Word 2003 hangs - default printer is a networked printer - spoolsv.exe running high

[Dale Unroe]

As discovered yesterday by someone who I've had to configure to use a
network shared printer as the default, there is a problem when Word 2003 is
opened. No other office apps behave like this; not even Outlook though it
uses Word for viewing and writing new email. I've done the normal routine
of troubleshooting - Office Updates - Detect & Repair - but to no avail.
There is even an Office Tools utility program, Microsoft Office Application
Recovery, but it also hangs though it is supposed to end Word when it is
hung! It's a very curious dead-end.

An additional symptom I noticed was that my NIC was graphically showing
non-stop traffic and a look in the taskbar showed the spoolsv.exe app
consuming a large portion of the CPU process load. The load ranges from 30%
to 60%! Regardless of how much time I allow the app to hang it doesn't time
out or complete its journey.

Anyone else having this happen? Any ideas?

Thanks in advance,
Dale

 

[Dale Unroe]

Further symptomatic behaviors:

I've configured this same network printer configuration from another
computer and have repeated the "hanging" event on a second and a third PC.
Furthermore after configuring the intial PC with a local printer it no
longer hangs at all.

Once Word hangs the only way to end the application is to right click on the
task bar reference and use the context menu to "close" which then brings up
an "end task" window that does appear to shut it down. The spoolsv.exe task
continues to run in the task manager though and only restarting the PC seems
to alleviate this condition. Telling Task Manager to end task on the
spoolsv.exe task results in a window explaining this cannot be done. During
the shutdown processes a process window appears for DDE Server Window giving
the standard "task will close" message and the countdown bar. A check of
what DDE is in the Microsoft knowledgebase only resulted in information that
is beyond my computer skill/knowledge level.

Please if anyone has any ideas they would be greately appreciated.

 

[TF]

Dale

Word needs to interrogate the default printer driver for the printers
parameters in order to be able to layout pages to match the printer. When
Word opens, one of its first functions is to detect the printer driver. My
guess is that your network printer is incorrectly installed or the driver is
corrupt.



"Dale Unroe" <dale at designeers dot com> wrote in message
: Further symptomatic behaviors:
:
: I've configured this same network printer configuration from another
: computer and have repeated the "hanging" event on a second and a third PC.
: Furthermore after configuring the intial PC with a local printer it no
: longer hangs at all.
:
: Once Word hangs the only way to end the application is to right click on
the
: task bar reference and use the context menu to "close" which then brings
up
: an "end task" window that does appear to shut it down. The spoolsv.exe
task
: continues to run in the task manager though and only restarting the PC
seems
: to alleviate this condition. Telling Task Manager to end task on the
: spoolsv.exe task results in a window explaining this cannot be done.
During
: the shutdown processes a process window appears for DDE Server Window
giving
: the standard "task will close" message and the countdown bar. A check of
: what DDE is in the Microsoft knowledgebase only resulted in information
that
: is beyond my computer skill/knowledge level.
:
: Please if anyone has any ideas they would be greately appreciated.
:
:

 

[Dale Unroe]

Terry,

I'm now isolating this particular printer to see if it's driver is at fault.
Additionally I am setting a different shared printer as the default. This
behavior is very strange though as the same driver has been in use as a
shared printer for a long while. This however is the first instance of it
as the default printer in a network shared resource role. Still it works
fine as a local printer and as a default printer. All clients are W2k Pro
and the server is a W2k3 SBS. The printer is a Konica Minolta 1350W;
additionally, I'll check the manufacturer for a newer driver.

Again many thanks,
Dale

 

[Dale Unroe]

Doh! Konica Minolta is headquartered guess where? Mobile, Alabama - Their
Server has an image of Hurrican Ivan displayed there and no other files are
being served presently.

 

[cwguk]

I have exactly the same problem with a Konica Minolta 2300W. It is fine
locally on an XPpro PC but causes Office XP applications on networked Win2K
PCs to hang. Konica Minolta have not responded to any support request emails.
I hope someone has a solutuion!