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Archived This topic has been archived. Information and links in this thread may no longer be available or relevant. If you have a question create a new topic by clicking here and select the appropriate board.
HP Recommended

I have a strange issue:  after some hours, the communication link is dropped between the computer and printer.  When this happens, IE becomes unusable and will not connect to anything.  This is replicated on three XP home machines.   The fourth, a vista ultimate machine, does not seem to be affected (yet).  I get the "scan to computer is disabled" error.  It cannot be re-enabled.  At this point I cannot print either.  I can reach the embedded web server on the printer via firefox and can still surf using firefox.  I can ping the printer, but again once the connection is dropped, no printing or scanning to the computer.  The only thing I've found that resolves the issue (temporarily) is to reboot the computer, which just starts the cycle again.

 

last night I installed the software on an XP machine and the laptop to test when the connection dropped.  They lasted from 7pm Monday until I got home at 5pm Tues.  The machines were not used.  Once I started using them (firefox only), then they dropped the connection within a half hour of each other around 7pm.  The other XP machine lasted from 7pm Mon until 7am tues, when my wife started using it and then noticed it dropped sometime that tues between 7 and 9AM.  An 11am tues reboot ran OK until 10 pm tues when connection was lost again (and IE is now dead).   The Vista machine has been running since 7pm monday until now (930pm tues) and still seems to be holding.

 

printer hardwired, to router, static IP, 100-full link speed (also tried 10-half)

router dlink di-655

two XP machines are hardwired, vista is hardwired, and last xp machine is a laptop on wireless.

I've swapped cables rebooted and reinstalled multiple times.  I must have a file a mile long on the support phone line.  They were unable to fix it.  I asked this to be escalated, but who knows when I'll get a response.

I've toggled firewalls - XP built in

I've uninstalled anti virus software

I've even put up with crazy suggestions from tech support like changing the router channel (uhh, it is wired!)

one xp machine had an AIO 4215 hooked via USB and the others printed to it via network, but the printer has been deleted from the networked machines.

I can ping 127.0.0.1 which is supposed to indicate the tcp service is OK.

I have not reset winsock .. I can see one machine being bad, but three????

malware / virus scan shows no issues.  Again one maybe, but three??

 

The only thing I can think of is that there is something in the XP networking stack that conflicts with the new 8600 software as hours pass.  Perhaps there is some polling operation that goes on then dies after some time, then it kills IE as it dies.

 

When the printer works it is great, but rebooting is not a permanent solution to this.

 

any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!!!!!  I am stumped and so is tech support.  They are sending it to engineering, but who knows when they will respond.

 

thanks in advance.

 

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions
HP Recommended

From our investigation into this issue, we have found a workaround that will help with this.

 

 Follow the steps below.

 

1. Please go to Hp Software->Printer Preferences->Maintenance Tasks -> Advanced Settings

2. Selects the second radio under “Show Alerts”, “Only show me ink alerts when I print”.

3. Now restart your PC to make sure setting saved.

 

Find the screen shot attached.

 

 

 

ShowInkAlerts.jpg

 

Here is a helpful support document that may also help.

Click on the "Thumbs up"button on the bottom to say "Thanks"

Please mark the post that solves your problem as "Accepted Solution"
(Although I am employed by HP, I am speaking for myself and not for HP)

View solution in original post

169 REPLIES 169
HP Recommended

an update on the vista machine.  Looks like it has been rebooting overnight, so that isn't a totally reliable data point.

 

 

HP Recommended

I have the exact same printer and am having a similar issue.  In my case the computers on the network include Windows XP, Windows 7 and openSUSE linux.  Something happens while the printer sits idle and if it has been idle for more than sometime (haven't tried to determine exact period, but I'll guess a few hours) and I try and print something or access the printer in some way (e.g. get status), I get an error stating something to the effect of the connection has been lost. 

 

This happens from all the various OSes and appears to be exactly the same.  I had originally setup the printer using wireless and thought that might be the problem so I converted to  a wired connection, but the problem remained the same.  When the problem occurs I can usually ping the printer from the various computers, but once or twice I was not able to ping.  The printer is currently configured to use DHCP with address reservation so that it always gets the same IP address.

 

To fix the problem, I have been power cycling the printer, not the computers.  This always fixes the problem.  At this point I suspect that the root of the problem is either the printer itself, or the router that the printer connects to.  The router is a Netgear WNDR3300 and has idiosyncrasies that make me suspicious.  

 

Any suggestions or help would be appreciated.  As the OP said, when it works, it works great. I wish I didn't have to power cycle every time I want to print - that isn't going to work.

HP Recommended

the powercycle of the printer doesn't seem to help me.  It just does a cleaning cycle - wasting ink.  I have a software conflict of some sort.   What that is .... I have no idea, but I'm open to any reasonable suggestions.

