Printer is showing as Offline (on my mac Monterey)

[emily_dawe]

For some unknown reason my printer is not responding to my mac. It says it's offline. I have gone through all of the troubleshooting, disconnected it and reconnected it, re-added it to the same network, switched it off and on again, added it's IP address as a new printer (this just says 'connecting to device' but never actually connects) etc etc.

The weird thing is my husband can print fine from his PC, so I was wondering whether it was an Apple thing? I recently updated my computer software to Monterey 12.1, but it was doing the 'offline' thing before this, I had hoped that this update would magically solve the issue. Sadly not.

I'm getting so frustrated as I use my printer almost daily for printing labels for my business.

Can anyone shed any light on this please? And do HP offer any sort of help with a real person, as I've tried the bot and nothings worked.

Thanks in advance!

[AJ150]

I have the same problem with an HP PageWide Pro. As soon as I touch the screen of the printer, it wakes up and it connects with the computers on the network. It seems to be an issue with waking it up. Strangely, when I use the HP Smart app on my Mac, that app sees the printer and tells me it is ready. 

[Jay_G24]

Hi @emily_dawe,

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 antivirus software installed on your Mac?

5.) Could you perform a ping test 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. Click Applications > Utilities > Terminal.

type ping "IP address" and press enter

Wait until 10 pings have been performed and then press ctrl c on the keyboard and hit return. 

The results will appear.

Share the ping test results.

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. 

And, Welcome to the HP Support Community. 

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

[Jay_G24]

Hi @AJ150,

I'd like to help!

 May I have the exact model name of the product? Refer to this document for steps to find the product details. Do not share any of your personal information such as serial, phone number, email ID, etc.

Keep me posted. 

And, Welcome to the HP Support Community. 

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