Outlook 365 crashing when printing emails | Resolution: Fix Broken Signature

Question

A fully up to date version of Outlook 365 on a fully up to date version of Windows 21H2 is crashing every time a user attempts to print an email.

This occurs with multiple users, as well as the same user on completely different devices.

Troubleshooting attempted so far:

removed printers and added back -> crashed
change default printer -> crashed
Close outlook, restart print spooler -> crashed
delete outprint file in roaming app data -> crashed
start outlook in safe mode -> crashed
Repair office installation - online repair -> crashed
Deleted entire outlook folder in AppData, started in safemode - printing option worked one time only
Started in regular mode after adding printers -> crashed
started in safemode after adding printer -> crashed
removed printers - started in safe mode -> crashed
Deleted outlook folder in app data, started in safemode -> crashed
Disabled all add-ins - printing option worked one time only
Deleted Outlook profile and recreated profile -> crashed
Had user sign into a fresh desktop on a different machine and sign into outlook app. Attempted to print an email -> crashed

It would appear that after occasional changes, it will work once, and crash again

Attempted steps from these articles to no avail:
https://www.guidingtech.com/top-ways-to-fix-outlook-not-responding-when-trying-to-print/
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook_com/forum/all/outlook-crashes-when-printing/433949b6-4ff2-4c09-9743-12fb7eb402a0

We are currently running more tests on a machine that proved to have issues but a different account in hopes of isolating the cause of the issue.
Potential causes:

• Windows 10
• Failed or Corrupted windows update
• Office 365
• Outlook 365
• Print Server
• Printer Drivers

====================================

Update

All the computers that are having issues have the office 365 update 15330.20246 or later (15330.20264)

It would seem that this recent office updates have broken printing emails.

However, the most recent update today 15330.20266 seems to be resolving the issue on one of our machines. We are testing to verify if it resolves all of them.

Answer 1

Hi @A Childs ,
In order to further confirm your issue, could you print normally on other office client(such as Word and Excel)? If the issue only occurred when you print email on Outlook, did it occurred on any specific emails only? And could it be reproduced if you print a blank email?
If you could print the blank emails normally on your Outlook, the issue may be related to any specific messages, based on my research, I found a similar thread, which mentioned outlook may crash when you try to print a message with corrupted signature, it's suggested to check if it's also your case.(Please Note: Since the web site is not hosted by Microsoft, the link may change without notice. Microsoft does not guarantee the accuracy of this information.)

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Answer 2

8 months later, and I find your thread. We are having the same problem. We've tried the same things you've tried. We've settled on a similar work around- saving the email to an HTML file, and printing that.

Reminds me of XKCD #979.

Who were you A Childs?

WHAT DID YOU SEE!

Answer 3

We had hoped that updating to 15330.20266 released today would resolve the issue permanently. It does not. The issue still persists intermittently and Outlook misbehaves when trying to print. It appeared to temporarily resolve this issue for a short while on a few machines, but it was inconsistent. Further testing still comes up empty with regards to a fix.

Removing all installed printers will prevent outlook from freezing when you navigate to the print screen, but adding any printer back (print to PDF, network printer, local printer) will cause it to freeze again and stop working.

Answer 4

Systematic testing has revealed a few more details, though no resolution:

Using a machine that has shown the issue on another user account, we were able to replicate the issue.
However, rather than forcing outlook to close, waiting a full 3 minutes while outlook was "not responding" finally allowed the print screen to appear. However, after attempting to select a print option from the drop down menu, it went back into "Not Responding" again for indefinite periods of time. This is true when trying to print to PDF, a printer on the network, or a printer attached directly via USB. This would occur repeatedly, where Outlook freezes after each instance of trying to select any print method on the machine. Using a stopwatch each time revealed that the timeout period is just over 3 minutes before you can attempt to change the print option again. After clicking the print button, it freezes again.

After about 5 iterations of this, I finally was able to get an error message from outlook, which then closed email I was testing with.

We were able to print to PDF once successfully, though had to wait a little over 3 minutes for the initial "not responding" error to clear, though no settings were changed from previous attempts.

We used Microsoft SARA while the issue was occurring in hopes of getting advanced diagnostics about the issue.

Removed network printer.
SARA disabled hardware acceleration, attempted to print an email, on print page -> outlook froze: 03:04.71
SARA reopened outlook, attempted to print again -> outlook froze: 03:03.81
Clicked on print button (print to pdf) -> outlook froze and displayed error message: 05:03.68

SARA reopened in safe mode, attempted to print, on print page -> outlook froze: 03:12.67
clicked on print button (print to pdf) -> outlook froze 03.18.03
Outlook provided option to save file as PDF -> outlook froze, but finally printed: 02:00.17

SARA resets settings and checks anitvirus: checks pass
SARA creates new outlook profile, attempted to print, on print page -> outlook froze: 03:05.68
Clicked on print button and was able to print

SARA initiates restart. Attempted to print, on print page -> outlook froze: 03:05.64
clicked on print button and was able to print

given enough patience, one can print intermittently, but this is clearly not how the program is meant to function. It should be almost instantaneous based on other machines without this issue.

Answer 5

We have been able to find the following workaround, though it is not a permanent solution.

1. Double click email to open it in a separate window
2. Select "File >> Save As" and save the email as Outlook Message Format - Unicode (the default option)
3. Navigate to the location of the saved email in File Explorer and double click to open
4. In the new window, select "File >> Print". You are now able to print the email without errors.

It does does not explain why Outlook is crashing when trying to print from the main application window, but it is a temporary fix while we continue to find the cause and resolve the issue.