Officejet Pro 8600 Plus connection issue - HELP!

[gclapp]

I've tried everything others have including the "workaround" and no love. I have tried three of these printers. One workes perfectly on my home network. The second was confirmed defective by support with the problems discussed in these forums and other problems. The thrid has the same connection problems discussed here. It is hit-and-miss. When a connection error happes (unable to establish bi-directional communication), sometimes a retry is all that is required. Sometimes a job will print on its own after the error is displayed. Sometimes, no love at all, just more failure.

The successful installation at home is all Windows 7 systems. The failing instllation at my wife's office is all XP SP3 systems. At her office, I have replaced most networking gear including cables, updated machines, tried the "workaround" and so on and so on. All to no avail. I am at this point questioning the capability of the driver for XP fundamentally as all three machines have the same problem.

[HelpDesk180]

I just upgraded the firmware on my Cisco / Linksys E4200 router from 1.0.01 to 1.0.03 and that also seems to have helped the connectivity issue.  HOWEVER:  what I find interesting is that after I have manually set the link config on the 8600 Plus to 100TX full duplex, and power cylced everything and rechecked to confirm that the settings took (per the 8600's web access screens) the unit comes on line at 100TX HALF Duplex, according to the lights on my network switch.   it is the ONLY unit displaying half duplex.  

Also interesting is that if I set the 8600 to AUTO, the system comes up after a power cycle with 100TX Full duplex, but after a sleep cycle it will fall back to 10TX half duplex and cannot be changed from that without power cycling the 8600.   Power cycling the router and the network switch has no effect on connectivity or the connection as displayed on the switch. 

This sure looks like a printer-centric issue to me.  If I poll the printer from the computer to initiate a scan, sometimes it will connect, sometimes not.  The activity lights on the switch act the same while polling, and I may need to do nothing other than try again a minute later and the previous "scanner cannot be found" will instead become a perfectly working connection that scans fine.  HP Engineering, please go figure!

[nratner]

If you back up these postings, people are blaming everything but the printer. I was told when I posted that it was my router. People are being told it is XP, when it is clear it affects other machines. HP NEEDS TO CREATE A SOFTWARE FIX FOR THIS PROBLEM OR LET US RETURN THESE PRINTERS FOR FULL REFUND.  I did not have this problem with my old HP, which I replaced, stupidly, after its paper feed looked like it was failing after a few years of really good service. IF HP PEOPLE ARE READING, THEY SHOULD SEE HOW FRUSTRATED OWNERS OF THIS MODEL ARE, AND DO SOMETHING OTHER THAN RECOMMEND ARCANE FIXES. THEY SHOULD GENERATE A 'PATCH' AND GET IT OUT, AND SOON, OR LET US RETURN THE STUFF.

n

[HelpDesk180]

PROGRESS?            It has now been 2 full days and I can wake the printer from sleep with either a scan or print request from both  win 7 and win XP systems with no failures / error messages.  Whether this is Karma, the router update, or an update HP pushed to the printer on Jan 24th shortly after my earlier post, or a combination of all of them I do not know, but I like the results. ( I have HP updates set to Download, but Let Me Decide When to Install.)  I am hopeful because the update was listed as designed to "Correct network connectivity issues" or something similar. 

 The network switch still does not show a full duplex link, but when the printer is responding to a print or scan request, the full duplex light flashes on and off until the job is done – as if the 8600 is set to respond  “If I have something to say I will do it in full duplex so I can listen at the same time, otherwise I will stay in half duplex so I do not clutter up the network with my noise”.  Kind of like the printer is lurking, but will respond to requests with “Yep, I’m really here… got that…here’s what I did…anything else?”  and then goes back to sleep until something else wants to yell at it.    So far, great improvement, and now seems to do everything I expected it to.  Here’s hoping nothing else comes along to mess up what so far seems to be working!   

 I am still hesitant to mark this as Solved, and would suggest users run the printer's check-for-updates option on their systems.  Note that I have 5 acitve systems connected to the network at the moment, two XP Pro, one each Win 7 home, pro and ultimate, and the update only presented itself on the win 7 Pro machine.  I had set up printing to the 8600 on all these systems on the same day.  Now all systems seem to work OK.  Your mileage may vary...

