Print Spooler Errors/Problems-You Wont BELIEVE The Cause

shd is the spooler scheduling file. It contains data about the job title,
the print driver, and the printer. It's partly text based and you can open
this file in notepad.

the slp file is the actually print data. It's been this way for over 15
years. I think that's older than Shock Wave.

Most likely there is a job scheduled to the MS Document Writer (whatever MS
Office installs for a printer) and a job was printed to this printer that
does not exist and was stuck in a loop until you deleted the job, the
spooler no longer did was it is coded to do with the data, send to GDI for
rendering to the print device.



--
Alan Morris
Windows Printing Team
Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base here:
http://support.microsoft.com/search/?adv=1

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

"ViperCag" <ViperCag RemoveThis @discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:5C5E63E0-0694-4A52-8381-1F978922B916@microsoft.com...
> Hey California4x4
>
> Thanks for this !! - I think you have just saved my life.
>
> I have had nothing but dramas over the last week with HP Printers, and my
> Spooler !! - I have been on the phone to Microsoft & HP - & nothing !!
>
> So when I saw your post, I followed the instructions, - and low & behold,
> there in the PRINTER folder, were three Shockwave files !!!!
>
> THese are now deleted, and I am hoping that everything should be back to
> normal !!
>
> Cheers
>
> "California4x4" wrote:
>
>>
>> --
>> California4x4
>>
>> Suddenly my printers stopped working, all of them, and the scanner, my
>> system started to bog down and I got SPOOLSV.EXE errors. I did
>> CheckDisks, I
>> did Mem Checks, I scanned for Viruses and Trojans, cleaned up the
>> Registry,
>> did a CHKDSK /R from the XP install CD... nothing! Then I did some more
>> research and came up with the cause and the solution which you WILL want
>> to
>> know about.
>>
>> I saw a blog entry about wiping out the contents of
>> windows\system32\spooler
>> but thought that a bit drastic. However. I went into that folder and
>> started looking around.
>>
>> In windows\system32\spool\printer I found two files that did NOT belong
>> there. How they got there is anyone's guess. They were: 0002.SPL and
>> 0002.SHD, both of which are Shockwave Flash objects.
>>
>> When I deleted these (and it took some doing) EVERYTHING returned to
>> normal.
>>
>> Apparently the Spooler does NOT know what to do with these file types in
>> the
>> ..\printer folder (understandable) so it kept chewing and chewing and
>> chewing
>> and chewing on them to the point where I couldn't bring up my list of
>> printers, couldn't reinstall printer drivers, kept getting DeviceIO
>> Notification popups, constantly got SPOOLSV.EXE "could not read" memory
>> error
>> instructions, and so forth during shutdown attempts.
>>
>> So, the moral is, when you are having weird Spooler errors, check out
>> your
>> windows\system32\spool\printer folder and look for "weird" stuff.
>>
>> Hope this helps and I hope MS sees this and fixes their Spooler so it
>> won't
>> chew away forever on "weird" objects.
>>

California:

Thank you so much for your post. We just had the same problem. Your
solution worked.

Did you by any chance recently download something from Windows?



"California4x4" wrote:

>
> --
> California4x4
>
> Suddenly my printers stopped working, all of them, and the scanner, my
> system started to bog down and I got SPOOLSV.EXE errors. I did CheckDisks, I
> did Mem Checks, I scanned for Viruses and Trojans, cleaned up the Registry,
> did a CHKDSK /R from the XP install CD... nothing! Then I did some more
> research and came up with the cause and the solution which you WILL want to
> know about.
>
> I saw a blog entry about wiping out the contents of windows\system32\spooler
> but thought that a bit drastic. However. I went into that folder and
> started looking around.
>
> In windows\system32\spool\printer I found two files that did NOT belong
> there. How they got there is anyone's guess. They were: 0002.SPL and
> 0002.SHD, both of which are Shockwave Flash objects.
>
> When I deleted these (and it took some doing) EVERYTHING returned to normal.
>
> Apparently the Spooler does NOT know what to do with these file types in the
> ..\printer folder (understandable) so it kept chewing and chewing and chewing
> and chewing on them to the point where I couldn't bring up my list of
> printers, couldn't reinstall printer drivers, kept getting DeviceIO
> Notification popups, constantly got SPOOLSV.EXE "could not read" memory error
> instructions, and so forth during shutdown attempts.
>
> So, the moral is, when you are having weird Spooler errors, check out your
> windows\system32\spool\printer folder and look for "weird" stuff.
>
> Hope this helps and I hope MS sees this and fixes their Spooler so it won't
> chew away forever on "weird" objects.
>

I've tried doing this several times and I still can't print to my printer and
the Shockwave files keep coming back. Anybody have any ideas?

