Photosmart C309g-m (OS X Lion) not installing correctly

[fny82]

I've had nothing but problems with my C309g-m. First, when I set up a Linksys E2000 router, the printer absolutely refused to work wirelessly. It would pull an IP address but would not communicate on the network at all. No solutions work, and I eventually gave up and just hooked it up with a wired connection.

On my MacBookPro, I recently reinstalled with OS X Lion. When I try to install the C309g-m, it's not working: following the instructions on HP's website, but the printer doesn't show up on the list of printers to add. It's on the same subnet and is using DHCP. When this failed, I tried downloading the C309g drivers from HP's site and installing them. HP Setup can't find the printer, and when I enter the printer's IP address, it can't find it that way either. It's definitely the right IP address, because using that same IP, I'm connected to the printer's web interface right now and everything looks fine there. The printer responds to pings and the response time when using the web interface is quick.

I've reset the printer's network settings to defaults, reset the entire printer's configuration to defaults, power cycled it several times, yet the problems persist.

Any ideas? This is the third HP printer that I've owned, and the third HP printer that has given me nothing but problems and finicky behavior. It's getting really frustrating.

[fny82]

Update: I think I managed to get it to work. For the heck of it, I tried installing it differently from HP's own instructions. I went back to Print & Scan, selected add printer, chose the IP option with HP JetDirect, and entered the printer's IP address. This time, OS X correctly automatically identified the printer under "Print Using" as a C309g-m. I added the printer, sent a test page, and it worked.

I'm not sure what the issue is here, whether it's an error in HP's documentation or just something unreliable with the printer, but this process took way longer than it should have and had me ready to roundhouse kick the printer across the room. Grrr.