need help with my printer

Question

My spooling just spools and will not print. Windows 11 and Canon printer (new)

Answer 1

Hi Pat,

Thanks for reaching out to the Microsoft community and for sharing the details about your printer issue. If your Canon printer is stuck on “Spooling,” it usually means the Windows 11 Print Spooler service or the printer driver isn’t working properly. This often happens after updates or when setting up a new printer.

To help troubleshoot, could you tell me if the printer shows any activity when the job is stuck—like warming up or displaying a status message? Does the job eventually disappear from the queue or stay there indefinitely? This will help us figure out whether the problem is with the Print Spooler, the Canon driver, or the printer itself. Also, have you recently installed any Windows or Canon driver updates? And have you tried restarting the Print Spooler service or clearing the print queue?

In the meantime, here are a few steps you can try. First, restart the Print Spooler: press Windows + R, type services.msc, and hit Enter. Find Print Spooler, right-click it, and select Restart. If that doesn’t work, stop the service, clear the spool folder, and then restart it. To clear the folder, go to C:\Windows\System32\spool\PRINTERS and delete all files inside, then start the Print Spooler again.

You can also clear the print queue by going to Settings > Bluetooth & devices > Printers & scanners, selecting your Canon printer, opening the queue, and canceling all jobs.

Lastly, run the Windows Printer Troubleshooter under Settings > System > Troubleshoot > Other troubleshooters > Printer and let Windows detect and fix any issues automatically.

Hope this helps! Let me know how it goes.

Kind regards,

Edward

Answer 2

how can I talk to a human being?

Answer 3

If your printer is stuck in the spooling state and not printing, you can try the following troubleshooting steps:

1. Restart the Print Spooler Service:
   • Open the Services application, find Print Spooler, right-click it, and select Restart.
   • Alternatively, you can use Command Prompt or PowerShell to restart the service:
     • Command Prompt: Run as administrator and execute:

              net stop spooler
              net start spooler
       

     • PowerShell: Run as administrator and execute:

              Restart-Service -Name spooler
       

2. Check the Printer Queue Status:
   • Stop the Print Spooler service, navigate to C:\Windows\System32\spool\PRINTERS, and delete any files in this folder that may be stuck print jobs. Then restart the Print Spooler service.
3. Update Printer Drivers:
   • Ensure that your Canon printer drivers are up to date. Visit the Canon website for the latest drivers compatible with Windows 11.
4. Check for Conflicts:
   • Make sure that no antivirus software is interfering with the Print Spooler service. Sometimes antivirus programs can block or slow down printing tasks.
5. Verify Printer Settings:
   • Ensure that the correct printer is set as the default printer and that it is in a ready state.

If these steps do not resolve the issue, consider checking for any system instability or resource issues that may affect the Print Spooler service.

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References:

• Printer isn't responding
• Troubleshoot printing issues caused by Print Spooler service not running