SOLUTION to your HP printer going offline and/or constantly disconnecting from the network

[das187]

Interesting question!  If the default range that a router can use is NNN.NNN.0.2 (where .0.1 is the router itself) through NNN.NNN.254, I don't know why so many people say to assign the printer an IP address OUTSIDE of this range!  Seems to me the router will not be able to find it. Netgear's tech support is pretty lame sometimes (and HP support is about as hit or miss as you can get -- their job seems to be to sell you a new printer), but 3 or 4 of their guys told me this would never work. I tried it and sure enough it said "uh, uh -- you can't do this, this is not part of my neighborhood", and I did it anyway and sure enough it did not work. Gave it a static or manual or whatever-you-want-to-call it IP address both within the printer setup and within the router setup and bingo. Works.  Yes, I still have to turn it off and then on again every now and then, and it sometims takes a while for the little HP display screen to actually turn off, or I have to just unplug it for a good 2 - 3 minutes, but this works too. Maybe that re-sets the internal memory and the printer is then fine for quite a while. (Big print jobs also seem to give it a hard time. Personally, I think a simple CAT5 connection is the best way to go. If there's only a USB port, there are $6 CAT5 to USB converters.) But setting the IP address outside the default range?  A few people say this, but it doesn't make sense to me and sure didn't work for me.

GIGO.

And Occam's razor.

Expert users, trying to solve a problem, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Hope that make some sense.

[LAmel11]

I don't know what to do - it keeps asking me for login information to access these setup fields on my printer's IP address???

it's NOT my admin log in for the computer... what do I do???

Thank you

[das187]

No, I wouldn't think it would be, unless you set up your printer, router and computer all with the same administrator's name and password.

When you set up a router it usually, in my limited experience, asks you to put in an admin name an password, so no one nearby can just type in 192.168.1.1 (or whatever the LAN IP address is for the router) and log in to your router and give themselves permission to change your settings and potentially even lock you out of it.  (Unless someone set it up for you -- in whi you have to ask them.) If it has a GUI, like mine (a Netgear), it's done through a browser, which would hopefully save that info so you can look it up. (With Firefox it's under Firefox>preferences>security...saved passwords, but only for sites that allow this. Many banking and other high security sites don't permit browsers to store this info. I think most browsers do, but Safari is a pain -- you have to go into the Mac "system" folder or someplace like that to look it up. It's there but the 8th grader next door may need to find it for you. They know everything.) But it sure looks like the browser is asking for for this. It's POSSIBLE -- if your ISP requires a logon ID/password even through your gateway (home router, cable modem, both, whatever) -- it could be whatever is set up with them. I know mine does not require this -- it sees something else.

Also, that number is something I don't deal with. Looks like it's coming from the printer.

192.168.2.4:443  

Looks like your router/gateway (if I'm interpreting/guessing correctly) has a LAN IP of 192.168.2.1 or something, and your printer's IP on the local area network (LAN) is 192.168.2.4, and it has a "port" of 443 (hence the colon). I never understood how these port numbers are assigned. But it looks like the printer is asking for your password. That's my guess.

When you set up your printer (usually with a usb cable directly attached from your computer to the printer), way back when, that may have also been done through a browser GUI (graphic user interface). It looks from this like it probably had you put in an admin name and password. Maybe that's saved somewhere also.

If you don't remember all those things, or someone else did it for you and they don't remember, setting up the printer through the GUI maybe the best bet. Then you know for sure.

The fact that it says "server" sounds like maybe it's your ISP, but almost anything can be called a server, in my very limited experience. You may want to look through all the stuff in the browser's home page, whatever that be. And/or the printer's home page on your LAN. Not having set up your home system I really am just guessing in the dark. The "XXX.4:443" really sounds like a port assignment, which is something I never understood: does it come from the computer, the router, maybe even the ISP? I have no idea.

Ten bucks says a computer savvy 9th grader could figure it out in 10 minutes. Seriously.

I'm curious to see what the answer is!

[bkenn202]

I use a Mac Laptop with the Mac OS Operating system fairly up to date - I think it is Leopard.  Printer going offline.  Read the directions but cannot find how to enter IP address into printer - cannot find printer main menu that would allow this - do not know how to enter into browser (Safair).  IP address is 192.168.1.65 ... help - stuck!  thanks!

[das187]

OK, now that this HP forum has designated me as a top student or some such nonsense, I'll try to sound like I know what the heck I'm talking about. (And even restrain my language.) If all the other stuff prior to this (the first 12 or 14 pages on this topic) doesn't help, or is too filled with stuff that makes your eyes glaze over, try again. It's pretty thick stuff, and more of a soporific than Ambien. But what the heck.

You say "I use a Mac Laptop with the Mac OS Operating system fairly up to date - I think it is Leopard."

This shouldn't make any difference. In fact, if it's older, like Leopard (10.5.x), it's probably got less junk in it to screw things up. My daughter's has Leopard (installed by Apple trained slaves in Shanghai in early 2009, unlike mine, with Snow Leopard, a.k.a. OS 10.6.x, installed by the same people in mid-2009. I think the later operating systems, like Lion (10.7) and Mountain Lion (10.8) probably have more crap to complicate things. From all the stuff I've read, I doubt the OS has anything to do with it.

