If you ever wonder why is your printer offline most of the time on Windows 10 computer, there could be several reasons for that. In this guide, we will talk about the possible reasons why a printer can go offline and how to make an offline printer online in Windows 10 or 8.1. Usually, printers may go offline due to network or USB cable connectivity issue, paper jam, out of paper, any other printer hardware faults and driver corruption. Mostly it will come back to online automatically when these issues are solved, but sometimes we need to make a printer online manually, and let’s see how to do it on Windows 10 or 8.1.
The below methods are applicable for Windows 7 users also. I hope you have upgraded your Windows 7 OS as it is not under direct Microsoft support any more.
Making a printer online on Windows 10 or 8.1 is changed compared the steps we followed in earlier Operating Systems such as XP, Vista (except Windows 7) which is by right-clicking it and making online. Microsoft changed the way of making a printer online from offline in Windows 7 and later Operating Systems.
Right-clicking the printer option does not give the option to bring the printer online like earlier Operating Systems. If you could remember, it used to work like below in Windows XP and Vista.
But, if you right-click in Windows 10 or 8.1, you will see a completely different menu as shown below,
Printer Offline in Windows 10 or 8.1? Let’s Fix it
1) Go to control panel or search for printer options.
In Windows 10, you can search for devices and printers by entering ‘devices’ as shown below and click on the ‘Devices and Printers’. It doesn’t matter whether you have USB, network, or wireless printer or any brands such as HP, Brother Epson, the following methods are same to bring back the printer online in Windows 10/8.1.
2) Click on Devices and Printers in Large or Small icons view of the control panel.
3) Now you will see the offline printer (slightly faded). Right-click on it and select ‘See what’s printing’.
If the printer is in an offline state, you would see the tick mark front of ‘Use Printer Offline’. Remove the tick and wait for some time for the printer to come online and resume printing.
If the above steps did not help you, keep reading further troubleshooting steps below.
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Why still my Printer Offline? Here are the additional Steps
4) If it is a Network Shared Printer:
If a network printer still shows offline, then you need to check the settings of the computer where it is attached (if it’s a shared network printer for you). The following settings need to be checked on the computer which is sharing the printer.
- File and Printer sharing settings
- Make sure the Network Discovery is turned on and Network sharing services are running
- Check the firewall and Antivirus/network protection software. These programs might be blocking the incoming connection to the shared printer.
5) Restart The Spooler Service
Sometimes this method helps in bringing back the offline printer to online in Windows 8.1 and 10. Instead of restarting the computer, you can stop and start the print spooler service (which is one of the Windows services). We have already published a detailed guide about restarting the print spooler in GUI of Windows OS that can be done by any users with administrative rights. Read the guide here.
Open the command prompt as administrator and type:
Net stop spooler
and
Net start spooler
This will stop and start the print spooler services which will clear some of the printer related issues.
Few Extra Steps to Troubleshoot Printer Issues on Windows 10
1) Check the Printer’s power
Sometimes smart people do miss simple things. Make sure that printer is powered on and there are no warning lights blinking – that confirms the printer doesn’t have any hardware issues. Even doing the power cycle of the printer is advisable in this case. Either switch off and on from the power button or remove the power code and connect back.
2) Check for physical printer issues
Most of the printers have amber light which indicates some hardware issues. Few common hardware issues are; paper jam, cartridge jam or improper fix of cartridges or cartridges dried out, top, rear or any other covers not fixed properly and out of paper.
Solve all physical printer warnings to bring a printer online.
3) Check the connectivity
If it’s connected via USB or LPT cable, check the connection at both ends (computer and printer sides). You can unplug from both ends and connect back properly again, try to connect the same USB port on the computer. If it doesn’t work, try the different USB ports.
For network printers, find out the IP address and check the connectivity by pinging. Follow these steps to find out the IP address of a printer in Windows OS.
If the printer is connected through a shared computer, you can check the connectivity by accessing the Windows share. Find out the name or IP address of the shared computer where the printer is connected, enter the name or IP with \\ in the Run box or Windows explorer. Something like below;
\\192.168.200.251
4) Use the Printer Software
As we have been trying these all methods in Windows built-in tools, and if still, the printer is offline, you can try the printer software which came with the Printer driver. Mostly once you install your HP, Canon, Epson or any other printers the first time, it would have installed the printer management software also.
