Driver keeps crashing print spooler

[CentralPA]

Hi,

I have been having a nightmare with a print driver for the HP LaserJet Enterprise M605 PCL6 driver.  This started occuring last Tuesday (August 9th).  I had physically installed a new M605 printer and went to install the driver on the print server.  Using the disc that came with the printer I went on to Print Management and proceeded to install the driver and map the driver to an IP address.  I installed both x64 and x86 versions as we have a mix of 64-bit and 32-bit machiens on our network.  After that I had an employee try adding a printer and they kept on getting a "Printer could not be added" message.  I decided to check the server and when I attempted to open the properties for that printer I received nothing but exception errors and faults.  Then I notices the print spooler service stopped.  I attempted to restart the service but it just went back into a "stopped" state.

I did some Google searching and found that hpb6sy2917_x64gui.dll seems to be the culprit.  I deleted this .dll file and then rebooted the server.  After that the print spooler service start back up and everything was fine except the M605 driver was corrupt still and that network printer wouldn't print.  I kept receving a "The 'HP LaserJet M605 PCL 6' printer driver is not installed on this computer..." message.  Print Management asked that I reisntall the print driver.  I used the preloaded one of the Windows drivers list.  Pow, same crap happens all over again with the print spooler.

I decided to try the latest HP driver .msi installer.  That didn't work.  Tried the disc again.  Still keep getting exception errors.  Errors also now show for C:\Windows\system32\mmc.exe

This driver has compeltely f**ked up my print server!  Does anyone have any idea why this is happening?  Thank you!

[BrianESmith]

We recently saw the same thing, but it seems to have originated with a M606 driver.  The M604, M605, and M606 all use the same driver package, so that makes sense. 

To fix the issue, we did the following on the print server:

Delete any printers using the M604, M605, or M606 driver.

Use Print Management to remove the driver packages for the M604, M605, and M606 drivers. 

Re add the printers using the newest M604/M605/M606 driver package from HP. 

We also had issues on the client end.  They were behaving the same way as the print server. 

There was a more aggressive approach there, as not all clients were identical and some responded better than others. 

Stop the print spooler (it was stopped anyway)

Delete the contents of C:\Windows\System32\Spool\Pritners and C:\Windows\System32\Spool\Drivers

If possible, remove any instances of printers

In Regedit, remove listing for any installed printers under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Environments.  Check in all the keys.  Leave the built in stuff, like PDF printers, etc...

Do the same for HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Printers, though it’s not likely there will be anything there. 

We may by group policy, so delete Registry.pol from C:\Windows\System32\GroupPolicy\Machine and C:\Windows\System32\GroupPolicy\User if they exist. 

Remove all printer drivers using either PNPUtil.exe or Print Management. 

Repair the WMI. 

And just to top it all off, run SFC /SCANNOW, just in case. 

After a reboot, you should be able to add printers, using only the newest drivers from HP, or not. 

We tried a system restore on the troublemakers, and they all came back as unable to complete due to corruption.  At that point, it was easier to reimage the computer rather than try to fix it any further.

There is also a Microsoft FixIt that may help.  I didn't find it until we were pretty much through. 

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2793718

Hope this helps. 

---

Brian

[rasheddul]

Hi,

Please process the below instruction:

Please delete the all driver and printer's from your server if their only one printer:

C:\Windows\System32\spool\drivers

C:\Windows\System32\spool\PRINTERS

After that try to installed the driver from drive link (as your desire windows): Printer driver

Please download the full driver and try from different user with different windows.

If you require further assistance, let me know and I will gladly do all I can to help you.

****Click the White thumb to say thanks****
****Please mark Accept As Solution if it solves your problem****

Thanks,
Rashed

I am an engineer @ HP Partner

[CentralPA]

I'd rather not delete all the print drivers on the server, unless that wouldn't interefere with the shared network printer drivers.  Thank you both for the suggestions.  We may give this a try when there isn't any employees around.  I'll post back when I have done so.

[BrianESmith]

I only had to delete the HP M606, M605, and M604 drivers from the print server.  The clients were a different story, but they are not as tightly controlled as the server, so it sometimes took a hammer. 

Also, after fixing the issue on your print server, you may notice other printers give you an error message when you try to print to them or open their properties.  Error is:  The 'PRINTER NAME' printer driver is not installed on this computer.  Some printer properties will not be accessible unless you install the printer driver.  Do you want to install the driver now? 

Most of the time, you can click ‘Yes’ and run through the driver install wizard and it will find the driver you were already using and you can re install it. 

For some printers, you may have the error pop up over and over.  In those cases, we were just deleting the printer instance and recreating it. 

---

Brian

[rasheddul]

Hi,

Thanks for your mail.

Could you please share the error screen message. So that it can help us to quickly support to you.

Thanks,
Rashed

I am not an employee of HP, I am a volunteer posting here on my own time.

If your problem is solved please click the "Accept as Solution" button

If my answer was helpful please click the "Thumbs Up" to say "Thank You"

[CentralPA]

Thank you again for the extra tidbit Brian.  I'll keep all of that in mind when I get a chance to attempt this again.

Rashed, I will try and get you error msgs when I attempt some of the recommendations.  This might not occur until next week as I am the only IT support on call for the moment and have other numerous fires to put out.  Thank you both again for your help.  I'll post back results early next week sometime.

[ccregor]

I found a way to fix this issue without going through all that humbug 🙂

Goto Appdata\local\hp

You will see an m605 folder

In that folder you will see files under those. These appear to be preferenc files for the printer.

Remove the printer from windows.

Delete these files, including the m605 folder.

Add back the printer and your good. Up until you do anything with preferences again.

You can also use pnputil to completely remove the print driver and add back if you want to be even more complete.