Yeah, this error is annoying. Printer says paused, but you didn't pause it.
The culprit here is almost always the print spooler service hanging or a stuck print job. Don't bother reinstalling drivers first—that's a waste of time. Here's the fix that works 90% of the time.
Quick Fix: Restart the Print Spooler
- Press Win + R, type
services.msc, hit Enter. - Scroll down to Print Spooler. Right-click it, select Stop.
- Open File Explorer, go to
C:\Windows\System32\spool\PRINTERS. Delete everything inside that folder. - Back in Services, right-click Print Spooler again, select Start.
- Right-click the printer in Devices & Printers, choose See what's printing. If any jobs are stuck, cancel them.
- Try printing a test page. Should work now.
Why this works: The spooler can get stuck on a corrupt job or a driver hang. Killing the spooler and clearing the print queue folder forces a clean restart. No driver changes needed.
If That Didn't Work — Check the Printer Itself
Sometimes the printer reports itself as paused. This is common with HP and Brother network printers. Check the printer's front panel (the LCD screen) for a "Pause" or "Resume" button. Hit it. Also check the printer's web interface if it's network-connected.
For USB Printers: Reconnect the Cable
Unplug the USB cable from both the printer and the PC. Wait 10 seconds. Plug it back in. Windows will re-enumerate the device. This can clear internal buffer issues that trigger a paused state.
The Registry Hack (If Nothing Else Works)
I've seen this on older printers (like Canon MX series) where the driver writes a pause flag in the registry. Here's how to clear it:
1. Open Regedit (Win + R, type regedit, hit Enter).
2. Navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Printers
3. Find your printer's key (usually named after the printer model).
4. Right-click it, select Export to back it up (in case).
5. Delete the key entirely.
6. Close Regedit, restart the computer.
7. Add the printer again from Settings > Devices > Printers & scanners.
This removes any stale pause configuration the driver left behind. Only do this if the spooler restart failed.
Variations of the Same Issue
- Error happens after Windows Update: Roll back the latest update. Go to Settings > Update & Security > View update history > Uninstall updates. Pick the most recent one, restart.
- Error on network printers (TCP/IP): Go to printer properties > Ports tab. Click "Configure Port". Check the box "SNMP Status Enabled". Disable it. This stops the driver from polling and getting a false paused status.
- Error on shared printers (print server): The pause might be on the server side. On the print server, open Print Management (printmanagement.msc), find the printer, right-click, uncheck "Pause Printing".
Prevention Tips
- Don't print large PDFs with embedded fonts directly to network printers. They can hang the spooler. Convert to plain text or split the job.
- Keep your printer driver updated—but only from the manufacturer's site, not Windows Update. Windows Update often pushes buggy generic drivers.
- Set a weekly scheduled task to restart the Print Spooler. Use Task Scheduler with a bat file that runs
net stop spooler && del /Q C:\Windows\System32\spool\PRINTERS\*.* && net start spooler. Keeps the queue clean. - If you use a USB printer, don't unplug it while it's printing. That can corrupt the spool file and trigger this error.
That's it. You should be printing again in under 5 minutes. If the error keeps coming back, swap the USB cable or check the printer's firmware—some old models just do this randomly.