The print spooler failed to reopen an existing printer connection because it could not read the configuration information from the registry key

This blog describes a rare issue with printers at a customer’s site.

Environment:
In fact everything seemed to be configured correctly:
- Windows 2008 + Citrix XenApp
- Universal Printer Driver
- Printers “Fast Connect” within RES PowerFuse
- Mandatory User Profiles
The registry settings concerning the user’s printers were correct. So far so good.

Problem:
When the user tries to open the printer properties, or was going to print for the very first time it took ages before there was shown anything: sometimes nothing happened, sometimes a ‘not responding’ message, sometimes the second shot was successful, but always the following Windows Event Log error:

The print spooler failed to reopen an existing printer connection because it could not read the configuration information from the registry key S-1-5-21-3807330101-2442211-1834807865-1230\Printers\Connections\S-1-5-21-3807330101-2442211-1834807865-1230\Printers\Connections. This can occur if the key name or values are malformed or missing.

Road to the solution:
For troubleshooting purposes the best practice is always to disable ‘Fast Connect’ on the printer connection properties within RES PowerFuse. Now we could check the RES PowerFuse user eventlog for printer connection failures: printers were connected without any errors or warnings, superb.

When the user started a new session and was opening the printer within Printing Preferences we noticed a popup for only 2 seconds:

This was indicating that the driver is connecting to the printer to retrieve the hardware setup actively: memory, paper, number of trays etc. This is triggered by the following setting within the printer driver:

The combination of Fast Connect and the automatic driver update was not a good combination here. When Fast Connect is enabled, opening the printer results in a connection process (Spooler performs a driver check, creates a printerport and performs a connection) but at exact the same time the automatic update was initiated. This automatic update could never finish because of the connection was still in progress.

This issue could be solved in two ways:
1. Disable “Automatically Update Printer Information” Feature within the printer driver
or
2. Disable Fast Connect within the Printer Properties in the RES PowerFuse Management Console. When disabling “Wait for task to finish before continuing” the wait time for the printer connection can be reduced.

Bad timing between different components can cause a lot of troubles, when the root cause is clear the solution is nearby.