How do I enable keep-alive on HP Officejet Pro 8600?

[Airportjohn]

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? We are NOT all IT personnel!!!! How a SIMPLE solution?

[vip2secure]

My printer, HP8600, went off line for about two days over the weekend.  What do I have to do to put printer back on line?    I have tried all the usual procedures but none seem to work.

[edkivell]

Please refer to Message 110 in this forum for the solution.

Ed Kivell

http://tinyurl.com/resourcewiz

[IslipHP]

I have a work round to keep the Pro 8600 'on line', but it means turning off the 'sleep' mode completely.

I tried both wireless and hard wired LAN, but if it 'sleeps' in either, it will not wake up again to print, which is completely unacceptable for a 'business' 'network' printer. Come on HP, let's have a firmware update that makes this printer do what it is supposed to do.

Here's the work round:

Set the sleep mode to 5 minutes - saves a lot of keying later!

Press the ‘Copy’ symbol

Locate the 'Home' and 'Back/Return' symbols

Press ‘Home’, ‘Home’, ‘Back/Return’, ‘Home’, ‘Home’ - be careful as after the first press of the 'Home' symbol, the symbol lights go out!

If correctly selected you will get the 'Engineering Menu'

Select 'Underware Menu'                                           

Use 'left' arrow and select 'System Menu' and 'OK' - using the 'left' arrow is quicker as the option is nearer the left than right.

Use 'left' arrow and select' System Mode Timeout' and 'OK'

Reset to 0 seconds using the 'Down' arrow - need to press repeatedly, hence start with the least time to begin with!

Once set at '0', use the red 'X' to work back out of the 'Engineering Menu' until the 'normal' screen appears.

To check that the 'sleep' mode has been 'disabled':

Use the left or right arrows to select the 'Setup' menu

Use the 'down' arrow to select 'Preferences'

Use the 'down' arrow to work down the selections to 'Sleep', which should now be set to 'Off' - DO NOT select it as the only options are 5, 10 or 15 and you will need to start the whole process from the beginning!

If all OK, then use the 'Back/Return' button to get back to the 'normal' screen again

This does work, but obviously the printer will now not sleep at all. Daft really, my 8 year old 7400 'all-in'one' had no such problems, just wore out!

[mhoffman54]

IslipHP -
Thank you so much for your solution!!! Everyone messing around with manual IP addresses, routers, and computer settings are looking in the WRONG direction!! The problem here lies solely in the fact that when the printer sleeps, the NIC (network interface card) within it will sometimes sleep as well, which means your PC cannot communicate with it! This morning it was appearing offline, and I looked at the printer and it was, actually, offline. I had to turn off wireless and turn it back on to get it to connect so I could use it again. I always get SO MAD that there is no way to disable sleep, but now there is! I will let it sit for a few days and report back my results!

[mhoffman54]

Also, I should point out that I set the "Schedule Off/On" feature to turn off the printer every night when it isn't in use anyways. Hopefully that will keep it from burning itself out from not sleeping.

[joex398]

I am frustrated.  I have a HP 8600+ that has a wired connection, and am experiencing the same problem as others here ...8600 goes off-line when it sleeps and drops off of the network.  The only way to revive it is to power off the printer and power it back on.

I read the proposed solution (i.e., static IP address) but I can't seem to get the static address entered into the 8600.  I have a Netgear WNDR3800 router and I reset the DHCP server ending address from 192.168.1.254 to 192.168.1.200.    I then created a static address for the printer in my router ...I created 192.168.1.250 which is outside of the DHCP range.  

However, when I use the HP Home Page (EWS) under the network tab, I can't seem to get the info entered correctly.  On the network tab, I clicked on IPvp under the wired section and it brings up the IPv4 configuration window.  I clicked the Manual IP radio button. and entered the static address I created (192.168.1.250) and the Manual Subnet Mask (255.255.255.0) and the Manual Default Gateway (192.168.1.1) for my router. 

However, I have no idea what to enter in the next section >>> DNS Address Configuration.  I have tried 8.8.8.8 for the Preferred one and 8.8.4.4 for the Alternate one as suggested by someone else, but that causes an error message when I click "apply".    I have also tried all zeros in both of the DNS server fields, but that doesn't work either. 

I have printed out my current netwrok Configuration page for the HP8600 and under the Wired section, it shows the primary DNS Server as 192.168.1.1 and the secondary DNS server as 0.0.0.0.  I tried entering this info into the manual settings for the DNS server, but that doesn't work either.

So HELP ME PLease !!!

I have checked to ensure that I have the latest HP8600 printer software installed...and I do and I have also made the change to the ink alerts.

What are the correct DNS server entries so that I can use a static address for this printer????

[VisionAiry]

Primary DNS is 8.8.8.8 and Alternate is 8.8.4.4 - here is a link to the example below.  Try power-cycling the printer when you make that change and see if that helps.  

--Alternate DNS Servers-- I have never used any of these suggested here so use at your own discretion. I had a customer the other day just enter in his router's IP address (192.168.1.1 for Preferred and left alternate empty) and that worked too.

[IslipHP]

All that is being suggested in this post are work rounds, only HP can proved the solution with updated firmware. And while they are about a full driver suite for Server 2008 R2.

Please do not mark this forum post as resolved.

[joex398]

I agree this issue is not resolved.  I have a wired connection that will stay active for most of the day (even when i don't use the printer, but drops off at night).  They only way that I have found to re-activate it, it to power the printer off then back on. 

I was able to set my printer (HP8600 +) to a manual IP setting by using the touch screen on the printer ... touch the networking icon, then settings, then scroll down to advanced settings,  then set the IP seting to manual.  I then "reserved" the same IP address in my router.  I have a Netgear Genie WNR3800 router.  You can search on the Netegar website on how to do this, or just reply and i will let you know.  This Netgear setting is apparantly the same as a static  IP address even though it is within the DHCP range.  The IP address is reserved for the HP8600 printer.  The wired MAC address for the printer  is also linked and displayed within the "reserved" settings on the router.

I also verified that the software for both my printer and router are the latest versions.  I still have not figured out why the printer disappears at night after about 6 - 7 hours of non use.  If anyone has a solution to that problem please post it.

I previously tried to set-up a new TCP/IP port outside of the DHCP range and was able to do so after much difficulty.  That solution works to keep the printer on-line 24/7, but I lost the ability to scan and/or fax.  My PC wouldn't communicate with the HP printer to scan or fax when using the TCP/IP port.  The error message was something like ...unable to communicate with the printer.  So that solution posted previously here didn't work for me.

HP needs to address this issue and provide a sofware update so that all of the functionality of the printer/all-in-one will work and be available 24/7.