 

 

HP Recommended

more info:  the vista machine even with some use has not dropped the connection yet and it has been 15 hours.  The three XP machines did eventually after 12 hours.  But I found that if I logout and log back in, the connection is restored and IE magically starts working again. 

 

Is there a way to "reboot" the network services without logging out?

HP Recommended

well "net stop netman" then "net  start netman" didn't work.   I did get scanning and printing re-established by killing "hpnetworkcommunicator.exe"  I can print and scan, but I still cannot scan to PC.

 

So I tried anothr program.   Killing "scantopcactivationapp.exe" and then restarting it via "manage scan to computer" in the OJ8600 control screen re-establishes communication.  Magically, IE starts working again.

 

Now, the question is WHY do these two programs eventually die and take IE with it???  I think scan to pc is killing IE.  I shouldhave checked IE after the first kill, but I didn't.

 

Perhaps I need to make a batch file to run every 6 hours to kill and restart those two.

 

any ideas?  Yea it is a workaround, but maybe I can make it so that the user is ignorant of it with an auto-batch file?

 

 

 

HP Recommended

well it looks like I have a working solution  ... I downloaded a freeware file called process.exe .  I made a cmd file via notepad with the following contents:

 

 

rem this is to keep the HP network printer communicating with the desktops
rem
process -k "hpnetworkcommunicator.exe"
rem
process -k "scantopcactivationapp.exe"
rem
"C:\Program Files\HP\HP Officejet Pro 8600\Bin\HPNetworkcommunicator.exe"
rem
Start "" "C:\Program Files\HP\HP Officejet Pro 8600\Bin\ScanToPCActivationApp.exe" -deviceID CNXXXX:NW -scfn "HP Officejet Pro 8600 (Network)"

 

 

the XXXX is your printer serial number with an extra character or two.  Pull that number from the port tab after you pull up "properties" for the 8600 printer.

 

This cmd file basically restarts the printer link.  It opens a command window that launches the program to re-establish the link.. then it closes the command window.   The launched program shows that the communication link is dead (just for a few seconds), but then it makes the connection... THEN you hit the close button and coninue your work until it dies again. 

 

I may have it autorun every X hours if I can narrow down a good time.  Until then I have a shortcut on the desktop to "FIX HP LINK"   ...   I only had to do this for my XP machines, as the vista one seemed OK.

 

What ticks me off is that I shouldn't have to do all of this diagnosis. It would be nice if there is a fix in the pipeline so the link stays stable al the time.  I've spent hours trying to figure this crap out.

 

Anyhow, I hope the time I spent helps someone.  PS, thanks to the OJ6500 thread that had the info for the scantopcactivationapp.exe program.

 

PS  ...  I'm still waiting for an engineer to contact me, if any HP employees are reading this.

PSS  I haven't tried this without killing and restarting the hpnetworkcommunicator stuff, but it works for now.

HP Recommended

still waiting for the HP call.  I'm not holding my breath.   Meanwhile I've found that my batch file fix isn't that thorough.   I need to stop and restart the print spooler too... otherwise jobs get stuck in the print spooler.   This is ridiculous.   Now I may need to add a line to the batch file:

 

sc stop spooler

sc start spooler

 

looks like I'm going to be running this batch file everytime before a print or a scan..... unless I return this thing first.   Is anyone else having issues like this?

 

Unfortunately I need to run this command ofter and/or clear the spooler manually.  This is plain stupid.

HP Recommended

I thought the computer made it past 11 hours but almost exactly on that mark, it dropped the connection.

 

I've tweaked my script and have left out the print spooler restart and the killing of the hp network communicator and it seems to work fine to restart the scanning and printer services .... except for the fact that I even have to use it.

 

rem this is to keep the POS HP network printer communicating with the XP desktops
rem
rem
process -k "scantopcactivationapp.exe"
rem
"C:\Program Files\HP\HP Officejet Pro 8600\Bin\HPNetworkcommunicator.exe"
rem
Start "" "C:\Program Files\HP\HP Officejet Pro 8600\Bin\ScanToPCActivationApp.exe" -deviceID CN19E1K1MJ05KD:NW -scfn "HP Officejet Pro 8600 (Network)"

 

I may delete the re-running of the networkcommunicator.exe line after further experimentation.

 

HP Recommended

I have a similar issue. My Officejet 8600 is cat5 ethernet attached to the network which has wired and wireless computers. When I take my laptop from a wired connection to wireless or from one wireless access point to another I lose connectivity to the printer and have to log off and on again to regain access. This is with XP; I haven't tried it with Win7 yet. I didn't have this problem with my previous HP 2610 set up the same way.

Any ideas?

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