print spool service stops

[amyb]

I have a client (XP Home Edition-Dell Inspiron), which can't connect (USB) to his local HP laserjet 1020). It did work before. Now the print spooler keeps stopping and can't add the printer. Please advise.

[CeeBee]

Weird enough, the same happens on my wife's PC with a LJ 1022. The thing started about 1-2 weeks ago (or that's when she noticed it). Looks like restarting the spool service does the trick and the printer appears, set it to auto restart on failure as a quick work-around, but I didn't have the chance to look into it as we're way too busy moving to a new house. I might give it a shot today or tomorrow. The only different thing in our config is that the printer is connected to a print server. My computer doesn't have any issues with the same printer though.

[CeeBee]

One more thing, the latest driver on the HP website is fuked up, spent some time with the HP support when I set it on the server, the procedure to install they suggested was:
-install the driver normally
-delete the printer
-create a new printer using the universal LJ5 driver, on the same port
-test and make sure it is working (may take some 30 sec to print)
-switch the driver from LJ5 to LJ102x in printer config

[amyb]

It prints fine in Word etc. However, in Quickbooks that is when things go awry. I just had them print to a network printer since the HP printer can't handle the document.

[CeeBee]

Switch to the LJ5 driver as a work-around then

[slgrieb]

If the printing problem only shows up in Quickbooks, then you have a Quickbooks bug. Like that's unusual! You may find that one of the Quickbooks updates may resolve this, or you might have to wait for the next version before it's fixed. I wouldn't waste my money on Quickbooks support, but their user forum is a very good resource.

[amyb]

Yes, it only happens in Quickbooks. That is interesting. Thanks!

[amyb]

Also, what we did was switch out printers. That worked.

[slgrieb]

Intuit has a long history of printer glitches effecting the odd printer here and there. The bugs just seem to appear with random versions and random equipment. I was bitten a few years ago when Quickbooks wouldn't print to my shiny new Tecktronix Phaser, but worked with my LJ4 just fine. I've also gone through it with customers, most recently after one just "upgraded" to Quickbooks Point of Sale Pro 7.0. Her Zebra tag printer will no longer line up bar codes and item descriptions correctly.

Also after installing the "upgrade" the system reverted to assigning previously used inventory numbers to new items. Had to manually set the correct item numbers, and then tell POS to use them sequentially in a totally different menu. Just can't wait to see what happens next.