 10 workstations recently is experiencing both the printer and copier going off-line. 
  • Uninstalled and Reinstalled the HP Print driver. Stopped and restarted the print spooler service. The printer came online. Printed successfully
  • After stopping and restarting the copier print spooler, it also came online
  • After The end-user tested a few print jobs, the HP LaserJet printer went off-line again. Stopped and restarted spooler, it was back online. 
  • Rebooting the workstation makes no difference. 
  • As stated above, this is just an issue with one of the workstation's
  • the problematic workstation has no issue accessing any data on the intranet (server) or the Internet
  • the quick fix for now is that I placed a shortcut for "services.msc" onto the desktop and show the user how to stop and restart the print spooler service

Any feedback would be appreciated
Avatar of Hello There
Hello There

Try to clear a DNS cache.
Powershell> Clear-DnsClientCache

Open in new window

I'm assuming that the problematic workstation is printing directly to the printers and not through a server share.

How is the port configured on the workstation for the printers?  Does it point to the IP address of the printers or to one of the discovery services?  I've had plenty of problems with the discovery services (will work for months, then not) so I generally set network printers up with static IPs (or DHCP with a reservation) and then have workstations (or the server and share from there) print to the IP address.  

Have you checked Event Viewer for the workstation to see if there is anything useful there?

Avatar of Andreas Gieryic

ASKER

Yes, all the PCs are printing directly to the printer and not through a print server from the server.
Both the printer and the copier have a statically assigned IP address.
I'll take another quick look at the event logs.

Have not tried the PowerShell commands yet

"Both the printer and the copier have a statically assigned IP address. "
Is the workstation printing to the IP address or to a discovery service?
They are both printing to a statically assigned IP address, not a discovery service.
Later today it appears that only the HP laser printer is going off-line in the copier seems to be okay. I'll confirm tomorrow morning when the office opens
I just went through my emails and found another client is having the same identical issue. They don't know how to restart the print spooler so  They end up restarting their PC. After restarting their PC they can print a few documents and then the printer goes back off-line again identical to the issue above. In this scenario to of the four users are having this problem.
- I'm wondering if it's a Windows 10 update. 
Check for updated printer drivers.
I'm using the latest universal printer driver.
Interestingly, I created a WSD discovery port (The default installation creates this) and it appears to be working. I see the same related issue at another office. I will follow up ASAP today
I am finding now Monday morning that this seems to be an epidemic. I've received for support calls from different clients having the same identical issues. I have not found the resolution. This may have something do with a recent Windows 10 update however, I don't show any updates over the weekend
this is a growing issue. I'm receiving more calls from clients running Windows 10.
I've not been able to find a resolution
- the quick temporary fix is to restart the print spooler
- into of the other cases, I've been able to download and install a newer universal driver. For these two, it's been two days and they have not had the issue return
- to answer one of the questions mentioned above, it did not matter whether it with using a WSD discovery driver or a statically assigned IP address
I'm not sure how this actually works. Do I need to close this ticket and trying to resubmit the same question?

This is definitely a global issue. I've received more calls from other clients having the same printer goes off-line issue. One of them told me that they recall a Microsoft update the night before. This is really odd that there is no answer for this issue other than reinstalling the printer driver which only works 25% of the time.

I guess if I don't get any more feedback I'll just close this ticket open ticket of Microsoft. I don't feel optimistic calling Microsoft
Several admins reported this problem in other discussions. There is nothing much you can do. If a Windows update is causing this, you can either uninstall this update from the affected computers or wait for a fix. As a temp solution, create a batch file that restarts the Print Spooler service and place it on the user Desktop so the user just double-clicks this batch.

To prevent other computers from getting into the same problem, you can pause updates on Windows 10 or completely stop the October update.

This guy fixed it. You can test his solution if it works for you.
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/print-spooler-fails-after-win10-pushed-updates/10477721-904f-417f-a43d-2a4c5d32907e?auth=1
I find it so hard to believe that Microsoft has not published any notification, alerts or related posts with reference to the latest influx of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of users, running Windows 10 professional experiencing off-line printers. I get to three calls every single day for the last two weeks. And for the first time, in my 20 years experience, I can't fix the issue permanently. I have a call in the Microsoft waiting for a callback. This is the second case I opened with Microsoft and have not received a call back or an email. I'm sure they are swamped with these related calls and now dealing with pandemic issues.

Look at the article provided and several of the PCs having this issue don't have the same updates as mentioned in the article. Trying to find time to keep digging into this.
Thanks for all the help so far
 

I followed up with Microsoft again today. They are searching their databases but claim that no one has contacted them with this issue. I received another call from another client having the same issue

The quick fix is providing a shortcut to allow restarting the print spooler service.
I'm hoping to get more feedback on this issue
At the time the author posted the question, there was no solution for this, just a workaround that was suggested in this post (https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/29198580/Windows-10-workstation-and-its-network-printers-go-off-line.html#a43188689 ) and it should be marked as a solution. (the author eventually ended up with this solution)
I apologize for not getting back to this post.
I want to let everyone know that I believe I found a permanent fix - at least it's been a permanent fix for every computer I worked on that had this issue. 

- Under printer properties,
- select the printer
- click on the "ports" tab
- select "configure port"
- uncheck the "SNMP" box
Please note that this works for all printers set using tcpip port and not a discovery port
I see that the administration requested that this post is closed. I think my findings are a very important fix because I know there are hundreds of hits on the Internet with the same issue after an update that was ruled out by Microsoft in October 2020.
If you feel I should create a new post and provide the fix, let me know. Would love to help make sure others get my resolution
I apologize for my grammatical error above.

. . . .same issue after an update that was ruled out by Microsoft in October 2020. 
I meant "rolled out" and no "ruled out"
I'm not sure how to address this. This question still shows as an open question.
I don't know how to close it. I've already provided a fix. I'll try again to select the option "I found my own solution"
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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Andreas Gieryic
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