HP Photosmart All-in-one 309a will not print from primary computer in network

[jennmull]

PULLING MY HAIR OUT and have spent endless hours already trying to figure this one out, so any advice will be appreciated! This "deal" of a printer has had issues now and then over the 18 mos. or so I've had it, but this one takes the cake. My HP Pavilion 6140, Windows 7, 64-bit, is not wireless but is connected to a network router. My 309a is wireless but sits in the same room near my computer and is recognized on the network. My husband's computer is sitting across the house in his office and can print wirelessly from my printer. Sitting right here next to it, I cannot print anything. We HAVE been able to print test pages from it from my computer, but if I go to print another file of any kind, the printer does nothing. We have uninstalled, reinstalled, tried to d/l drivers. It tells us we need a driver, but when we go to d/l, it says no driver needed, or your drivers are up to date. My husband DID fool with the router last weekend, about the time this all started, but since he has checked all that out, and everything seems fine. Copy and scanner work fine, so printing from them is not an issue either. I can save a file from my computer to his thru the network, run in there and pull up that file and send it to my printer to print. No problem.  So, can someone please give me suggestions as to why my computer might not send something to the printer or printer doesn't recognize. Control panel says everything is working fine and printer is ready. If I go into properties of computer, it says "drivers for this device are not installed, code 28." We've had other error messages as well over the last few days, but nothing has been resolved no matter what we do. Also MY computer does not list MY printer in the choices IF I try to print and it states "unknown printer error has occurred." 

[HardBeatZ]

Hello jennmull,

I see you posted about a previous issue around 02/26 so I assume this is a recent issue and it used to work fine before. With that being said let's try removing everything from the computer and stating over with a fresh install of the software. When you uninstall you normally go to control panel / uninstall and just remove it and install the software again, however there is a tool that may help uninstall everything completely and works a little more thoroughly and that's the scrubber utility.

Below you will find instructions on how to use it there are two sections the first is if you have installed the software on the computer with the CD the second is if the software was installed from downloading it directly from HP. Follow the instructions applicable to your setup.

From Original installation CD:

1. Insert CD into drive, and then cancel the installer

2. Open My Computer, and then right click on the CD drive and chose open

3. Open folder Util

4. Open folder CCC

5. Run the L4uninstall.exe

6. When the uninstall has completed restart the computer

7. Run Disk cleanup from Accessories\ System Tools

8. Download and install the latest version of Adobe flash player

http://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/downloads.html

9. Download the full feature software and drivers

HP Photosmart Full Feature Software and Drivers - Windows 7 64 bit

10. Run the download to reinstall the printer

If software was downloaded and extracted to your system:

1. Type %temp% in the run field

2. Look for, and open the folder starting with 7z (Example: 7zS2356)

3. Open folder Util

4. Open folder CCC

5. Run the L4uninstall.exe

6. When the uninstall has completed restart the computer

7. Run Disk cleanup from Accessories\ System Tools

8. Download and install the latest version of Adobe flash player

http://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/downloads.html

9. Download the full feature software and drivers

HP Photosmart Full Feature Software and Drivers - Windows 7 64 bit

10. Run the download to reinstall the printer

After you reinstall try setting it up as wireless and see if it prints.

[jennmull]

Thank you for your advice and bless you for posting something. Will try all this tonight and see if it works. One thing, though, we HAVE done BOTH types of installation with same results. So which route would you go since we've done both CD & d/l from HP? 

[HardBeatZ]

Hello jennmull,

They both run the exact same file so it doesn't matter if you choose one way over another. The steps are only different because finding the file is different for each one.

Choose whichever one is easier. If you have quick and easy access to the CD use the L4 uninstall on there, if you don't see if you can locate it on your computer in the other path. 

If the L4 uninstaller doesn't exist in one of the locations try the other.

[jennmull]

Hubby is saying not sure what you mean by 

"After you reinstall try setting it up as wireless and see if it prints."

It's always been set up as wireless and has always printed from my computer (non-wireless) thru network. That's what's so frustrating. Over time, it would NOT print from his computer wirelessly, but would usually do fine from mine.

As for earlier post of 2/12, NO, have never printed good photos from the thing. Big disappointment there. Easier, better to upload to Walmart or Snapfish. :-(

[HardBeatZ]

Hello jennmull,

I think I am confused by your first post then. I may have misunderstood what isn't working. The steps would remain the same. You should rip everything out with the uninstall tool provided, reinstall from the web the proper drivers for your printer. The link is for Windows 7 64 bit, if there is a different version then you would need to use the drivers for that version, and try to reproduce the problem to see if it still persists.

[jennmull]

Sorry, no I've probably confused you with my reply. All of a sudden last week, it would not print at all from my computer, sitting in same room, right next to it, where it has always been and has always printed. It WILL still print wirelessly from his computer in other room and has printed test pages here and there, but it gives errors if sent to mine. 

Anyway, we'll give your way a try and see what happens. Nothing to lose at this point. Thanks.

[jennmull]

Sadly neither way worked on the uninstall/reinstall. Tried both ways, and it says it is successfully installed. It recognized wireless network and said everything was fine. Will not print test page from either wireless or cable on my computer. Still prints both test page and email from husband's computer. Beats all we've ever seen. Guess I'll have to sneaker net when I need to print something. Very inconvenient.

Is it possible that it is something with my computer, and if so, what could that be?

Thanks for your help.

[jennmull]

PS, each day when I try to come back to this post, my password has had to be changed. What's that all about?

[HardBeatZ]

Hello jennmull,

Since we have isolated the issue back to your computer only we can effectively look at this one point of the network and see what is going on. Since your husbands computer works then we know the problem is on your computer in some fashion.

I want to start by running an HP Print Scan Doctor. This is a tool developed by HP to help isolate and troubleshoot printing issues. Sometimes it fixes problems for us, other times it at least points us in the right direction.

The HP Print Scan Doctor can be found by going to http://www.hp.com/go/tools The doctor is used to solve various problems that can occur that cause the printer to not print, scan or have overall connectivity issues. This is the first go to tool when attempting to resolve any issue that falls into those three buckets as it will either help resolve the issue or point us in the right direction as to what is causing the problem.

Run the tool on your computer and the post back the results of the tool.