You also say "Read the directions but cannot find how to enter IP address into printer - cannot find printer main menu that would allow this - do not know how to enter into browser (Safair)."

and then you say "IP address is 192.168.1.65 ... help - stuck!  thanks!"

OK, when you say "IP address is 192.168.1.65" I assume you mean your router (access point) has given it that address.

Go into your router's setup and make sure that the printer has a "static" or "reserved" IP address, unlike your computer, which may seem to stay the same all the time, but actually probably gets an IP assigned "dynamically" (i.e. "randomly", or at the router's whim) each time it hooks up to the router. It may take some looking. I'm only familiar with Netgear, but how different can they all be? The air filter on a Ford and on a Honda are essentially the same, even if in a different location in the engine and a different shape, right? So there should be a place to tell the router "give this item this fixed [or static, or reserved] IP address". It might be a little tricky in some ways. My old Netgears used the term "static" and that's where it was. My new one has a place for "static" IP addresses, but that's not what I need to use with this router! Instead I had to go to "WAN setup", and within that is a place for "address reservation". You'll need to know the MAC address of the printer. There are loads of ways of finding this out, including, possibly, a sticker on the back of it, or the box or something else, or a self-test (probably the "wireless" self-test). By the way, doing all this with the printer hooked up to the computer with a USB cable is always the best way to get and input information, at least to get things going. The MAC address, if you're not familiar with this, is a universal identification that distinguishes any wireless or CAT-wired (ethernet) or bluetooth device from any other in the world, supposedly. Your iPhone has a couple of MAC addresses. Your computer probably has 3: one for the bluetooth port, one for the "wireless" port, one for the ethernet port. 

Isn't this fascinating? (What do I care? There's nothing on TV now anyway....)

So find your wireless printer's "wireless" MAC address, which is 6 alphanumeric pairs of letters/numbers separated by colons (e.g. 74:d8:aa:00:fg:9b).

Then make sure the router has this device's MAC (don't ask me what MAC stands for -- if I cared I'd have looked it up by now, or you can go to letmegooglethatforyou dot com)assigned to a "reserved" or static IP address, so it always, always, always sees the printer and says "you are 192.168.1.65" and the printer knows it is 192.168.1.65 so it can respond to it and say "hi! that's me!"

Then set up the printer from scratch.  Like really from scratch. USB cable, setup like for the very first time. Like a virgin, as some '90 singer put it. This may take some time but, hey, you bought the printer. Now you gotta pay the price. (Sorry if I sound cranky. It's late and I can't believe I'm doing this instead of knocking over a liquor store and bringing home some cash.)

So when you have the USB cable attached you should be able to set up the printer (HP makes it SUCH a lovely process!) and get to a point where you go into a GUI (graphic user interface) via a browswer, like Safari. Personally, I hate Safari, and prefer Firefox (with Leopard, you'd need an earlier version of Firefox than the current one, but they can all be downloaded -- just google "firefox for mac leopard" or whatever your computer says your exact OS number is when you click the apple and go to "about this mac"). At some point in the browser-mediated setup of the printer you'll make certain things "manual", like its IP address in the network, the EXACT name of your network (and I mean EXACT), and the sub-net mask (probably 255.255.255.000).

There, now the router has ONLY one IP address for the printer, the printer has only one IP address for itself, and they each know this.

Of course, this is no guarantee. See the postings above. Start at page one of this "discussion" (nice term for a bunch of blowhard, know-it-alls showing off) and just read, and read and read. Your situation is not identical to anyone else's, but there are probably bits and pieces of this one and that one that fit yours. I found a few, did what I just described (and described elsewhere), and now I'm at the point that Caitlin described a page or 2 or 3 back. I still have to turn the printer off, wait 15 seconds and then turn it on again every now and then, but instead of every single time I print, it became once a week, now it's maybe once every 2 or 3 weeks. Small price to pay.

I hope that helps. And I hope the rain stopped because I have to walk the dog. Just 10 minutes till another re-run of a Seinfeld episode I saw 20 years ago.

Oh, and if you get frustrated and have to try all this stuff several times, just think how much better you're handling it than George Costanza would. (Seriously. You'll be OK.)

[bkenn202]

Well, you will not believe this but prior to receiving you very detailed and appreciated reply - thank you so much! - I had abandoned hope of implementing any fix due to time constraints.  However, having read ALL fifteen pages something stuck in my head - a comment about using the printer feature "Clean Printer Heads" - so, I tried it.  Believe it or not, it worked - the printer came back online.  How wierd is that?  Thankfully I was now able to print out your detailed instructions I will keep for future reference (heaven forbid!)

My set-up is so simple - one Apple/MAC laptop, one printer (HP 6500 Officejet E710n-z) - one user (me) - the router is a 2Wire Gateway supplied by ATT when they implemented DSL in my area.  No problems at all for two years since the router and printer have been operational.  I didn't even know that I could also hook up the printer to the computer via a USB port!

