Printer constantly losing wifi conection-Light's on, Nobody's home

[cjsinhillsboro]

Printer loses connection to wireless.  I have to unplug and plug it back it to reconnect.  The wirelessl ight is on like it's connected, but when i try to print, it says it is "offline".  There is no way that I can see to keep the printer from going to sleep or turning off on it's own. to keep it from disconnecting. (at least I think that is when it disconnects)  I have it set to come back on in the morning, but just being on does not reset the connection, it has to be unplugged.   I see there are many who have the same issue.  Is there a solution? or is it "sorry about your luck" kind of thing?  Remote printing cannot  be done so that was a waste of money.  You have to be in the building or close to the printer in order to print anything and sometimes that is just not convenient.  i'm ready to throw it in the trash. I'm running MacOS 15, which isn't a choice in the drop down menu.

[Jay_G24]

Hi @cjsinhillsboro,

Welcome to the HP Support Community

I'd like to help!

I understand you are facing a printer offline issue.

Let's try the below steps to see if that helps -

1.) Remove All Barriers: Certain building materials can get in the way of weaker signals like Bluetooth. Metal, bulletproof glass, concrete, and plaster are particularly bad, and marble, plaster and brick aren’t great easy. So if you’re really struggling with interference, your first step should be to move your Bluetooth devices away from these materials. That means no brick walls between you and your devices, and definitely no metal desks!

2.) Change Router Channel: If you have an Apple router and you’re constantly getting interference with your WiFi, try rebooting it. Upon restart, the station will search for a new channel. Specifically, a different channel than the one your Bluetooth devices is using to communicate. If you don’t have an Apple router, you may need to instead go into your router settings and try changing the channel manually. Experiment with different channels to see which one works best.

3.) Move Closer to Your Router: If you often find that you’re getting interference when talking on a wireless headset while on a WiFi call (you’ll know because you’ll hear static), try moving closer to your router. This will give you a more robust WiFi connection, so the Bluetooth frequency can’t overpower it.

4.) Get Away From Microwaves and Fluorescent Lighting: Both emit frequencies of 2.4GHz, and moving away from them will distance you from the source.

I'd like to know the following to isolate the issue further-

1.) Are the printer and Mac connected to the same network?

2.) Is your router dual-band enabled i.e., both 2.4GHz and 5GHz? If yes, make sure the dual band has different SSIDs for 2.4G and 5G networks.

3.) What is the distance between the router and the printer?

4.) Is there an antivirus software installed on your Mac?

5.) Could you perform a ping test using the Mac Network Utility and let me know the results? Use the printer IP address to perform a ping test, the printer IP can be located by selecting the wireless icon on the printer display.

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.

The wireless status menu on your Mac should also give us quite a lot of information that would help us identify the issue. You can press and hold option-click the WiFi icon and then use shift-command-5 to take the screenshot. Press the space bar when the icon turns into a camera. Share the ping test results and the screenshot with us.

Also, check with your Internet service provider if your router is able to forward 'Bonjour packets'.  Bonjour locates devices such as printers, other computers, and the services that those devices offer on a local network using multicast Domain Name System (mDNS) service records. The software comes built-in with Apple's macOS and iOS operating systems. 

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 “Yes" on the bottom right to say “Thanks” for helping

[cjsinhillsboro]

I sent a reply a couple of days ago with no reply as of yet.

[cjsinhillsboro]

Hi,

My responses are Underlined below.

Please advise.

1.) Remove All Barriers: Certain building materials can get in the way of weaker signals like Bluetooth. Metal, bulletproof glass, concrete, and plaster are particularly bad, and marble, plaster and brick aren’t great easy. So if you’re really struggling with interference, your first step should be to move your Bluetooth devices away from these materials. That means no brick walls between you and your devices, and definitely no metal desks! 

2.) Change Router Channel: If you have an Apple router and you’re constantly getting interference with your WiFi, try rebooting it. Upon restart, the station will search for a new channel. Specifically, a different channel than the one your Bluetooth devices is using to communicate. If you don’t have an Apple router, you may need to instead go into your router settings and try changing the channel manually. Experiment with different channels to see which one works best.

3.) Move Closer to Your Router: If you often find that you’re getting interference when talking on a wireless headset while on a WiFi call (you’ll know because you’ll hear static), try moving closer to your router. This will give you a more robust WiFi connection, so the Bluetooth frequency can’t overpower it.

4.) Get Away From Microwaves and Fluorescent Lighting: Both emit frequencies of 2.4GHz, and moving away from them will distance you from the source.

I'd like to know the following to isolate the issue further-

1.) Are the printer and Mac connected to the same network? Yes. 

2.) Is your router dual-band enabled i.e., both 2.4GHz and 5GHz? If yes, make sure the dual band has different SSIDs for 2.4G and 5G networks. I run a Netgear Nighthawk mesh router with two satellites. It is dual-band.

3.) What is the distance between the router and the printer? 11 Feet

4.) Is there an antivirus software installed on your Mac? No

5.) Could you perform a ping test using the Mac Network Utility and let me know the results? Use the printer IP address to perform a ping test, the printer IP can be located by selecting the wireless icon on the printer display. Apple has discontinued Network Utility.

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.

The wireless status menu on your Mac should also give us quite a lot of information that would help us identify the issue. You can press and hold option-click the WiFi icon and then use shift-command-5 to take the screenshot. Press the space bar when the icon turns into a camera. Share the ping test results and the screenshot with us.

Also, check with your Internet service provider if your router is able to forward 'Bonjour packets'.  Bonjour locates devices such as printers, other computers, and the services that those devices offer on a local network using multicast Domain Name System (mDNS) service records. The software comes built-in with Apple's macOS and iOS operating systems. 

[Jay_G24]

The router is probably not configured in the bridge mode. This could be a NAT issue which means multiple routers are handing out IP addresses and causing a conflict. Bridge mode means the router acts as purely an access point and not a router. 

I recommend you reach your ISP to get the network configured in a bridge mode.

Hope this helps!

[cjsinhillsboro]

ISP doesn’t own the router. I don’t want to compromise the performance of this mesh system. 

[Jay_G24]

We can set a manual IP and check if that helps the situation-

Set a manual IP-

To set a manual IP and try the steps below -

--->Touch on the wifi icon ((i)) on the printer, and take down the IP address 

--->Open a web browser (ex Chrome or Mozilla) and type in the printer's IP

--->then go to network ---> general ---> network protocols ---> select IPV4 only-->apply 

--->go to wireless ---> wireless 802.11---> select manual ip ---> apply

--->Enter 8.8.8.8 for the first DNS and 8.8.4.4 for the second DNS.  

--->then go to settings on the main ews page --> power management ---> select sleep mode to max 15min

Keep me posted

[cjsinhillsboro]

When I type in the IP into Chrome, I get no results or anything. 

[cjsinhillsboro]

The IP address on the printer is 169.254.231.12, which apparently means that the DHCP server is not reachable.

[cjsinhillsboro]

This is what I see on my router, but that IP is not the same as what's on the printer.