Windows shows "Error - Printing" next to the job

What causes it

• The printer lost its network connection or changed IP address mid-job
• A document is too large or complex for the printer's memory
• The driver and the printer's page description language do not match
• A stuck job at the head of the queue is blocking everything behind it
• A USB cable or hub is dropping the connection intermittently

How to fix it, in order

Work down the list and stop when the printer recovers. The steps are ordered from most likely and least invasive to last resort.

1. Cancel the failed job and try a simple one

   Open Settings › Bluetooth & devices › Printers & scanners, click the printer, choose Open print queue, and cancel the document showing the error. Then print a single page of plain text from Notepad. If that succeeds, the original document is the problem rather than the printer.

2. Clear the queue at service level if cancel does nothing

   Press Windows+R, type services.msc, press Enter and stop Print Spooler. Delete everything in C:\Windows\System32\spool\PRINTERS, then start the service. A job that will not cancel from the queue window always clears this way.

3. Verify the printer's address still matches the port

   Print a network configuration page from the printer's panel and compare the IPv4 address with the one under Printer properties › Ports › Configure Port. If they differ, the printer moved to a new DHCP address and Windows is sending jobs into a void. Update the port and reserve the address in your router.

4. Print as an image to sidestep complex content

   In the application's print dialog choose Printer properties or Advanced and look for Print as image, or reduce the print quality to a lower dpi. Heavy PDFs with transparency or huge images regularly exhaust printer memory, and rasterising them locally avoids that.

5. Switch the spool setting

   Open Printer properties › Advanced and select Start printing after last page is spooled rather than immediately. This gives Windows time to build the whole job before the printer starts consuming it, which stops timeouts on slow links.

6. Turn off bidirectional support as a test

   In Printer properties › Ports, clear Enable bidirectional support and try again. Some drivers misinterpret status replies from the printer and abort the job. If this fixes it, leave it off or update the driver.

7. Reinstall the driver

   Remove the printer in Settings, remove its driver package from printmanagement.msc › Print Servers › your computer › Drivers, restart, then install the current driver from the manufacturer. Persistent per-job failures with no network problem usually trace back to the driver.

8. Test the same document from another device

   Send the file from a phone or a second computer. If it prints there, the printer and file are fine and the fault is local to this PC's queue and driver, which narrows the work considerably.

Frequently asked questions