[gclapp]

I'd like to know more about this update. The only new software I see on the HP site dated the 24th of January 2012 (or anywhere near there) is a diagnostic utility or two. I haven't seen anything else pushed out or made available.

[gclapp]

Wait! There is one through the ePrint. We'll see....

[SGasus]

I'm experiencing the same problem that Honor Student encountered.

Opened case with HP earlier today 1/26/12.  They mentioned they had never seen the problem before.

I googled and discovered this thread.

The problem I'm having is CANNOT PRINT:  " after some period of idle time, the HP 8600 Pro Plus goes to sleep and then loses network connection and it's ip address ( previously assigned via dhcp address reservation )

The problem is reproducible 100% of the time.

The problem has occurred on two different HP 8600 Pro Plus printers connected to the exact same ethernet cable and port on the Netgear Router.

I don't believe it has anything to do with the ethernet cable, port on router or router as other devices have been connected to the same cable & port and never lost connection.

I'm using dhcp with address reservation so the printer is assigned the same ip address every time.

EWS ( Embedded Web Server ) : Settings / Scheduled On/Off

1) Schedule On/Off is disabled

2) Shutdown is disabled

What I've observed once the problem occurs:

Cannot print ( thats how i first notice there's a problem )

Print jobs remain in queue

Cannot ping printer via ip

Cannot access EWS ( webpage ) via ip

Netgear router doesn't see the printer as attached

Netgear router see's all other devices attached.

The problem occurred on two different HP 8600 Pro Plus ( returned one back to store )

LED on power switch is blinking ( Standby i guess )

LCD panel is dark ( blank )

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

IP address loosed : shows 00.00.00.00

Go to LCD panel

1) Setup

2) Network

3) View Network Summary

4) View Wired Summary

5) IP 00.00.00.00

6) MAC address ok

7) Hostname ok

😎 Print shows same ip address is all 00.00.00.00

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ironically, i can print to printer from my cell phone using ePrint

1) send email to printer without attachment = printer prints

2) send email to printer with attachment = printer prints attachment

But still cannot print from laptop nor access EWS ( GUI )

Workaround:

1) power cycle printer

2) all jobs in printer queue begin printing

3) i can print again

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Can others report on whether or not the link ( green ) LED

ight is on or off when the problem is observed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There appears to be several problems

1st Problem:

1) printer looses connection to network, both wired & wirless

2) solution power cycle printer

2nd Problem

1) cannot print to printer

2) power cycle pc or logout and in again on pc or stop and restart certain processes

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[HelpDesk180]

This is a long post, so other users can understand where their situation might fit into what I have gone through.  If you skip ahead, you may end up applying a fix that does not work due to the current state of your system.  The real meat is at the end where HP lists what worked for me as a “Critical Update” that many users do not seem to have been made aware of…

Based on an examination of network switch lights, I have suffered through several phases of this connectivity loss problem:

1>  When I first installed the printer software, I did it from the included CD.   That gave me good, reliable TX100 full duplex wired connectivity until the first printer sleep session.  Then, as in the previous post from SGasus, ALL lights on the network switch port connected to the printer went out and stayed that way until I restarted the printer. When it came back after restarting the printer, the network switch would always go to full "green lights out" when the printer went into sleep mode.  This was totally unworkable.  FYI:  I have enough connected equipment that I have a 16 port switch connected to my 4-port router, and have been installing networks for a couple of decades.

2>  As part of trying to get this functioning, I "completely" uninstalled the printer software from my systems (I only installed it on one Win XP and one Win 7 system until I was at a point I felt I could tolerate the strange behavior) and installed the full package that was available on line. This was the OJ8600_619.exe package I downloaded from HP at 3:19 PM on 1-21-2012.  File size 122,738.  Based on other comments in this and the parallel OJ8500 thread (which with almost 10,000 views it is hard to believe HP has not heard of the issue!) I also upgraded the firmware on my Cisco/Linksys E4200 router.  Following these two changes, and switching the printers' Link Settings to Manual - 100TX full duplex, the unit went into a firmware crash that reset everything back to defaults - GMT time, no network configuration, etc.  ( Comfort level dropped a bit here…)

3>  I reinstalled the downloaded software again without incident and set the printer to manual TX100 full duplex.   Rebooted printer.    Now got consistent 100TX Half duplex and no waking from sleep mode.  Grrrrrrr.         Quit for the night on the 21st.

