Changed router now M15w won't connect AND it has the wrong SN??

[Dorion]

tl;dr: Merely attempting to change my M15w to a different router appears to have resulted in a bricked printer. When I look it up for warranty status, the SN comes back to an entirely different model. No HP humans available to help.

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ETA (next day): After a factory reset and more reading, I do now have the printer working wirelessly on my ATT router. Part of the issue seems to be a semi-known issue between Google Wifi and ... Apple? Or their Bonjour protocol? Not sure specifically, but it's something I see being reported over the past couple of years, with no firm resolution. Doesn't excuse what a mess HP is about it, but at least I can currently print (as long as I change my network first).

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HP Laser Jet Pro M15w purchased from amazon.com March 2020. Has been working fine, wirelessly, on a dual-band network for the past year +.

Sorry, this is all over the place, because I've tried so many things and gotten so many different bad results, it's mushing together in my head.

I got a new router/mesh (google wifi) and am transitioning everything off the old routers (whatever standard junk ATT gave me, and an eero I am decommissioning). Couldn't find any options to change the network in this useless HP Smart trashfire* so I attempted to set the printer up as new. After being encouraged to update HP Smart in the Apple App Store — which now crashes every time I click the right arrow to switch between the two printers it THINKS I have but don't — I am told that my network is 5GHz and I need to find one that isn't, in spite of the fact that this printer has been working on a dual-band router the entire time I've had it. I don't see any options to split the bands on the google wifi, and HP Smart is giving me no other options. I couldn't even put it back on the network it had previously been successfully using.

When I look for an installer on HP's very own website, it gives me HP Easy Start which — hilariously/tragically — dumps me back into HP Smart, which continues not to work. HP, why are you recommending software to me as part of your troubleshooting that just dumps into a different piece of non-working software?

After that, I thought to look to see if maybe the printer needs updating, or if I could just do a total new install on my computer. The firmware updater tells me the printer (which is now connected by USB) is in an error state and I should fix that. What error? Don't know. How to fix it? Don't know.

Now I'm trying HP Smart again and it's telling me the USB isn't plugged in. After already telling me the printer was there, but not "installed." It physically doesn't see it now, after "looking" for many minutes. For a plugged-in printer. Oh and I can't quit the software either when it can't find the printer. I have two choices: "Show Me How" and "Retry." There's no cancel. Cmd-Q is disabled. I have to force-quit the app to move on to anything else.

When I attempted to check the warranty status, this website, THIS one right here, this HP website, tells me that's the SN to a color printer, which I also do not have. I've entered the SN multiple times. It's right there on the bottom of this M15w, and it is evidently not the SN to this printer. So I can't even look anything up because now this site thinks I'm looking for information on a different printer, and won't let me look up info on MY printer because it has a wrong serial number.

Naturally, I can't speak to a human about this because there aren't any. Except for you good people, I mean, who I don't expect will be able to help me much because HP doesn't even know what this printer is, but at least I could vent somewhere. 🙂

*Dammit, I really didn't want to get into with what a disaster HP's software is. The irony is, I bought an HP printer based on their long track record in the hardware business.

[praveenbv]

Hi @Dorion

Welcome to the HP Support Community.  

As this is a hardware issue, I'd suggest you Contact HP in your region regarding the service options for your Printer. 

If you are having trouble navigating through the above options, it's most likely because the device is out of warranty. If yes? please send me a private message with the region you are contacting us from. Check next to your profile Name, you should see a little blue envelope, please click on it.   

Have a great day!  

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