HP Printer in Error State: How to Fix It

“Printer is in an error state” is Windows talking, not the printer. It means the printer told Windows something is wrong, and Windows gave up on the details. The fix starts with finding out what the printer actually said.

Step 1: Read the printer's own screen

Walk to the printer and look at the control panel. This one step sorts the problem instantly:

• The panel shows a numeric code (13.XX, 50.2, 59.F0…) — that's your real problem, and it's a printer issue, not a Windows issue. Look it up in our HP error codes guide and follow that trail.
• The panel shows a door open, paper out, or toner message — fix exactly what it says. Windows reports all of these as a generic error state.
• The panel says Ready — the printer is fine; the problem lives in the connection or the print queue. Keep going below.

Step 2: Restart things in the right order

1. Power-cycle the printer — off at its switch, 30 seconds, back on. Wait for Ready.
2. Clear the print queue. In Windows: Settings → Bluetooth & devices → Printers & scanners → your printer → Open print queue, then cancel everything. One corrupt job at the head of the queue will hold the printer in an error state forever.
3. Restart the Print Spooler. Press Windows key + R, type services.msc, find Print Spooler, right-click → Restart. This clears more “error state” messages than any other single step.
4. Reboot the computer if the spooler restart didn't take.

On an office network, check where the queue actually lives

If the printer is shared through a print server, the queue that matters is on the server, not your PC — one stuck job there puts every user in the office into an error state at once. If everyone lost the printer at the same time, that's the signature: ask whoever manages the server to clear that queue or restart its spooler.

Two more office-specific culprits we see regularly:

• The printer's IP address changed. If the printer is on DHCP and picked up a new address after a router or lease change, Windows keeps printing to the old one. Print the configuration page from the panel, compare the IP against the port on your PC, and update the port — then ask IT to reserve a static IP so it can't drift again.
• A firmware-crashed network card. If the printer shows Ready but nothing on the network can reach it, power-cycle it with the network cable unplugged, then reconnect.

Step 3: Reinstall the driver — the last software step

If one computer still shows the error state while others print fine, remove the printer from that machine (Printers & scanners → Remove), then add it back — or better, install the current driver for your exact model from HP's site. Choose the full driver rather than the universal one where you can; mismatched drivers are a quiet cause of recurring error states.

When it's not a settings problem

Three signs the software trail has run out: the panel is showing a numeric error code; the printer errors out for every computer and every user no matter what you reset; or the error state returns within minutes of every fix. At that point something on the printer itself — the fuser, a sensor, the formatter, the network card — needs a technician's eyes, and continuing to reinstall drivers just burns your afternoon.