HP Smart cannot find my printer either by USB or wireless

[SusanP58]

After experiencing printer offline messages for some time I decided to uninstall and reinstall my LaserJet pro M14 - M17 printer. After I did the uninstall both the alert light and start light continue to flash when I power on the printer which according to the user manual means that they it could be initialising, cleaning or cooling down. I also attempted to restore the printer to factory settings but it’s like the chicken and the egg, the printer has to be found in order to perform a reset. Given that this has been happening for several weeks there must be something else going on. The Bluetooth light no longer lights up either and this printer has no control panel, just power, alert, and WiFi buttons. I have tried using the smart app and also various HP diagnostic tools but the printer cannot be found even when it is connected by USB to my Lenovo laptop. Getting very frustrated here as I have spent countless troubleshooting this to no avail. Any help from the community would be very much appreciated, don’t want to give up as I’ve just dropped £45 on a toner cartridge and the printer hasn’t seen much use since I bought it 18 months ago. 

[gkostas]

Hello @SusanP58

Did you try  fw update?

[SusanP58]

I’m fairly sure I did try this but I think the printer needs to be on my printer list on my laptop  network  to be able to install firmware updates doesn’t it? I feel like I’m in a holding pattern until this printer is detectable again.

Any other guidance would be gratefully appreciated, feeling very disheartened.

[gkostas]

You are right, but at the moment that you already have installed the driver you can try to install a printer manually on port LPT1 for example. After that, on printer properties change to usb port that the device is connected  and try  fw update.