Settings to access printer 'x' are not valid.

Symptoms

You have a profile in Print&Share containing a print channel. The print channel has set specific driver options.

You can verify if you have set specific print driver options in Print&Share when the Default button is activated/enabled:
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When sending the job automatically to the printer or by clicking Send or Send & Close in Print&Share you receive an error message: Settings to access printer '<printername>' are not valid.:

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Nothing has been printed as a result.

Cause

A possible cause for this error can be related to the printer name or printer share name.

Information from Microsoft:

A Printer Share Name must not contain spaces, and the name must not be longer than 31 characters. Failure to follow these requirements may cause certain Windows API calls to fail.

Starting with the Windows Vista operating system, and this includes later versions of the Windows operating systems, if you do not follow these naming requirements, some Windows API calls may fail.

If you watch very closely to the error message in the screenshot, you see that the printer name was already truncated. Pointing into the direction of a faulty printer name.

Resolution

Solution 1

  1. Close and exit Print&Share.
  2. Go to Windows Control Panel, Hardware and Sound, Devices and Printers.
  3. Select the printer, right mouse-click and choose Printer properties.
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  4. Rename the faulting printer. Make sure that the printer (share) name does not contain any spaces and that it is not longer than 31 characters. By printer (share) name we mean the FQN, including the servername. E.g.: \\PRINTER2\PCL6UniPrint.
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  5. Open Print&Share, after renaming the printer.
  6. Select the profile containing the print channel(s).
  7. Make sure the channel uses the renamed printer e.g. PCL6UniPrint and not anymore the long name e.g. PCL6 Driver for Universal Print.
  8. Sending the job to the printer should work now.

Solution 2

Instead of setting the driver specific options in the print driver via the Print&Share print channel, duplicate a printer in Windows Control Panel, Hardware and Sound, Devices and Printers. Configure the specific driver options via Windows Control Panel for that duplicated printer and afterwards select that duplicated printer in Print&Share.

See also

  • "A Printer Share Name that contains spaces or that is longer than 31 characters may cause certain Windows API calls to fail" - KB2444599 - microsoft.com
  • "Choosing a printer name" microsoft.com, archived: web.archive.org