Open the printer software and see for any warning messages it detected about the printer. These software work better with the printer as it was developed by the vendor for a specific printer model.
If there is a way to make a printer online from the offline state by this vendor software, why should not we give a try?
5) Check the Printer Driver and Install Again
The printer driver and software should have been installed properly by installation CD provided or downloaded. If you have to download, do download the correct or similar model driver from the official site. Installing or assigning a completely wrong printer driver will cause the issue in printing and Operating System as well.
Accidentally or automatically a wrong driver could have been assigned to a printer you are trying to print. Cross-check the model of the physical printer with the installed driver on your computer.
Also, the System Restore and Windows OS recovery may damage the printer driver files sometimes. If you have done these activities recently, it is better to uninstall and reinstall it again to solve the issue.
6) Clear the Old Pending Jobs
Sometimes the old pending jobs will block new print jobs. These old jobs should be cleared manually to print new jobs.
Go to Devices and Printers in the control panel and double click the printer where pending jobs need to be cleared. It will list out the old jobs with ‘Error’ state. Right-click and Cancel them.
If the pending jobs not getting cleared by the above method, then you need to restart the print spooler service as mentioned earlier or restart the computer.
I hope this guide is useful to fix printer offline issue and how to get back a printer online in Windows 10 and 8.1/Windwows 7. This should solve the problem mostly if your printer is not having any major hardware or network communication problem.
Until now I have never tried to make a Win 7 printer online yet. I’ve been doing it offline. Apart from making it online, I still got issues where Win XP have no problem of it. I’m still struggling through many of the Win 7, and especially Excel 2010 settings.
Thanks dinesh, these steps works nicely for me.
Thanks
Here’s a cheap windows trick I learned some years ago.
Windows would not redirect a local USB printer to a remote Terminal Server session. Maybe you can in Vista or 7, I don’t know, but here’s how to get around that, at least in XP.
In the local XP machine, add a new printer, and choose the same printer model as the USB printer, but choose to put it on the Parallel port.
Then enable printer pooling on the Parallel port version of the printer, and choose the USB version to be in the printer pool.
Make sure your terminal server has the proper driver for the USB printer installed – Printers, Server Properties, Add Driver…. etc.
Now when you connect, windows will redirect the parallel printer.
When you print to the parallel printer, in Terminal Services, TS will print to the local windows XP parallel printer. The Local XP will notice the parallel printer isn’t “ready” and switch the print job to the USB printer.
Hope this helps.
I have similar problem too. I though it was my printer problem but win 7 has change offline printer setting. hmm
This article is amazing and helpful
It sure is an amazing article because “Use printer offline” doesn’t show up in my screen…
So what now ?
Paul, I’m having same trouble. No online direction phrase shows up anywhere. Have you been able to resolve it?
On Windows 7 SP1, I had the same issue with my HP LaserJet. If I turn the printer power off or turn off internet access from my firewall, then the print spooler times out and does not bring the printer back online when I reconnect or turn the power back on. My workaround is to stop the printer spooler services then start it again. I do this on Win 7 by Control Panel; Administrative Tools; Computer Management; Services and Applicatgions; Services. Then scroll down and double-click on Printer Spooler. Then under the General tab, click on Stop. Wait for the service to terminate, then click on Start. The printer shold start printing shortly.
Stopping and restarting the Print Spooler service seems to work for me. I have been fighting this problem at home and now at work. Glad to have a solution, although it seems a little bit of an “unnatural act”.
Thanks, Steev.
thank you, it worked, it did not like my envelope..
Yes, I also had to stop and restart the service to get the printer back. Using the “Use printer offline” checkbo didn’t change anything for me, but the Print Spooler stop and restart worked.
Thanks! Had this problem for a week, your stop/start finally worked.
It was very helpful thank you so much
Thank You!!!!!
None of these steps worked for me. I have Windows 7 Home Premium and an HP Photosmart C6100 series printer. Any other ideas?
Thank you very much for your help. You saved my time and nerves!!!
I should have mentioned the shortcut to restart the Print Spooler service. When you scroll down on the Services menu, you can right click on the Print Spooler and select Restart. Just a bit faster.
