Empty Printer Folder + Unable to Print

NIS 21.1.0.18

Win 8 SL 64bit

 

I'm writing this to report a solved problem with NIS, and for informative purposes should someone run into the same problem...

 

Today, all of a sudden, I couldn't print anything from Word 2013.  The print dialog hanged, then Word hanged.  I restarted Word, tried to export to pdf and hanged too.

 

I have Classic Start Menu installed, so I opened up Printer folder via Settings.  It was empty!

 

I opened up Devices & Printers, everything was listed, BUT I saw a deleted printer listed.  Removing the ghost printer hanged the D&P window.

 

I rebooted computer.  Still the same issues.  Googling brought me to this site below:

http://www.eightforums.com/drivers-hardware/15988-empty-printers-folder.html

 

So I disabled smart firewall & auto-protect, and everything returned to normal.  Maybe one of NIS' components was suppressing the print spooler?

 

I haven't run any windows update recently, and I'm still on the Oct 2013 NIS 21.1.0.18, so I don't know what triggered this problem.

 

Thanks!

Hi Dick,

 

I know it's a bad idea, I only disabled them temporarily.

 

Today the issue came up again.  This time disabling NIS didn't help.  I had to restart the spooler via services.msc while having NIS disabled (temporarily).

 

The issue happened when I was about to print to pdf on Firefox 27.0.1.

 

Is there any spooler error log or something which I can have a look at?

 

The NIS history only showed spool activity after I restarted the spool service.  Strangely it didn't show any spool instance a few days ago.

 

Spooler Subsystem App is allowed under NIS' program rules...

 spool.jpg

Hi, cilixz.

 

Just curious.  Did this problem pop up after you installed the latest Microsoft updates (assuming you have done that)?

Did you try to add spoolsv.exe to exception manually in firewall Access Rules?

Hello

 

Did you try reinstalling the printer drivers to make sure you have the latest printer drivers?

Hi all, sorry for late reply...

1. No, in my first post I stated no recent update.
2. I didn't try to add it manually, because supposedly NIS should be friendly with it by default?
3. I've checked them to be latest, sitting on the fence whether to reinstall all, bit of hassle...

 

I did receive a nasty error when I was trying to shutdown later on when the 2nd incident occurred, which seemed to imply a problem with NIS?


Untitled-1.png

I think I'll wait it out and see if this issue pops up again or disappear on its own...  Will check in here again if it does return...


cilixz wrote:

Hi all, sorry for late reply...

1. No, in my first post I stated no recent update.
2. I didn't try to add it manually, because supposedly NIS should be friendly with it by default?
3. I've checked them to be latest, sitting on the fence whether to reinstall all, bit of hassle...

 

I did receive a nasty error when I was trying to shutdown later on when the 2nd incident occurred, which seemed to imply a problem with NIS?


Untitled-1.png

I think I'll wait it out and see if this issue pops up again or disappear on its own...  Will check in here again if it does return...


If you have only seen this error on shut down one time, and it does not come back, it does not necessarily indicate a problem with NIS itself. It could be some way in which the Windows Memory management got confused during the shut down.

 

I have seen this error over the years for different programs. As long as it does not repeat, there should not be a problem.

 

What OS are you using?

 

 

 

NIS 21.1.0.18

Win 8 SL 64bit

 

I'm writing this to report a solved problem with NIS, and for informative purposes should someone run into the same problem...

 

Today, all of a sudden, I couldn't print anything from Word 2013.  The print dialog hanged, then Word hanged.  I restarted Word, tried to export to pdf and hanged too.

 

I have Classic Start Menu installed, so I opened up Printer folder via Settings.  It was empty!

 

I opened up Devices & Printers, everything was listed, BUT I saw a deleted printer listed.  Removing the ghost printer hanged the D&P window.

 

I rebooted computer.  Still the same issues.  Googling brought me to this site below:

http://www.eightforums.com/drivers-hardware/15988-empty-printers-folder.html

 

So I disabled smart firewall & auto-protect, and everything returned to normal.  Maybe one of NIS' components was suppressing the print spooler?

 

I haven't run any windows update recently, and I'm still on the Oct 2013 NIS 21.1.0.18, so I don't know what triggered this problem.

 

Thanks!