Print spooler service does not restart

Question

I have a windows server 2003 with a few printers, and once in a while the Print Spooler service crashes with this message in the event viewer: Faulting application spoolsv.exe, version 5.2.3790.0, faulting module ZSR.DLL, version 6.20.1625.0, fault address 0x0001f979. Obviously it would be nice to prevent this entirely, but until then, I would like it restart automatically. I have set it to "Restart the Service" on the First/Second/Subsequent Failures on the Properties/Recovery tab, but it does not restart. I can manually start it, and then it works fine. How could I set it to restart automatically?

Solution 1

You could schedule a task to run at regular intervals

net stop spooler
net start spooler

However the root of the problem coud be a corrupt print driver. Try clearing out all of the print drivers after deleting the printers. Download updated drivers and add the printers again.

Solution 2

Problem seems to be with an HP 1020 laser printer, and to me that comes as no surprise. These 1020's really are terrible when used with print servers as they are very budget Windows Host based printers and the drivers written for them by HP are just not up to scratch.

We've tended to stop our employees buying them, instead asking them to go for the bottom of the line HP that has a proper ethernet card in it. The 1020's are ok for use at home, but not in the business enviroment.

You'll find lengthy discussions on spooler crashes, DLL issues, and conflicts with DEP on the web to do with these printers, such as on the HP forum.

But my suggestion would be to save the time on troubleshooting, bin it, and get something decent in.

Solution 3

I would try to clean up the printer driver(s). Try to uninstall the printer driver and reinstall the latest one from the vendor.

A nice page for troubleshouting printer drivers can be found here: How to clean up printer drivers.

Comments

[Balázs Pozsár]

Actually it's a HP LaserJat 1018 :) I cannot replace it at the moment. Thanks for the link.

[Balázs Pozsár]

Thanks for the link, you saved my day! :) Your answer was a solution to my problem, but not my question :) That's why I tagged an other one as accepted.