HP app for iOS locks out HP Envy 6032e printer

[Bill-UK]

We bought a new HP Envy 6032e from HP Store UK over a week ago.  Set up HP+ account and enrolled into Instant Ink without problems.

We've encountered strange problem where we often can't print from iphones.  The printer is connected to wifi, we can ping it and we can monitor the printer admin web page (EWS?) using a web browser on a PC.   App on iphone eventually times out and returns Printer is Busy.  

When trying to send anything to print from iphone or Windows PC, the printer admin web page either shows 'Ready' or 'Sleep'.  It never changes.   Nothing is printed.

Only turning printer off and on allows Windows PC to print.  As soon as someone tries to print from iphone, there is a chance the problem returns.  It does not always happen, but occurs far too often.

After considerable trial and error, we eventually discovered what was causing the printer to become locked out.

If anyone specifically used HP app on their iphone to print a photo, the printer could become locked out.  It prevents any other device (Windows PC, iphones) from printing to it.   Closing the HP app on the iphone which caused the problem does not seem to fix the issue.  Only turning printer off and on will allow other devices to print.

As long as the HP IOS app is not used on any phone, the same iphones appear to be able to find the printer and use Airprint to print the photos without issues.

Looks like some sort of bug with the HP app for IOS perhaps badly interacting with the printer?

HP Envy 6032e  firmware: 001.2122A  (4 June 2021)

HP app for iOS v 8.6.1  (30 June 2021)

[Bill-UK]

It's not a connectivity issue.   It was the very first thing I checked.

The printer is next to the Asus AC wifi router.  Printer is NOT disconnecting from the network. I was continually pinging the printer from a PC and it never lost connectivity except when turned printer off and on to clear the lockout condition.

I did switch the printer from using 5 GHz SSID to 2.4 GHz SSID but it made no difference.  Static Ip address assigned to the printer via DHCP from first installation.   There were no issues monitoring and navigating the printer menus via its built in webserver from a PC while the printer was in the lockout condition.   ie. connectivity is fine.

Note that Airprint printing from iphone using built-in IOS apps like Mail and Photos, works absolutely fine. But as soon as one tries to use the HP smart app for iOS to print photos, that seems to be when the printer is likely to get locked out preventing any device from using the printer, until printer is power cycled.

i'm reporting there appears to be a bug in HP smart app for iOS v 8.6.1 (30 June 2021) when used to print to an Envy 6032e, to see if anyone else with same printer is witnessing similar problems with this new version of HP smart app for iOS.

Unfortunately, we don't have any other HP printer so can't determine whether it is the Smart app or the Envy 6032e current firmware  at fault.  We have no problems using Airprint protocol to print to Brother MFC laser printer from same iphones - we're not using HP smart app with the Brother of course.

In the mean time, everyone has been instructed not to use the HP smart app for iOS to print to the Envy printer.

HP Envy 6032e  firmware: 001.2122A  (4 June 2021)

HP Smart app for iOS v 8.6.1  (30 June 2021)