This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Can no longer print e-mails from T-Bird. Hangs in queue. Reset in config file does not solve problem. Solutions? I'm stumped!

  • 9 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by goster48

more options

Been using T-Bird for ages. All of a sudden, e-mails sent to any network printer hang up in queue and cause printers to hang up. I can print from other applications, however. Have tried to reset printer-related items in config file, but this does nothing to solve the problem. I'm completely stumped, as are all of our IT people. Ideas? I don't want to abandon T-Bird after all these years, but I can't get out of this jam.

Been using T-Bird for ages. All of a sudden, e-mails sent to any network printer hang up in queue and cause printers to hang up. I can print from other applications, however. Have tried to reset printer-related items in config file, but this does nothing to solve the problem. I'm completely stumped, as are all of our IT people. Ideas? I don't want to abandon T-Bird after all these years, but I can't get out of this jam.

All Replies (9)

more options

If it appears in windows print manager queue then the issue will not be Thunderbird. It might however be a change in printer name and the one your using in Thunderbird is the wrong one.

more options

No--nothing quite that simple. T-Bird is sending jobs to the printers. Lights start flashing on network printers showing that job is arriving at the right place. T-Bird e-mails, however, are getting stuck in the print queue, requiring restart on each printer to clear queue. And only T-Bird is causing this problem with printers; other apps print fine.

more options

I will take a left field punt and assume you are not in the USA.

Most printer drivers assume you are in the USA and install with a default paper size of letter. Thunderbird picks this up the first time you print and as far as I know never checks again.

If you printer is set to A4. The paper the rest of the world uses then the job will hit the printer and stop awaiting the correct size of paper. The reverse is also true, but far less common.

Print preview your email and check the paper size specified. Compare this to the paper size set in the default printer driver on windows and with the actual paper installed. I think you will find the issue in there somewhere.

more options

Nice guess. Unfortunately, I'm in Boston and paper size is set correctly.

more options

On the laptop end, it looks like the job was successfully sent to the printer. But it is causing the printer queue to jam. And it happens with more than one of the network printers.

more options

it will be something to do with paper size or margins usually.

I have seen similar issues in the past where the job usually involving lots of graphics exceeds the memory available in the printer. This is usually on post script printers although drivers that had to convert the page to an image to print sometime also saw these sorts of problems.

Despite the common view, like email printing is not simple. We are spoilt by how well it works normally.

Modified by Matt

more options

Thanks, but nothing has changed on the system. And all other apps print OK to these printers. Only T-Bird generates printer queue errors. Every single time. Nothing gets through the queue.

more options

If you have adjusted several printer preferences in the config. editor, I would set up one account in a new profile and see if printing works correctly, or at least see if you can print to the W10 Microsoft Print to PDF. If it does work properly with the network printer, this could be a lot faster than trying to debug the current profile.

To create a new profile with Profile Manager, close TB, Winkey+R, type thunderbird.exe -p

more options

Thanks. I will give it a try and let you know what happens.