Thanks
Manually restarting the Print Spooler in the Services did it for me. Many thanks.
wooooow! gonna give this a shot, i just hope my printer works with this
I’ve tried everything. Printers (both an HP Officejet Pro L7780 and a Brother HL5370DW) say they are offline – but when added will print a test page while supposedly offline. Will not print. Can’t get to “Print spool” option to try that. Other computers on Windows 8 will connect and print. Have also tried “sharing” from the Windows 8 computer, selecting the shared computer. Still nothing. Have set a static IP address for both printers. Nothing. Any ideas?
I have the same problem in Windows 7. I have re installed the printer a test page printed. However the printer remains off-line. The printer is set up as wireless and other notebooks are able to print to it. So it is on-line for everyone with access accept my notebook. The use printer off-line is NOT checked.
I have the same problem in Windows 7. I have re installed the printer a test page printed. However the printer remains off-line. The printer is set up as wireless and others are able to print to it. So it is on-line for everyone with access accept my notebook. I have checked the use printer off-line and back to on-line and nothing happens.
I have the same problem in Windows 7. I have re installed the printer a test page printed. However the printer remains off-line. The printer is set up as wireless and others are able to print to it. So it is on-line for everyone with access accept my notebook. I have checked the use printer off-line and back to on-line and nothing happens. Troubleshooter won’t work as it thinks the printer is turned off. I have re-installed the wireless access on my notebook. I have wireless access to everything but the Printer….
It worked, set the printer online / offline.
I actually already know this way. But I am very happy to read the tips in this blog.
Very useful for everyday life.
thanks…
Thanks for the tips. I unplugged the USB-cable from the 3.0 and changed it to the 2.0 port. This amongst all reinstalled the printer driver and printer went on-line. Before I couldn’t uncheck the box “Use Printer Offline”.
Windows 7 SP1, HP Color LaserJet CP2025n, USB connected
Log Name: Microsoft-Windows-PrintService/Admin
Source: Microsoft-Windows-PrintService
Date: 2013-01-14 10:57:14
Event ID: 372
Task Category: Printing a document
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic Spooler Event,Document Print Job
User: COMPUTERUSER
Computer: COMPUTER
Description:
The document Test Page, owned by , failed to print on printer HP Color LaserJet CP2020 Series PCL6. Try to print the document again, or restart the print spooler.
Data type: NT EMF 1.008. Size of the spool file in bytes: 160972. Number of bytes printed: 0. Total number of pages in the document: 1. Number of pages printed: 0. Client computer: \\COMPUTER. Win32 error code returned by the print processor: 2. The system cannot find the file specified.
Hi,
Thanks steev , you hint worked for me… only for the first thing to print.
If 3 things on the queue, I have to restart 3 times the spooler service.
I’ve read somewhere this could be linked with the SNMP of the printer, which is “on”.
Any idea?
Olivier,
I did not have that issue, maybe bacause I have an old HP LaserJet 5 which I believe does not support SNMP.
However, I no longer have to restart the print spooler since I upgraded to a new PC that is running Win 7 Pro SP 1. Seems like this issue was only on my Win 7 Pro (SP 0) system only. I’m not sure if you are running SP1 but it may be worth upgrading if not.
Steev
Thanks for the simple and useful tip Dinesh…
Sometimes the printer will show offline in disabled mode and you will not be able to change the status. If you have this problem then click the Troubleshoot menu to fix the issues in the printer.
You can also turn the SNMP settings on and off, so if a printer goes to sleep, its will keep Windows from saying its not available.
Here is a link to an article about that I found useful.
http://spacecitytech.com/blog/removing-snmp-from-xerox-printer-drivers-un-grey-snmp-check-box/
completely worthless. Checking that or unchecking it makes no difference for a network printer. Perpetually offline, not a hardware issue (works perfectly with other computers).
I completely agree. Worthless. It made no difference and never comes online.
I agree. Completely worthless.
I totally agree as well, if windows loses connection with the printer it will Never connect again on it’s own… Ever….
I totally have the same problem. Windows 8 SUCKS! Why does it take my printer offline in the first place and then make it impossible to figure out how to fix it. It still prints from my ipad.
My pull down box, does not show “Use Printer Offline” line. How do I do it without this box?
@Kim you have to choose the option ”run as administrator” to see the printer offline option. Anyway didn’t work for me, trying to find another solution.. I really hate Windows 8.