"California4x4" wrote:

>
> --
> California4x4
>
>
>
> In windows\system32\spool\printer I found two files that did NOT belong
> there. How they got there is anyone's guess. They were: 0002.SPL and
> 0002.SHD, both of which are Shockwave Flash objects.
>
> When I deleted these (and it took some doing) EVERYTHING returned to normal.
>
> Apparently the Spooler does NOT know what to do with these file types in the
> ..\printer folder (understandable) so it kept chewing and chewing and chewing
> and chewing on them to the point where I couldn't bring up my list of
> printers, couldn't reinstall printer drivers, kept getting DeviceIO
> Notification popups, constantly got SPOOLSV.EXE "could not read" memory error
> instructions, and so forth during shutdown attempts.

>

I saw Alan's comments about the Shockwave files (.SPL/.SHD) being around for 15 years. Don't think Shockwave flash has been around that long but, in any case, XP identifies these extensions as belonging to Shockwave and it should know.

Of further note is that I had this happen again and half the issue seems to be with Version 2.0.0.17 of Mozilla's Firefox. So there seem to be two root causes: (a) Firefox trying to print a flash file when you print a web page and (b) MS's spooler not knowing what to do with these and not timing out and throwing an error and then rejecting the file thereafter.

I've noted this to Mozilla and hopefully they'll fix their end. As a life long software developer I am more intereseted in solving system issues than in excusing them, so I would hope that MS would take a look at their side of the problem as well (rather than blaming it on 15 year old file types).

P.S. Overall MS does a great job. They have very complex systems to deal with. But you don't improve systems with excuses or ignoring issues and very workable suggestions on resolving them.

California4x4 wrote:
> In windows\system32\spool\printer I found two files that did NOT belong
> there. How they got there is anyone's guess. They were: 0002.SPL and
> 0002.SHD, both of which are Shockwave Flash objects.

Just to add to Alan's cogent information, do not make the mistake of
thinking files *must* be a particular format just because Windows
"thinks" they are and assigns a particular icon to them.

Windows uses the three-letter file name extension to determine what
"kind" of a file it is dealing with. Not infrequently, the designers of
different application programs end up choosing the same three-letter
file extension to describe files that have nothing whatsoever to do with
each other. The icon that's displayed and the corresponding
description that appears in Windows Explorer just represent the last
application that has "told" Windows that it "owns" files with that
extension.

As Alan says, the SPL and SHD files in the \spool\printer directory
undoubtedly are print-related files and not flash files.

If you want to know what kind of file something is based on its file
extension, www.filext.com is a good place to start. It reveals, for
example, that an *.SPL file might be:

(a) a Compressed Archive File;
(b) a Digitrakker Sample file;
(c) an Adobe (or MacroMedia) Flash FutureSplash Document file;
(d) a Bioware Infinity Game Engine Spell file;
(e) a Microsoft printer spool file;
(f) a Sample File;
(g) a Shockwave Flash Object;
(h) a SoniqCast SoniqSync file;
(i) a Sound file;
(j) a Spell Checker file;
(k) an ABACOM Ingenieurbüro sPlan Circuit Diagram file;
(l) a Split Files Shell Extension file;
(m) a Sprint Customized Printer Driver file; or
(n) an Unknown Apple II File (found on Golden Orchard Apple II CD Rom).

For details, see http://filext.com/file-extension/spl
--
Lem -- MS-MVP

To the moon and back with 2K words of RAM and 36K words of ROM.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer
http://history.nasa.gov/afj/compessay.htm

Fair enough on file type extensions. And thanks for the refs. I stand corrected.

I would still argue (which was the original focus of my observations) that the SPOOLER logic should timeout, throw an error and quarantine or delete an unprintable file (of any type) rather than literally bogging down peoples systems to the point where all print features and functions are unavailable, and where solutions to "un-freezing" the system can end up causing hours of print driver rebuild. Yes?

Particularly with so many folks around the world having a hand in web development who may/may not be following coding and testing (and file extension) standards it would seem reasonable to expect "odd" un-printable objects in the print queue from time to time.

I once wrote some error checking code where my manager said "that will never happen in a million years". Three years later the error occurred. Taking that extra step saved my users from a LOT of frustration ... which is the whole point of building systems, i.e. to help our users do things better.