When printing a document in BP / subsequent print jobs do not work (hang in print queue / crash Spooler), but restarting the Print Spooler service temporarily relieves the issue

When printing a document in BP / subsequent print jobs do not work (hang in print queue / crash Spooler), but restarting the Print Spooler service temporarily relieves the issue

Note that the Print Spooler service must be running normally before we run ADPlus in order to capture the crash dump

To find further answers why the Printer Spooler is crashing / hanging please follow steps below

1. Copy the attached zip file (ADPlusXcopy.zip) to the target machine.

2. Extract the contents to a temporary directory and browse to it.

   Crashes and hangs are treated differently. To capture a future crash:

3. Ensure the Print Spooler service is currently running normally.

4. Run "adplus-crash-spoolsv.bat" as an Administrator to start monitoring the Print Spooler process.

5. Click "OK" to close the "Windows Scripting Host" dialog box that appears.

6. Do not close the "cdb.exe" console windows that also appears in the taskbar; this will stay open until the crash occurs.

7. Print a document or follow the steps required to induce the Print Spooler crash.

8. Wait for the "cdb.exe" console window to close; only then will ADPlus have finished capturing the crash dump.

9. Archive all subdirectories and forward to Pharos Systems for analysis.

   To capture a hang dump we want to induce the hanging behaviour before running ADPlus:

10. Print a document or follow the steps required to induce the Print Spooler hang.

11. Run "adplus-hang-spoolsv.bat" as an Administrator to immediately freeze the Print Spooler process and initiate a hang dump.

12. Click "OK" to close the "Windows Scripting Host" dialog box that appears.

13. Do not close the "cdb.exe" console windows that also appears in the taskbar.

14. Wait for the "cdb.exe" console window to close; only then will ADPlus have finished capturing the hang dump.

15. Archive all subdirectories and forward to Pharos Systems for analysis.

This is the quick & dirty approach that should be sufficient for most cases. It does not require any software to be installed; only a minimal set of the ADPlus script and support files need to be copied and can be deleted afterwards. ADPlus is part of the Debugging Tools for Windows (http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/debugging/default.mspx) which can be installed with a full msi package for more thorough debugging and analysis tools, like WinDbg, if the quick & dirty approach does not work. See 'How to use ADPlus to troubleshoot "hangs" and "crashes"' (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/286350) for more background information.