Knowledge Base FAQ Item #6980030

Q6980030: My printer always shows 'Idle' (value: 3), even though it is online. What is the reason?

ActiveXperts uses WMI (part of the Windows OS) to monitor printers. WMI retrieves the printer information from the spoolsv.exe process. So whether the printer status information retrieved is reliable depends on the printer driver.

If the printer driver bypass the the spooler to get status or they do not report the status data exchange to the spooler process, the print provider will report whatever status the spooler contains. If the spooler reports Ready, it never gets data with a status change (default is ready) and the provider just exports this as Idle.