79 Service Error - Boot Loop

[gmorin]

A week or so ago my work had a brief power blip, where the lights dimmed for a second or so, and the networking hardware ended up rebooting. One of our directors was in the middle of printing to their personal office printer (HP Color LaserJet Pro M452dn) and since then, while the printer is plugged into the network via Ethernet, it will boot up, say ready for maybe 10 seconds, then report "79 Service Error, Turn off and on", then promptly reboot and start all over again. We've seen similar issues with some other HP printers and assumed that it was a corrupt job hosing the formatter, and due to the way things are set up currently, the best way to get around this is to change the static IP of the printer. However, this time that hasn't worked, as well as anything else I've tried. Machine was connected to the printer via direct IP, printer isn't managed by a print server, and isn't a general use printer at the office.

Debug Steps So Far:

- Changed the static IP to another IP on same subnet, twice. -- No change

- Changed to DHCP on a different subnet. -- No change

- Checked Win10 laptop for any stray print jobs in spooler. -- Nothing found

- Booted printer without Ethernet -- Error went away

  - While detatched from network, connected to machine via USB and was able to use it fine.

- Created tiny private network with a mini switch, with a machine and the printer connected, set in the 192.168.0.X network, and disconnected from any other network on site. Was able to add printer to machine and print to it 'via network'.

- Had network engineering capture packets while the printer was connected to original subnet to see what was being sent to it. Nothing so far looks out of ordinary.

- Performed NVRAN and super NVRAM reset.

- We purchased a brand new HP Color LaserJet Pro M452dn and set it up as a replacement, including original IP and that one then got the error as well.

Kind of pulling my hair out at this point. is there any way to pull logs from the printer beyond the onboard menu and the web interface? Or any way to tell it to hold off on printing jobs so we can catch whatever is hitting it in the act?

Thanks,
Greg

[GaryL1]

When you connect it to your network, it pings the local DNS server for an IP confirmation.  Because you are getting a communication error, it could indicate a partially blown out embedded jetdirect card.

The network card is now part of the formatter, so you have to replace the whole formatter.  The good news is that they are cheap and an average IT person can replace it in about 5 minutes.  Maybe 10 minutes if you are just an office nerd. 

Look up CF389-60001 on Ebay or check with HP Parts Sphere if you want to buy it directly from HP.  I saw new ones on Ebay for $40.   Either way, about $75 should be your max.  Just do a cold reset the first time you boot it after you install it.

Good Luck!

Gary

[gmorin]

I'll keep that in mind.

However, an update in the situation. In fit of frustration, I turned off all of the Advanced network settings other than IPv4 and DHCP. The issue went away. So then I picked one semi-randomly to see what would happen. (it is sort of methodical) The second time I did this, I chose WS-Discovery. Problem came back. I turned off WS-Discovery and turned on everything else. No problem.

So, something about WS-Discovery is causing the issue. I'm not overly familiar with what it is doing on a network level. Does this mean that something is connected to this printer via WSD and maybe has a corrupted job it is sending? Or is it just something is scanning the network?

[GaryL1 · Accepted solution]

Oh... Weird.  How did that get opened up?  It is supposed to be disabled by default. Either way, if there is damage to your embedded jetdirect card and it keeps rearing it's ugly head, go ahead with the formatter.  

Well, WS-Discovery is one of those "cool" features that no one (that I know of) really uses.  It just opens a port and is looking for web services involving that IP. Like E-print and other things like that. Honestly, I don't know that much about it except to make sure it's turned off and wonder why it is included in the machine. 

My guess is that your firewall or anti-intrusion software is stopping the service from opening the port and it's looping back as a communication error.  Which, is likely exactly what it looks like to the printer.  I do know that every client we deal with that issues security protocols for deploying new machines mandates that the end user or desktop person setting it up to turn it off.