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Firefox won't print, an error occured while printing

  • 10 replies
  • 3 have this problem
  • 25 views
  • Last reply by tzikis

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Hello, for the past week i've been tackling this problem and it's driving me nuts. I've basically replaced FF with Chrome at this point, because I can't use it for work.

Firefox refuses to print, no matter which printer I select, and even if I try to print to .pdf using Microsoft Print to PDF (or other, 3rd party ones, I tried). Other programs and browsers print just fine, it's only FF that refuses, and it refuses to do so with any printer, physical or virtual.

The error I get is a window titled "Print Preview Error" and the error message is "An error occured while printing" (see attached image). For what it's worth, when I go to the menu and select Print, I get the print preview just fine, it's only after I move on to the printer selection and click on Print that I get this error.

I've followed all the steps from: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/fix-printing-problems-firefox as well as: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Problems_printing_web_pages#Reset_printer

And I've also tried using Safe Mode while doing that, as suggested here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/854093

I hope you can help! I've been a Mozillian for more than 20 years, contributor, and volunteer, but this is making my work impossible and I'm forced to abandon FF due to this problem.

Hello, for the past week i've been tackling this problem and it's driving me nuts. I've basically replaced FF with Chrome at this point, because I can't use it for work. Firefox refuses to print, no matter which printer I select, and even if I try to print to .pdf using Microsoft Print to PDF (or other, 3rd party ones, I tried). Other programs and browsers print just fine, it's only FF that refuses, and it refuses to do so with any printer, physical or virtual. The error I get is a window titled "Print Preview Error" and the error message is "An error occured while printing" (see attached image). For what it's worth, when I go to the menu and select Print, I get the print preview just fine, it's only after I move on to the printer selection and click on Print that I get this error. I've followed all the steps from: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/fix-printing-problems-firefox as well as: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Problems_printing_web_pages#Reset_printer And I've also tried using Safe Mode while doing that, as suggested here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/854093 I hope you can help! I've been a Mozillian for more than 20 years, contributor, and volunteer, but this is making my work impossible and I'm forced to abandon FF due to this problem.
Attached screenshots

All Replies (10)

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Interesting... What is the model of the printer? Can you also see if you have the most recent driver for it.

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My main one is a Samsung M2070 printer. However, i don't think it makes any difference, since I can't even print with the default pdf printers either, nor 3rd party virtual printers either.

I could live without printing from firefox, but not being able to export to .pdf as a workaround is just killing me :(

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Just a test... Can you log into another Windows account? Then open Firefox and try the same process, but do not log into your Firefox account.

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Holy cow! That did it! So weird.

So... any suggestions on how to go about fixing this for my main account?

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We will first need to verify if the issue is an add-on in Firefox. So while in the new Windows account, can you log into your Firefox account and let everything in the browser populate from your sync and then try the process again.

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fwiw, i don't think it can be an addon, because i've tried with firefox safe mode too, which doesn't load addons, and it still wouldn't work

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Can we please follow orders.  ;-))

So while in the new Windows account, can you log into your Firefox account and let everything in the browser populate from your sync and then try the process again.

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D :D :D ok ok, just did so and it still works on the new windows account

in the old windows account, it still doesn't work, with or without addons. i even tried FF's new built-in "Save as PDF" option from the new print view and it doesn't work either

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OK. Just need to figure out what's running in your old account that's causing the problem.


You can go back to the old version.

Firefox previous print interface window:

For now you can revert to the previous interface by setting a pref to false on the about:config page.

print.tab_modal.enabled = false
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Yeah no, that's not the issue. I started having these issues 2-3 weeks before the new interface window was introduced. Both the old and new interface window work on the new windows account, and in the old windows account both give me an error

i've tried the about:config as well, when it first poped up a couple of days ago i googled it, to see if that might have been the problem. no changes