Windows 7 Print Spooler will not clear

After working for some time, I have run into problems with the Windows 7 print spooler as it will not print to my HP 8630 network printer.

The problem seems to be that the spooler will not clear the files after a file is printed. I go to manually clear the spooler by stopping it and trying to erase the file in the windows/system 32/spool/printer file- but there are several .tmp files which will not delete. There is an error message which says that they are currently is use by the "printfilterpipelinesvc.exe file". In order to a print a file, I have to stop the spooler and restart it. Also, the spooler does not delete the .tmp files until the system is rebooted.

I have reloaded the HP software, run the HP diagnostics, run the windows fixit, checked for corrupted files with scannow and cleared all malware.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Ken53 said:

After working for some time, I have run into problems with the Windows 7 print spooler as it will not print to my HP 8630 network printer.

The problem seems to be that the spooler will not clear the files after a file is printed. I go to manually clear the spooler by stopping it and trying to erase the file in the windows/system 32/spool/printer file- but there are several .tmp files which will not delete. There is an error message which says that they are currently is use by the "printfilterpipelinesvc.exe file". In order to a print a file, I have to stop the spooler and restart it. Also, the spooler does not delete the .tmp files until the system is rebooted.

I have reloaded the HP software, run the HP diagnostics, run the windows fixit, checked for corrupted files with scannow and cleared all malware.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Did you ever find a solution to this? I am experiencing the same issue with an HP Office Jet Pro 8730 except on Windows 10 Pro x64. If you issue was similar to mine you cannot just stop the print spooler and delete the queue from the c:\windows\system 32\spool\Printers folder because it will give the error saying that the file cannot be deleted because it is in use by printfilerpipelinesvc.exe. You have to stop that service under Task Manager and then it will let you delete it.

On mine the user is not an admin so everyday I have had to go up there and clear the queue for them. Then the issue just repeats the very next day. I have completely uninstalled the printer and reinstalled it, run the HP print/scan doctor tool, turned off selective usb suspend setting under power options thinking maybe it was just the printer usb connection getting suspended or something like that, went into the security tab on the printer and gave the user full rights to the printer, and still no change. Once I fix it the issue is gone until the next day when the cycle repeats.

Eviltechnosaru said:

Ken53 said:

After working for some time, I have run into problems with the Windows 7 print spooler as it will not print to my HP 8630 network printer.

The problem seems to be that the spooler will not clear the files after a file is printed. I go to manually clear the spooler by stopping it and trying to erase the file in the windows/system 32/spool/printer file- but there are several .tmp files which will not delete. There is an error message which says that they are currently is use by the "printfilterpipelinesvc.exe file". In order to a print a file, I have to stop the spooler and restart it. Also, the spooler does not delete the .tmp files until the system is rebooted.

I have reloaded the HP software, run the HP diagnostics, run the windows fixit, checked for corrupted files with scannow and cleared all malware.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Did you ever find a solution to this? I am experiencing the same issue with an HP Office Jet Pro 8730 except on Windows 10 Pro x64. If you issue was similar to mine you cannot just stop the print spooler and delete the queue from the c:\windows\system 32\spool\Printers folder because it will give the error saying that the file cannot be deleted because it is in use by printfilerpipelinesvc.exe. You have to stop that service under Task Manager and then it will let you delete it.

On mine the user is not an admin so everyday I have had to go up there and clear the queue for them. Then the issue just repeats the very next day. I have completely uninstalled the printer and reinstalled it, run the HP print/scan doctor tool, turned off selective usb suspend setting under power options thinking maybe it was just the printer usb connection getting suspended or something like that, went into the security tab on the printer and gave the user full rights to the printer, and still no change. Once I fix it the issue is gone until the next day when the cycle repeats.

No, I never was able to solve this problem.

I've run into this issue lately as well. I do not think it was a problem in various windows flavors that have been run against the hp printer I have had for years, but it is known to be a problem against server 2016 and windows 10, whether it's an issue with the drivers or the os.

I found that stopping and disabling the windows PrintNotify service resulted in these files being able to properly clean up. Possibly an inbound firewall rule on the pc's needs to be tweaked to allow some traffic from the printer, but I didn't bother to look into this further since this workaround isn't generating any undesired symptoms.

Hi there, this worked for me, once I ended the related process, I was able to clear the queue.
Will see if it keeps the queue clean now that I have deleted the files in the SPOOL\PRINTERS folder.

If you are not able to clear files from the c:\windows\system 32\spool\Printers folder then go to taskmanager first(win+r -- taskmgr) and end the task of printfilterpipelinesvc.exe file.
Now you are able to delete those file. Restart the spooler service or reboot PC.