Printer keeps printing the same page: how to stop it and why it happens

When your printer keeps printing the same page, it can empty a paper tray in minutes. The cause is nearly always a job that is still waiting somewhere and keeps being sent again, or a setting that asks for more copies than you meant. This guide first shows how to stop the paper right now, then how to find where the repeating job comes from so it does not happen again.

If the queue is stuck but nothing prints at all, the print spooler error fix is the better guide. If the repeated pages are full of strange characters, see printer printing gibberish first. All other symptoms are in the printer troubleshooting guide.

Stop the paper first

1. Press Cancel, Stop or the X button on the printer’s control panel. On many printers this cancels only the job currently printing.
2. If pages keep coming, switch the printer off with its power button. Do not pull paper out of a laser printer while it is running; the fuser is hot.
3. Leave the printer off while you clear the computer side. Switching it back on too early lets the computer send the job again.

Once the printer is off, any paper half-way through may need removing; how to clear a paper jam shows how to do it without tearing the sheet.

Clear the queue on the computer

Windows 11

1. Open Settings > Bluetooth & devices > Printers & scanners, select the printer and choose Open print queue.
2. Cancel every job listed. Use Cancel all if it is offered.
3. If a job stays on Deleting or keeps reappearing, the spooler is holding it. Stop the Print Spooler service, delete the files inside the spool PRINTERS folder (not the folder itself), and start the service again. The print spooler error fix has the exact steps.
4. Restart the computer if the job still returns.

macOS

Open System Settings > Printers & Scanners, select the printer, choose Printer Queue and delete every job. Close the app that was printing. If jobs come back, restart the Mac.

Check every device that prints to it

A network printer accepts jobs from any computer, phone or tablet on the network. If a laptop that was asleep wakes up with a job still queued, it sends that job again. A phone app can retry a job that it thinks failed.

• Clear the queues on every computer that printed recently.
• Close printing apps on phones and tablets and check for pending jobs.
• On shared or office printers, ask whoever printed last.

Now switch the printer back on, let it finish starting up and print a one-page test with copies set to 1.

Rule out a setting or the document

Many “endless” print jobs are actually doing exactly what they were told.

• Copies. Check the number of copies in the print dialog. A preset, a saved driver default or a previous job can leave it above 1. In Windows, open Printing preferences and check the default copies there too.
• The document. Look at the print preview. A spreadsheet print area, a repeated header row setting or a mail merge can produce the same-looking page many times.
• Printer copy function. Some printers keep a copies number for jobs started on the printer itself, such as copying or printing from a memory card.
• Pressing Print more than once. When printing feels slow, it is tempting to click Print again; each click is a new job. If slowness is the real issue, printer printing slowly helps.

Remove duplicate printer entries

Windows can end up with several entries for one printer, for example a USB entry and a network entry, or “Printer (Copy 1)”. If an app prints to one and you clear the queue of another, the job keeps coming. In Printers & scanners, remove entries you do not use and keep one working entry per printer. Then make sure the right one is the default; if Windows refuses to set it, see error 0x00000709.

Fix the driver if the loop returns

If repeating jobs come back with every document, the driver may be failing to tell Windows that the job has finished, so it is resent.

1. Remove the printer from Printers & scanners.
2. Install the current driver for your exact model from the manufacturer’s support site, or let Windows add the printer with its built-in driver.
3. Add the printer again and test with a short document.

Some printers offer more than one driver type, such as PCL and PostScript. Trying the other one is a reasonable test. If Windows reports the driver as unavailable, follow printer driver is unavailable.

When the printer itself repeats

Print a configuration or test page from the printer’s own menu. If that page also prints over and over, the job is stored in the printer or the printer’s firmware has a problem. Switch it off for a few minutes to clear its memory, then check the manufacturer’s support pages for your model for a firmware update or reset procedure. This is uncommon; in most cases the loop lives on a computer or phone.

Preventing it next time

A few habits make repeating jobs much less likely:

• Wait for the first job. If nothing seems to happen after you click Print, open the print queue and look before printing again. A job that is still spooling or waiting for the printer to wake up will print shortly.
• Cancel from the computer as well as the printer. Pressing Cancel on the printer stops the current copy, but the queue on the computer may still hold the job and send it again.
• Keep one printer entry. After moving the printer to a new network or connection type, remove the old entry instead of leaving both.
• Put laptops to sleep with an empty queue. A job left in the queue of a sleeping laptop prints whenever the laptop next reaches the printer, which can be hours later.

Checklist

• Printer stopped and switched off while you clean up.
• Queue and spooler cleared on every device that printed.
• Copies set to 1 and the preview checked.
• One printer entry per printer.
• Current driver installed if the loop came back.