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jdomke1
Participant
August 30, 2018
Question

Acrobat Stops Printing

  • August 30, 2018
  • 2 replies
  • 3398 views

For some reason, Acrobat stops printing after a few days of the computer being up. After reboot, it starts printing just fine until the next time. There is no rhyme or reason to it not time line. It will print just fine one day, and then the next it won't. I can still print from other applications or a test print page. It's only Adobe Acrobat that stops allowing me to print. The way I can tell something is wrong is the duplex feature no longer shows up in the print dialog screen. When you click print, it just goes off into la la land. Never shows up in the print queue. I shouldn't have to keep rebooting my PC to resolve an issue that only involves one app not performing correctly. For reference I have Windows 10 64-bit with both Acrobat and Reader. All are up-to-date. Several printers varying from Epson to Canon, issue isn't printer based but rather software itself that seems to stop functioning correctly. I've tried restarting the print queue as well, no go. Only rebooting resolved which I'm not fond of doing all the time just for this app to work properly.

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2 replies

A
Anonymous
July 19, 2019

This is a problem question that keeps coming up many times. I run Win7_64 which seems to get most questions followed by Win 8 and more recently Win10. For a long time I have had zero problems with Acrobat 9.0. I've always been cautious and selective taking MS KB updates. Then I came across Microsoft KB3125574 which is their 'all in one' update from Win7 SP1 making it SP2 prior to no longer supporting Win 7. After installing that, I had all the printer spooler crash and lockup issues many others complained about. Exactly the same problems ocurred with Acrobat X1. This nasty 'crash' occurs every time a single page is printed from an older Acrobat document and has nothing to do with the printer driver version. When it happens, the print queue still holds the output file, it cannot be cancelled or removed and no more documents can be printed without a reboot. Well, you can try stopping the print spooler service and clear the print cache, but that's the only solution without a reboot.

I've now uninstalled the two largest MS updates KB3125574 and KB3125574 and Acrobat printing has no further problems. I had installed the latest KB3125574 over a working 64 bit system with previous updates. I haven't yet tried a clean vanilla install of Win7_64 then applied KB3125574, which should in theory avoid installing the many previous updates?

Anybody buying a new PC will probably have all the latest updates pre-installed. If there are Acrobat print spooler crashes, I can only suggest there is something in one (recent?) MS update that is causing this incompatibility and the fix should come from Adobe or Microsoft? It's a big task finding out where this incompatibility occurs but you can try uninstalling each update starting with the latest then test the Acrobat print routine. This problem doesn't seem to occur with other print applications.  Acrobat users might have older Acrobat document versions in their archives and it's worth trying to print a single page from them if you have switched to a newer PC or operating system?  I haven't tried using standalone readers to see if the same print spooler crash occurs.

Abambo
Community Expert
AbamboCommunity Expert
Community Expert
August 30, 2018

What are the specifications of your computer?

What are the exact version numbers of the software involved?

What are the printers and models connected?

Are they connected to the system via network or directly?

ABAMBO | Hard- and Software Engineer | Photographer
J
jdomke1Author
Participant
September 5, 2018

Most of what you're asking for could never have an affect on one single app being unable to print. It's clearly an app issue.

Specs of my computer for whatever the reason... Core i7, 16GB RAM, 500GB SSD with 1TB 7200RPM drive secondary.

Adobe Acrobat Pro DC Version 2018.011.20058

The printers are connected both via USB and networked. We're talking three printers, two from Canon and one Epson.

All same results... when Adobe decides it no longer wants to print, there is nothing more you can do then reboot. I can keep on working in all my other apps and print just fine, it's only Adobe that quits printing.

Dov Isaacs
Dov Isaacs
Legend
September 5, 2018

Actually the questions are exceptionally relevant even if you don't think so.

Are the printers PostScript printers or some other page description language? What drivers do they use? Do the symptoms occur with every PDF file that you attempt to print or just some PDF files. For the files that don't complete printing, is anything actually printed (one or more pages)? Are there any error messages from either Acrobat or the printer driver? How large are the PDF files that fail? What if you try printing these PDF files from another computer or to other printers? Same problem?

You indicate that “there is nothing more you can do than reboot.” Are you saying that the system is hung or that Acrobat is hung? What happens if you try killing the Acrobat process(es) via Windows' Task Manager? Is there anything on the print queue at all when printing stops?

Actually, Adobe doesn't stop printing, but Acrobat does …

More information and we'll try to assist further.

          - Dov

- Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)
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