Windows 10: Still printing issues after update installation (March 2021)

[German]As of March 15, 2021, Microsoft has released unscheduled fix updates for Windows 10 printing issues (APC_INDEX_MISMATCH BSOD). While the updates make a lot of people happy, other users continue to suffer from BlueScreens or incorrect printouts, especially with graphics. I therefore summarize what feedback I have received in the meantime.

Update fixes printing BSOD bug

With the security updates of March 9, 2021 there are printer problems under Windows (especially Windows 10, but also Windows Server and Terminal Server). Depending on the Windows variant and environment, this ranges from no longer being able to print, to BlueScreens when printing or calling applications from LibeOffice or Microsoft Office. Microsoft itself has confirmed the problem and writes about it:

After installing this update, you may see an APC_INDEX_MISMATCH error with a blue screen when you try to print to certain printers in some apps.

I had summarized this in the blog post Windows 10 Updates KB5000802/KB5000808 causes BSOD when printing in win32kfull.sys – pulled?. Further findings can be found in the blog post Patchday: Updates for Windows 7/Server 2008 R2 (March 9, 2021). As of March 15, 2021, Microsoft has released unscheduled fix updates for Windows 10 (see Windows 10: Out-of-band Update for Blue Screen printing bug). The sole purpose of these updates is to fix APC_INDEX_MISMATCH BlueScreen when printing.

Update is not offered

In this German comment, there is a note that the out-of-band update was not offered on machines. In this cases, the manual download from the Microsoft Update Catalog with subsequent installation is recommended. .

Still BlueScreens after update installation

These out-of-band updates to fix the printing BSOD issue made a lot of people happy and allow them finally to print again without APC_INDEX_MISMATCH BlueScreens including restarting Windows. But there are also administrators who gave the feedback that the patches did not help. On Facebook the following comment reached me:

Can't confirm that it works. A customer of ours with 6 clients. 5 out of 6 installed this this morning and the problem with the printers (Kyocera in that case) still persists.

If this issue comes up, check out this German comment on the blog. The administrator had to uninstall the fix update and then reinstall it from a download via .msu file. If the update cannot be uninstalled (gave some users on the blog), this German comment (clean all registry entries left from the update, install the update again and then uninstall) on the heise forum may provide an approach. 

Print server causes blank pages

In this German comment blog reader Marco describes that the installation of the security update of March 9, 2021 on print servers (Windows Server 2012 R2 / 2016) ended with only blank pages are printed. For Windows Server 2012 R2, however, there is no out-of-band update so far. 

Errors printing graphics

A number of users complain that the printing of graphics data does not really work even after installing the fix updates, but is faulty. In my German blog post Windows 10: Außerplanmäßiges Update für Drucken BlueScreen-Bug, there are a number of feedbacks by users. Here is a description (which I've translated)::

in our header sheets, even after installing the "correction patch", no graphic is printed with it.
I tested this with the correction patch for the 20H2. I guess the picture will be the same with the older versions.

And an answer to this from another user:  

Here are also missing document parts in the printout occurred.
Is also with the out of band update under 1909 with a HP 1022 so. Without that and the KB 5000808 everything is great.

Even with Windows 8.1, errors occur with graphics output, as you can see from the following comment. 

On my Windows 8.1 system, JPGs are printed incompletely ("Image – Windows Photo Display").

Another typical error report can be found here on the blog in this comment: 

After installing KB5000802 in one of my applications, images are no longer printed, regardless of the selected printer, i.e. the images are also missing when creating PDF files or XPS documents. The installation of KB5001567 does not bring any improvement. So only the uninstallation of KB5000802 remains.

This comment in German heise forum reflects a similar situation. Also the output of TIFF files probably brings incomplete printouts, as you can see from this comment.

fter installing the update, we unfortunately still have problems when we want to print tiff files via the (old) Windows photo viewer.

The computer no longer crashes, but the print is not complete. About half of the actual document is missing. It doesn't matter whether you print the document on a printer or create a PDF.

This problem can be reproduced on all clients that have installed one of the two OR both updates (KB5000808 / KB5001566). If both updates are uninstalled, the printing of tiff files via the photo viewer works as usual.

The problem then also occurs with fax servers, which use TIFF files for printouts. This comment to my German heise article also addresses this.

Label printers print empty labels

Dymo Labelwriters for label printing also seem to be problematic. This comment states:

Dymo Labelwriter 450 Twin Turbo continues to print blank labels.
Tested on W10 20H2 with KB5000167

I received several similar feedback. However, there are users for whom the installation of the fix update has resolved the error pattern of bluescreens and missing printouts.

Issues with Office printing

Currently I received a verbal error description from an IT supporter, telling me, that in an Office document the printout abruptly breaks off on page 12 of X pages because a graphic is included in a table. Here I hope for further hints and a test file.

At heise there is this forum post, which reports about error messages during mail merge after the installation of the original March update KB5000802.

Problem in the GDI part of Windows?

Looking at the above error images, my guess is a bug in the Graphics Device Interface (GDI) of Windows caused by the installation of the March 9, 2021 updates. This then leads to the fact that the preparation of the print image at the graphics in the GDI subsystem is no longer correct and is then incorrectly passed on to the printer driver. This problem is not fixed by the out-of-band update of March 15, 2021.