How to stop "ghost" printing...

Montana Andy · 09 Nov 2021

Hello from a first time poster. Several months ago, I downloaded a manual for a car stereo I was installing, and printed it out on an HP printer. I then deleted the file containing the manual. That printer broke, and was removed from my system, and all of its software deleted (I use Revo Uninstall). I purchased and installed a Brother MFC-J4335DW printer and its software. All was well, and I did, perhaps, 50 print jobs that came out perfectly.
Recently, however, everytime I print something, a page from the pesky stereo manual is printed along with whatever else I'm currently printing. The Ghost of that manual is printed a page at a time, in the upper left corner of the full page (about 2" x 5") and is visible "under" whatever current job I'm printing. I have cleared the printer cache and checked the queue empty. I have searched for any remaining file of the manual with no success. I have un-installed and re-installed the printer software and Adobe DC to no avail. Anyone got ideas of what might be causing this and/or how to resolve the problem?
Thanks in advance for your input!
Andy

samuria · 09 Nov 2021

Are you using print spooler if so stop it and print direct it could be in the spooler.
On a Windows PC, clear the print spooler to clean out your queue. You may have to perform these steps both on the host and your client computers.

Tip: If you have LogMeIn Antivirus installed on your host, you may have to disable the firewall on the host to make remote printing work. See Creating a Policy for LogMeIn Antivirus powered by Bitdefender.

Important: You must have administrator rights on the host computer to clear the print queue.

On the host, open the Run window by pressing the Windows logo key + R.
In the Run window, type services.msc The Services window is displayed.
Scroll down to Print Spooler.
Right click Print Spooler and select Stop.
Navigate to C:\Windows\System32\spool\PRINTERS and delete all files in the folder.
In the Services window, restart the Print Spooler service by clicking Start in the left pane when Print Spooler is highlighted.

The print spooler queue is now cleared. Print the file again.

Montana Andy · 11 Nov 2021

Thank You very much for that answer and the clear instructions. I have printed a couple of small runs since clearing following your instructions and the problem has gone away!