all of my printers are not connected

Question

i have windows 11. i was trying to print to pdf when all of my printers including print to pdf started saying "not connected". i also get the warning " the local print spooler service is not running please restart the spooler or restart the machine". i have tried to restart the spooler but that does not work.

Answer 1

Hi Grace,

Thanks for posting your question here. This is because the Windows Print Spooler service is broken or unable to start that is why you're getting the error message "not connected".

Please try force‑stop the Print Spooler and clear stuck print jobs:

1. Press Win + R
2. Type: services.msc
3. Find Print Spooler
4. Right‑click → Stop
   • If it’s already stopped, that’s fine

Now clear the spooler queue:

1. Press Win + R
2. Paste: C:\Windows\System32\spool\PRINTERS
3. Delete everything inside this folder
   • (Not the folder itself, just the files inside)
   This removes corrupted print jobs that commonly crash the spooler.

Also, can you confirm the following:

1. Does Print Spooler fail immediately, or does it start and then stop again?
2. Did this happen right after installing/updating printer software?

Thanks,

Jobelle C.