The Computer Corner
By Charles Miller

Click-click-click

At last, three of my clients have had this same problem, so I can relate this anecdote without any of the three saying I singled them out for ridicule. The following tale is fictionalized for entertainment value, but based on actual events.

My client called because the printer had quit working. He told me he had phoned Epson, the company that made the printer, but they were unable to help. Within seconds of my arrival he asked, “What caused that problem?” I told him it might be a problem with the software and not the printer. He grabbed his notebook and started dialing the phone.

“Who are you calling?” I asked.

“I’m calling Microsoft,” he answered.

“Please wait a moment. We don’t know yet if that is the problem.” I said. Next, I asked if he could demonstrate to me exactly where he was experiencing a problem. He showed me he was trying to print a web page. I told him the problem might not be with the printer at all, but with Internet Explorer not sending the correct output to the printer.

He grabbed the phone again saying, “I’m calling Epson back!” I asked him to please hold off on that, at least until we could learn if the problem involved the internet browser or possibly his service provider. I explained the problem might even be related to his internet connection. At that, he grabbed the phone again saying, “I’m calling Telmex!”

I pleaded for calm and asked him to show me step-by-step exactly what he was doing and where he encountered a problem. We were able to open his banking website where he wanted to print out his account statement. He clicked on the print icon, paused, clicked again, paused, and then click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click!

“Whoa!” I called. “If the printer doesn’t print the first time you click on the [Print] button, it’s not going to print after a dozen more clicks. We have to find the reason why it didn’t print the first time.”

I showed him how to open the Windows Control Panel and find the “Printers” icon. When you double-click on that icon, one of the icons in the next window will have a check mark in a black circle indicating that is the default printer. Double-click on that icon to display the properties for that printer and to see what print jobs might be queued up, waiting to print.

Sure enough, hundreds of print jobs were queued up waiting to print (one for each click), but unable to print because the queue was somehow clogged up. Tracing back to the cause is difficult, but the solution is simple and works almost 100 percent of the time.

The fix for this is to pull down the “Printer” menu, then click on “Cancel all Documents” to clear out the queue. Sometimes one document, the messed-up one, will refuse to delete. In this case you will need to reboot the computer, then repeat this process to be sure the print queue is completely empty. After doing this, the printer should work again.

A shortcut to this procedure in most cases is to look on the taskbar near the clock on the bottom of your Windows desktop. If a printer icon is there, you may usually right-click on it to “Cancel all Documents.”

My client is not entirely convinced. He’s from back east where they have a lot of skyscrapers, and had already learned the secret of how to make an elevator move faster: Choose your button, then push-push-push-push-push-push-push….



Charles Miller is a freelance computer consultant, a frequent visitor to San Miguel since 1981 and now practically a full-time resident. He may be contacted at 044 (415) 101-8528 or email FAQ8 (at) SMAguru.com.