USB001 appears fine; Print jobs crashing

[Aquila76]

I've been having some issues with this printer crashing XP's print spooler service. I found a MS article about using cleanspl.exe from the Win2K3 Server Resource Tools, and tried it out. It successfully removed the stuck print job and corrupted driver; however, it also wiped out the USB001 port (Virtual USB printer port) that the printer connects to. Now, I can't install the printer because there is no available port. The system detects the printer (when prompted by the installer), USB works fine otherwise (mouse, flash drive, etc. OK), and USB Printing shows up under the Device Manager; but, the setup fails because it cannot find a valid port.

Is there any way of re-adding the USB001 port without a repair install of XP? I can't seem to find any method of doing this in the usual on-line places, and apparently search is still broken here (USB001 came up with nothing). Thanks in advance!

EDIT: USB001 now appears; but, nothing physically prints although Windows thinks it did.

EDIT 2: The USB cable does nothiiiiiing!

EDIT 3: USB001 was a fake port (just a local port with that name; not USB Virtual Printing port). Copied Registry entries and DLL files, now just get errors immediately upon printing.

EDIT 4: Gave up trying to find a solution. Did a repair install of XP.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Start->Control Panel->System->Hardware, you will see all the hardware devices in the computer, and there will most likely be one under USB that has a ! in a yellow circle, meaning it is not functioning properly. Bring up the properties on it (right click->properties) and click the button/link to update driver.

 

[Aquila76]

Sorry it's taken me a while to respond to this.

Nothing was showing with alerts in the Device Manager Tab, and USB Printing Support was listed and reported as running fine.

I hooked up a different printer HP LJ1022 (also USB) and it successfully installed and added the USB001 port; but, now it won?t actually print anything (test page, Word, Notepad, etc.). It looks like there is some communication error between the PC and the printer:

The application sends the print job to the Windows print manager
The print job appears and disappears out of the print queue as Printing OK
The print job is marked as successfully printed in the Event Log
Nothing ever comes out of the printer

The printer can print it's internal test page OK (hold down the Feed button). I tried cycling the printer off/on, rebooting the PC, using a different USB port on the PC, and an uninstall/reinstall of the print driver. I didn?t try a new USB cable yet because I couldn?t find one. I?ll pick one up on lunch and post back.

 

[Aquila76]

OK, the new USB cable did not resolve the problem.

Is there a way of reinstalling the USB Printing Support or a list of files I can copy from one system to another? All systems are identical here.

 

[Aquila76]

I found out that the USB001 that was on the system was added by some bungler. They just added a Local Port named USB001. This wasn't the "Virtual printing port for USB" like it was supposed to be. I tried adding the Registry entry below manually and copying the usbmon.dll file over. The USB001 port appears properly now; but, printing anything to it just kicks back an error immediately. Of course, nothing is logged into Event Viewer for this that would let me trace it.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Monitors\USB Monitor]
"Driver"="usbmon.dll"

 

[Aquila76]

Gave up trying to find a solution. Did a repair install of XP. Works fine now.

 

[robisbell]

I was going to suggest you uninstall everything in USB, reun CCleaner to remove any leftover registry settings (you have to make a few passes till everything is cleaned out), reboot and reinstall the usb drivers.

 

[mrblotto]

dang.......well, glad it's finally working. Those kind of errors that you're describing can be the absolute WORST things to try to fix...........arrrrghhh!!