Print Server CPU spikes on reboot -- Spoolsv.exe

Solution

Problem in my case turned out to be a bad driver. Luckily it was a driver from an old printer that was no longer on the network.

Cleaning out print drivers is pretty easy: Open up two instances of print manager, go to the Drivers menu on one, and the printers on the other. Arrange the columns on the printers page so that you can see the printer name and the driver name. Sort by driver name, then compare the list to the ones in the Drivers menu. This makes it easy to see which drivers are no longer in use.

If you've cleaned out old drivers, and the problem is still occurring, you may need to start removing printers until the problem stops. Remove a printer, reboot the server, and see if the problem still exists. Of course, make sure you copy the printer information so you can re-add it later. Once you've determined which printer/driver combo is causing the issue, see if you can find an alternative driver for that printer. Most printer manufacturers recommend using their "Universal Print Driver" in a print server environment, rather than the 'named' or 'model specific' driver.

 Problem

In brief, our print server would hang with 100% CPU usage whenever it was rebooted. This necessitated spoolsv.exe (the 100% process) to be manually terminated, and the spooler and all dependant services to be restarted. After manual termination/restart, the CPU levels would remain normal. Printer shares would be unavailable during the CPU spike.

Machine Specs:

• Server 2008 R2 -- fully updated
• VM on top of XenServer 6.2 - Intel based system
• 2 core
• 3 GB of RAM
• Additional Printer Related Software
• Print Manager (print tracking software)
• Citrix Universal Print Server

Things I tried that didn't help

• Windows updates
• Updating paravirtualization driver.
• SFC / Checkdisk/ other system file scans
• Re-installing drivers/print queues  

Problem ended up being an issue with some unused print driver. Apparently the spooler service loads up drivers even if they are not being used by any print queue. So the only way to fix the problem was to remove all drivers from printers that had been retired -- see details in Solution above.

Printer Error on Boot: 49.38.13 -- HP Color LaserJet CP5525

Solution

In my case, I ended up having to clear out the "active" firmware and have it pull a clean copy from it's backup. To do this you perform a "Partial Clean" from the preboot menu.

To access the preboot menu follow the instructions on the Service Manual.

Before doing this, be aware it will clear out networking/admin password/ service password/etc. The Printer will have to be re-setup as if from new for the most part.

After you're in the preboot menu, navigate to the "Administration" menu, then select "Partial Clean". Accept the confirmation dialog, then press the back button until you're at the root (top-level) menu. Select "Continue". The printer will now reinstall the firmware from it's backup.

After it finishes it's restore. Re-configure the device with TCP/IP settings, admin settings, and any other customizations you'd made to the printer.

Problem & Full Story

I discussed our issues with our CP5525 printer previously. Well after we had resolved that problem, we started getting a new, more catastrophic problem. About a week after fixing the previous error, the printer got a new error, 49.38.13. I say more catastrophic because this error comes up as soon as the printer finishes booting. The error gives says to power printer off/on, but doing so only causes the error to come up again and wastes 2 minutes of your time.

With the error, User's are unable to print, and you are unable to get to any settings through the panel on the printer or through the web interface. The only way to make changes is to get into the preboot menu during startup.

Things I tried that didn't work

• Disabled jet-direct (preboot menu)
• Selecting First-boot (preboot menu)
• Removing network cable during boot
• Removing power cable and holding power button to clear memory/capacitors (~30 seconds)
• This almost worked, it booted up and I was able to navigate around the menus for a little bit before the error popped up again.

What did end up working was doing a "partial clean" from the preboot menu (See Solution section above). It is important to make the distinction between the "Partial Clean" option and the "Full Clean" option. The Printer has two copies of the firmware installed, an active and a backup. The active copy holds all the settings you've configured on the device, where the backup is a clean image with all default settings. The partial clean removes the active and replaces it a copy of the backup. Functionally this should fix any firmware corruption, but it also resets the device to factory defaults.

The "Full Clean" option removes both the active and backup firmware images, leaving the device in an unbootable state. This is only used if the firmware you installed was corrupt (corrupt download, or something).

So, to be clear. Use the partial clean, not full clean.

Error When Printing: 49.4A.04 -- HP Color Laserjet Enterprise CP5525xh

Soultion

In my situation, installing the latest firmware fixed the problem, 2304061_439461 at time of writing. Various threads on HP's support site suggest the issue is a "rogue" print job; in less dumb terms, it's a print job the printer doesn't know how to handle. Updating the firmware have given the printer the ability to understand the jobs that were causing the problem.

There are several ways to go about doing a firmware upgrade. They can be done remotely via the web interface, or locally with a usb drive. If you're mad and have your printer internet connected, you can also tell it to download the update itself. Do make sure to read the "Read Me" for the update, however, because they sometimes do specify that the update cannot be applied with a given method because of errors. No idea why this is, you'd think the update process would be pretty much the same regardless of method of application, but you'll probably save yourself a headache or two if you double check before hand.

Either way, follow the instructions in the user/service guide.

CP5525 User Guide
CP5525 Service Manual

You can easily find these for other models by Googling "$model user guide" or "$model service manual" -- User guides will generally be on HP's site, service manuals are generally not. I like manualslib.com.

Important Note: I ran into another problem after firmware upgrade. I'm not sure the problem was because of the firmware upgrade, but be aware of it as a possibility. You can read about the additional problem and how I fixed it here.

Problem & Full Story

We've had numerous problems with our CP5525xh printer. It's only used by three or four people, but, at least recently, has been about 80% of our printer complaints. I can't blame all the issues on the printer itself, there's a fair bit of user error, but the thing is unreasonably unstable in general.

On recurring issue has been the printer crashing when we have the gall to try to make it print something. When this happens we get the 49.4A.04 error, and the printer must be rebooted to restore service. This will fix the printer, until the problem document is printed again.

The error is document specific, certain documents print fine, others cause the error. There doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to which documents it accepts or doesn't; other than that problem documents are often more complex documents (files printed from photoshop, lightroom, and some more complex .pdf files). Also interesting to note that documents that once print fine can have minor edits done, then stop working. The preeminent case was the adding of a text box to a poster one user was working on in photoshop causing the document to stop printing.

Worth noting also that this is strictly a printer issue. The job is spooled and sent through the print server without error. Same error also occurs when printing directly, rather than through a print server.

Some things we tried that didn't work

• Selecting "First Boot" from preboot menu
• Selecting "Cold Boot" from preboot menu
• Direct mapping printer, rather than using print server
• Rebooting User's machine / restarting offending program
• Reinstall / Update drivers on User's Machine
• Reinstall / Update drivers on Print Server

 Another option is to have the user export the document (to a more widely accepted format) before printing. This seems to work in most cases, but was met with much hostility as a work around (additional steps / time in workflow).

What finally fixed it for us was to install the latest firmware for the printer -- see "Solution" section at the top.