HP Color LaserJet M452dw hung by PCL errors loop

[jsilva69]

Hi!
First of all, sorry for my English!

We have a problem with the office's HP Color LaserJet M452dw. Somebody sent a A3 document to print, and now the printer is hung in a loop; repeatdly is printing a blank paper whit the legend "PCL Error xxxx", and nobody can print. I unplugged the printer several times, and there is no solution. The PCs print queue are empty, an the printer jobs queue are emty too. I don't know how to "kill" the failed printing.

Thank you!

[John_Getzke · Accepted solution]

> "PCL Error xxxx"

These errors are triggered by the PCL6 driver that you are using to send the print job to the printer.  To work around the PCL.XL error you need to either reformat your print job where the error is occuring or switch to a non-PCL6 print driver like PostScript or PCL5.

Considering you already powered off the printer the memory on the printer should be clean and clear.  The print job is likely coming from somewhere else on your network.  To verify you can disconnect the USB and network cables, then reboot the printer. Make sure the printer can fully boot and returns to the Ready Screen.  Then plug the connections back in one at a time to verify the incoming jobs from that connection.

The bad news is that if you are recieving jobs from a network connection without using a print server then you need to manually track down where the job is coming from and stop it.  Print servers make this task easier but the process is generally the same.

If you are out of ideas the best way to see the incoming print job is with the assistance of a network administrator and/or a network packet tracing tool like WireShark.  Monitor the port that the printer is connected to and then observe the incoming IP addresses.  Trace the IP addresses back to the corresponding machines and start shutting down print jobs as necessary.

If for some reason your printer continues to print documents after it is disconnected from USB and Network then you will have to perform a Cold Reset to purge the printers memory.

Good luck

[jsilva69]

OK, I disabled wifi connection, unplugged LAN cable, unplugged power cord (in this order).
Next, plugged power cord again, and the printer booted up. No printing jobs.
So, some PC is sending the failed printer job. Now I have to find it!
Thanks!