Problem printing to shared printers

[TGregoire]

In one segment of our network we have three PCs all running Win 7 Pro 64, and two dot-matrix printers.
Printer 1 is connected to PC 1 via USB.
Printer 2 is connected to PC 2 via USB.
No printers physically connected to PC 3.
Both printers are shared on the network.
All three PCs can see and connect to both printers.

PC 1 can print to both printers. The other two can not print to either one.
When attempting to print from the other two PCs, the print job appears in the queue for a few seconds and then clears - just as if it had printed - but nothing happens. No error reported.

There are other printers on this network that all three PCs can print to just fine.

This is a recent development. Until today they all worked. The only thing that has changed is that we had a power outage for a few seconds that occurred here around 5AM this morning.

I have rebooted the PCs. I have turned the printers off and then back on again. I have stopped and then restarted the print spooler services. I have removed and then re-established links to the shared printers. Nothing changed.

Any ideas would be much appreciated.

 

[TGregoire]

Correction - there are errors in the print service log:

Error code 3012 No Printers Found.

How can that be? The PC can find it when I initially connect to the printer, but not when I try to print.

 

[mrjimphelps]

On each of the computers that you can't print from, do the following:

• Uninstall the printer driver, then reboot the computer.
• Add the printer as a local printer, not a network printer. This involves creating a printer port, and then putting the printer's IP address or other network-identifiable information for the printer into the local printer profile for that printer that you just created.

If you don't have any identifiable network information, uninstall the printer, reboot, then reinstall the printer using the software which came with the printer.

 

[TGregoire]

Thanks for the reply.

Tried that - didn't help.

The strange thing is with PC 2. I uninstalled the drivers for both printers and rebooted. On startup, Windows found and installed the driver for printer 2 - since it is connected via USB - but I still cannot print to it. PC 1 will print to it, but PCs 2 & 3 will not.