4>  When I got back to this issue late on the  23rd, there was a system tray notification from HP on my Win 7 system saying there was an update to be installed that would address “Printer Communication Issues".  There was nothing I noticed that said anything else about what it was fixing, and I gleefully clicked install, noticed the file size was in the many-megabyte range and walked away. 

 I have since hunted, but can find nowhere within the HP user software that tells you what has been downloaded, installed, update revision level, dates, etc.  (HP - this could be useful stuff when we are trying to educate HP level 1 support staff!) 

5>  At this time, with the EWS network link set to Manual - 100TX Full duplex I seem to have quite reliable 100TX HALF duplex connectivity that remains active even when the 8600 is in sleep mode.  As noted elsewhere, this will flip to Full Duplex when the link is in use faxing, scanning or printing.

----------------------------------------------- 

After much hunting I found the following update information on the Win 7 system where the HP system tray “update available” flag had appeared:

Under    C:\users\[user name]\appdata\roaming\HpUpdate     are the files   HpUpdate.session    and   RpsPackages.cache.   The pertinent strings there are:

C r i t i c a l   U p d a t e   t o   C o r r e c t   a   P C   t o   P r i n t e r   C o m m u n i c a t i o n   I s s u e   h   T h i s   u p d a t e   c o r r e c t s   a n   i s s u e   t h a t   c a n   c a u s e   y o u r   c o m p u t e r   t o   l o s e   t h e   c o n n e c t i o n   w i t h   y o u r   p r i n t e r ,   w h i c h   m a y   r e s u l t   i n   i n c o m p l e t e   p r i n t   j o b s   a n d   l o s s   o f   p r i n t e r   s t a t u s   m e s s a g i n g

And what appears to be the source location of the update file:

h t t p : / / f t p . h p . c o m / p u b / s o f t l i b / s o f t w a r e 1 2 / C O L 3 8 2 9 1 / o j - 9 3 9 2 8 - 1 / C I O U M U p d a t e _ 3 5 4 5 _ 0 0 0 _ 0 0 9 _ h p u . e x e

CAUTION:  Based solely on file dates and performance changes, it is my supposition that this referenced file is what fixed my system.  Note that fixing one PC corrected the connectivity issue for ALL PC’s, indicating it changed settings on the PRINTER itself.   The updater checks for User Rights, Win version,  32 vs. 64 bit status and who knows what else. 

 Although a quick check for updates via the on-line printer management console would be a good move,   I would recommended against finding and running this executable without first confirming applicability with second level HP support staff unless you can get a level one staffer to really firmly confirm this is an appropriate fix in YOUR situation.    

It appears that HP has finally addressed a problem they have not let their support techs talk about.  Here’s hoping it also works for users with situations not identical to mine.

[BigSteve1]

Hey guys - It's probably a repeat but I just dug up the fix for XP machines on the HP support site.

http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c03149924

As silly as checking the radio button sounded, it actually worked, as in immediately!  I'll be dipped...

Anyway, here's hoping this annoying mystery is resolved.  I agree with all of the others who are wondering aloud as to why we had to spend hours to find this stuff out, when a simple patch would have done the trick and saved HP the ill-will.

Good luck all!

sgf

[HelpDesk180]

The link referred to in Big Steve's post does seem to address a key issue that has been a problem with both OJ 8500 and OJ 8600 units for close to two years.  It knocks down the packet storm sent out by the printer when system software is set to continually update users on ink status.   I would expect this might get worse on larger networks where more systems are flagged to receive and acknowledge these continual updates.

However, for those users encountering total loss of connectivity and a port shutdown when entering sleep mode, there may be an additional fix needed unless the Keep-Awake fix is incorporated into the don't-swamp-the-network patch.  I do not have any idea if this is so or how a user could tell other than by applying the fix and monitoring the lights on the port that connects their Router / Hub / Switch to their printer.  

I also agree with Big Steve that it would have been nice for HP support to share info on the availability of this patch.   We all expect driver hiccups along the way, but we also expect reputable suppliers to address those issues and be up front about it.     Here's hoping the fix is in!