Sorry to be so ignorant - I don't do anything fancy on my computer - email, Word files and printing is about all I do.  Thank you so much for being patient.  I learned alot from you and appreciate it.  I am keeping all this material safely stored away.  Thank you so much!

[das187]

Glad to have been of help, even if indirectly. Sometimes it's those weird little things, like "clean smudges from back of paper" or whatever, that send a gliltch into the printer's "memory" and then everything gets screwed up. Kind of like a single deletion or or addition of a nucleotide base in DNA causing a frame-shift: everything else down the line in that segment is out of whack. Who knows? No one, it seems. I also had no problems for 2-1/2 years. None. It really does take looking at all the info from other people. Not exactly scientific, but you sort the wheat from the chaff and hope you can make some of it work for you -- and you did! (That's why I said to read it all. Fortunately, you didn't fall asleep reading it.) I also sifted through all the "expert advice" on the Netgear user site; some from people who said things that couldn't possibly work!!!  But a glimmer here and there. And maybe the steps I took, which I got mostly from Caitlin, will come in handy for you at some point in the future. Or, if we're all lucky, the manufacturers, like HP, will finally get their acts together and make wireless printers that actually work for regular people.

Seems to me that, at this point, purely wireless printers are a problem waiting to happen. Our problem, after 2+ years, was with the HP 4780. Our other is the fax/scan/copy/print photosmart premium, aka c309a, which can be wireless or bluetooth (which, being straight from computer to printer, always works fine, as long as you're in the same room) OR via ethernet cable (flawless) and THAT is how we've always had it: connected straight to the router with a CAT5 cable (and a reserved/static IP also). That one has no problems ever, and it's WAY faster.  A couple of years after we got it HP replaced it with an almost identical model: just wireless, with no ethernet port. Everyone had problems with it, and 6 months later HP (or should I say HP/Compaq?) had to yank the new wireless-only model and put it back out with the ethernet port back in place, where it belonged. So pure wireless seems to bring on problems. I bet you'd be wise to keep an eye on yours as time goes on. The sooner you let the little things make you give up the sooner they get to sell you another, and keep the shareholders happy. (The Compaq people who survived that merger don't seem to know squat about printers.)

Anyway, glad to have been of any help. Others helped me, so I'm just paying it forward, so to speak. - D

[dickn]

This was exactly the solution I was looking for.  My biggest problem was finding out what the range of addesses was for my router (DHCP).  It's a proprietary router than can be used for TV as well as Internet access.  I don't use the TV part but it was annoying that none of the 192.168.x.x combinations would work.  I finally googled my supplier name and router and found someone who was trying to change the settings and they happened to mention that the starting range was x.x.1.64   So I was able to specify a number lower than that and that is what I used for the manual IP address.  I had to delete the printer and re-install it so it would finally detach itself from a non-working IP address and use the manual one.  Since then no problems.  Thank you. Things should never be this complicated.  Someone who is not tech savvy would be lost.  And it's bad PR for the manufacturer.  It needs to be fixed.

[Caitlin56]

This post freakin' rocks! Goes to the intelligence and generosity of many a hapless consumer, at stark contrast to the products they must buy.  I mean why else would you be sharing all this information with everyone if you weren't a curious soul, tired of boorish tech companies, possess a serious creative streak, and compassion for others? I really appreciated going on the journey with you as you explained how the thing worked.  And the asides most of all. 

It is also gratifying to hear people return to my suggestion to just turn the **bleep** thing on and off again. Incidentally, perhaps due to another update, perhaps from my former employer the "never quite gets it right" giant software company monopoly, I'm back to the turning off/turning on thing again. Oh well, another "update" will come soon.

Glad to be in the company of all of you; original thought beats machines every time. 

[dickn]

Perhaps I should mention my configuration.  There are so many variables out there that it is hardly surprising that what works for one person does not work for another.  But this problem (now with an elegant solution) seems general enough that it should work in all cases.

I'm using a Gateway PC running Windows 8 64bit.  My wireless router is proprietry from Telus (ISP/TV provider in Canada) and I get great speed from this device.  My Canon printer (wireless model) died with a mechanical failure so I bought an HP 5520-e AiO.  Set it up for wireless operation and it worked fine.  I could have used a USB cable to the router but I had no problem with the wireless n speed. 

My daughter installed the HP driver on her laptop so she could print too.  Worked fine.  But that is about the time that the HP printer went "offline" from my PC.  It smelled like an IP address problem but re-boots of everything did not fix the problem.  Frustration led me to this forum.  Going the Manual IP address route and re-installing the printer worked for me.  I leave my HP printer on all the time (it goes to sleep) and it wakes up just fine when I want to print something.

I went through HP "support" years ago when I had a horrible problem with an earlier wired printer and Vista so I knew better than to try that route again!!  Forums are the only way to go to get the support you need.  Thanks again to all involved, especially "medic".