Mac recognizes printer but can't connect to it

[JChisholm]

I'm trying to wirelessly connect an old printer to my laptop, but there seems to be connection issues. I recently acquired an old HP Officejet 6500A Plus (model: E710n) from my grandmother, so I don't have any CDs, instruction manuals, etc, just the printer itself and the power cord. I went through the Wireless Setup Wizard on the printer itself and connected it my house's wifi, which seemed to work fine; the wireless network test report said there were no problems and the signal quality was excellent. However, whenever I try to use the Web Services on the printer it says there is no connection and "a proxy address might be required to connect to Web Services". Additionally, I've tried connecting to the printer wirelessly three ways on my laptop:

a) With HP Easy Start. HP Easy Start recognized that my printer was there and knew the model, but when I tried to connect to it, it said "Unable to communicate with the device".

b) With HP Smart. Again, my printer shows up, but it can't connect.

c) With my Mac's Settings->Printers&Scanners. I added the printer, installed the things it said I needed to install (note: it popped up as Officejet 6500 E710n-z). It's able to accurately tell me when the printer is idle vs. when it's offline, but then when I try to print something, the print queue tells me "the printer is not responding".

One thing I noticed is that the printer has quite a different IP address from my laptop and phone, as well as I think it may be using WPA while my laptop has the wifi listed as WPA2 Personal.

I would really appreciate any help with this! Thanks!

[Kumar0307]

@JChisholm, Welcome to the HP Support Community!

• Make sure the printer and the MAC are connected to the same wireless network.
• This printer supports only 2.4GHz network. So, the MAC should be on the 2.4GHz network.
• If you have a Dual-band router and both 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks share the same name/SSID, the printer will not be able to connect to the network. In this case, contact your Internet service provider to assign different names to both the networks.
• Also, check with your Internet service provider if your router is able to forward 'Bonjour packets'.

On the printer screen, go to Setup > Network Setup > Restore network settings

Go back to Network > Wireless > Wireless setup wizard and select your network.

Update the printer firmware

Click here to know different methods of updating printer firmware.

Also, check for any software updates on MAC

Click the Apple icon > About This Mac > Software Update and install any available update.

Perform a ping test to check the connectivity

1. Obtain the IP address of the printer by clicking on the Wireless icon on the printer
2. On the MAC Go to Spotlight > search for Network utility > select Ping tab > enter the IP address of the printer in the box
3. Check the second box that says Send only > 10 pings
4. Click on ping > Check the results at the end if any packets are lost
5. Note: There should be 0% packet loss, share the results in your next post.

If there is 0% loss, install the printer using AirPrint driver as shown in step 2 of this document - Printing with Apple AirPrint 

Hope this helps! Keep me posted. 

Please click “Accept as Solution” if you feel my post solved your issue, it will help others find the solution.

Click the “Kudos, Thumbs Up" on the bottom right to say “Thanks” for helping!

Have a great day! 

[JChisholm]

So I couldn't update the printer firmware since when I try to connect to web services on the printer, it says "no connection" and "a proxy address may be required" (even though the wireless network test report was successful).

This is what happened when I tried to do the ping test:

Ping has started…

PING 169.254.177.118 (169.254.177.118): 56 data bytes

Request timeout for icmp_seq 0

Request timeout for icmp_seq 1

Request timeout for icmp_seq 2

Request timeout for icmp_seq 3

Request timeout for icmp_seq 4

Request timeout for icmp_seq 5

Request timeout for icmp_seq 6

Request timeout for icmp_seq 7

Request timeout for icmp_seq 8

--- 169.254.177.118 ping statistics ---

10 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100.0% packet loss

I noticed that the subnet mask was different on the computer and printer, so I tried changing the printer one to mask, but that didn't seem to make a difference. The default gateway is also showing as 0.0.0.0 right now - should I change that to match my router's address (which I can find on my computer)?

Thanks!

[Kumar0307]

@JChisholm

If you are getting a 169. IP address on the printer, this is an invalid IP address.

Restart the wireless router, the printer, and the MAC

Check and ping the printer's IP address from the MAC

If the issue persists, on the printer screen, go to Setup > Network Setup > Restore network settings

Go back to Network > Wireless > Wireless setup wizard and select your network.

Now, try pinging.

Let me know how it goes.