A job that shows "Printing..." forever, or a queue that won't clear no matter how many times you cancel it, has one of a few specific causes — and a stuck queue is also the single most common reason a printer appears to stop working entirely.
A print job typically jams when it was sent to the printer under conditions that changed mid-transfer — the printer went to sleep, ran out of paper, lost its Wi-Fi connection, or was simply switched off partway through receiving the file. Once that happens, the print spooler (the background service managing the queue) can get confused about the job's status and refuse to move past it, blocking every job sent afterward even though those newer jobs are perfectly fine.
Open Settings → Bluetooth & devices → Printers & scanners, click your printer, then Open print queue. Select every job listed and cancel them individually — sometimes the first job in line resists cancellation, in which case try cancelling the ones behind it first. If jobs still won't clear, the print spooler service itself needs a restart: search "Services" in the Start menu, find Print Spooler, right-click it, and choose Restart. This forcibly clears the entire queue, including jobs that wouldn't cancel normally.
Open System Settings → Printers & Scanners, click your printer, and its queue window opens automatically. Select the stuck job and click the X or minus button to remove it. If it won't clear through the interface, hold the Option key while clicking the minus button — this forces removal even of a job the system considers "in progress."
This usually means the underlying condition that caused the original jam is still present — most often a dropped Wi-Fi connection or a printer that's actually offline. Check the printer's own display for its network status before sending anything else, since resending into a still-broken connection just recreates the same stuck job.
Stuck jobs are far more common on wireless printers with an unstable connection than on wired ones, so if this happens repeatedly, it's worth checking your printer's Wi-Fi signal strength — moving it closer to the router, or switching to a wired Ethernet connection if the printer supports one, often eliminates the problem entirely rather than just treating each occurrence.
A weak or unstable Wi-Fi signal is the most common root cause of repeated queue jams.
See the "offline" troubleshooting guideThe most common reasons, in order of likelihood.
Read the article →The real reasons, in order of likelihood.
Read the article →The specific sequence that resolves most failed installations.
Read the article →