Windows 10 1903 Update Fixes Audio Gremlins, But Breaks Printing For Some
But to Microsoft's credit, it has been hard at work when it comes to tackling the issues, but some of its efforts have been better than others. Its latest update, KB4517211, was released last Wednesday (September 26th) and corrected a few audio issues that were plaguing users, namely:
- Updates an issue that may cause audio playback and recording to fail when connecting to a remote virtual machine.
- Updates an issue that causes audio in certain games to be quieter or different than expected.
While the audio issues were seemingly resolved, Microsoft apparently broke printer support for a number of users as witnessed by posts on the Microsoft Community Forum (as first spotted by Windows Latest). Users are reporting that the print spooler service is failing and that their printers are disappearing completely after installing KB4517211. In the above thread, the problem seems to primarily affect Hewlett-Packard printers.
"Installing kb4517211 and HP Officejet pro 8740 doesn't print anymore. Nor does Acrobat Reader, newest German version, print PDF files anymore. jpg printing works," write WulfGerdts. "Uninstalling kb4517211, and everything is ok again. Installing again, and no printing."
Another user added, "After installing kb4517211 the print spooler kept crashing. Uninstalling the update and rebooting resolved the issue. Reinstalled to test and print spooler crashes resumed."
For its part, Microsoft has acknowledged the issue with an update to "known issues" for Windows 10 1903:
The print spooler service may intermittently have issues completing a print job and may result in a print job being canceled or failing. Some apps may close or error when the print spooler fails and you may receive a remote procedure call error (RPC error) from some printing utility or printing apps.
Microsoft cautions that users might need to reboot their machine to get printing to work again, or downgrade your printer driver in the meantime. If that doesn't work, the suggestion above by one affected user to uninstall KB4517211 might be your best course of option.
Microsoft says that it is currently "working on a resolution" for the printing issue, but hopefully the fix doesn't break something else in the process.
