Windows Server 2019 — Print Spooler service memory leak crashes printing — Fix & Prevention

📖 ~1 min read

Table of contents

1. Symptom & Impact
2. Environment & Reproduction
3. Root Cause Analysis
4. Quick Triage
5. Step-by-Step Diagnosis
6. Solution — Primary Fix
7. Solution — Alternative Approaches
8. Verification & Acceptance Criteria
9. Rollback Plan
10. Prevention & Hardening
11. Related Errors & Cross-Refs
12. References & Further Reading

Symptom & Impact

The Print Spooler service on Windows Server 2019 consumes increasing memory until it crashes or is killed by the system, halting all print jobs. Network printer queues become unresponsive and pending jobs accumulate on the print server.

Environment & Reproduction

Reproduce on print servers hosting many third-party drivers or large jobs. Track spoolsv.exe working set over time and read the System log.

Get-Service -Name spooler
Get-WinEvent -LogName System -MaxEvents 40
Get-HotFix | Sort-Object InstalledOn -Descending | Select-Object -First 10

Root Cause Analysis

Causes include a leaking print monitor or third-party driver, oversized spool files, and ACL drift on the spool folder preventing cleanup.

Quick Triage

Sample the spoolsv.exe memory footprint and queue depth before applying any change.

sc.exe query spooler
Get-Service -Name spooler | Select-Object Status,StartType
Get-EventLog -LogName System -Newest 30 | Where-Object {$_.Source -match 'spooler'}

Step-by-Step Diagnosis

Capture process memory growth, list installed print monitors, and read Spooler error events.

Get-WinEvent -LogName System -MaxEvents 50 | Where-Object {$_.ProviderName -match 'spooler'} | Select TimeCreated,Id,LevelDisplayName,Message
sc.exe qfailure spooler
sfc /verifyonly

Solution — Primary Fix

Restart Spooler, clear the spool folder of orphaned jobs, and remove or update the suspect print driver to a vendor-supported build.

Restart-Service -Name spooler -Force
Get-Service -Name spooler | Select-Object Status,StartType
Get-WinEvent -LogName System -MaxEvents 20 | Where-Object {$_.ProviderName -match 'spooler'}

Solution — Alternative Approaches

Isolate the failing driver into a separate driver isolation group so future leaks no longer crash the host service.

sc.exe config spooler start= auto
sc.exe failure spooler reset= 86400 actions= restart/60000/restart/60000/run/1000
Restart-Service -Name spooler -Force

Verification & Acceptance Criteria

Spooler runs steadily, working set stays under threshold, and print jobs complete without queue stalls.

Get-Service -Name spooler
Get-WinEvent -LogName System -MaxEvents 25 | Where-Object {$_.ProviderName -match 'spooler' -and $_.LevelDisplayName -eq 'Error'}
Test-NetConnection -ComputerName localhost -Port 

Rollback Plan

Roll back the most recent driver install and restore the prior driver package on the host.

Get-HotFix | Sort-Object InstalledOn -Descending | Select-Object -First 5
wbadmin get versions
# Restore previous configuration export if available

Prevention & Hardening

Standardise on signed v4 drivers, enable driver isolation, and audit installed monitors regularly.

Get-Service -Name spooler | Export-Clixml C:/Temp/spooler-baseline.xml
Get-WinEvent -LogName System -MaxEvents 50 > C:/Temp/spooler-events.txt
Get-ScheduledTask | Where-Object {$_.TaskName -match 'spooler'}

Related Errors & Cross-Refs

Related to events 808, 23, and 372 from the PrintService channel.

Related tutorial: View the step-by-step tutorial for Windows Server 2019.

View all Windows Server 2019 tutorials on the Tutorials Hub →

Browse all common problems & solutions on the Tutorials Hub.

References & Further Reading

Microsoft Learn references for Print Spooler maintenance and driver isolation on Windows Server 2019.