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Thank you, you are a genius! I entered the IP address manually and that didn't seem to help. What worked, was when I created a new port. Thank you for providing a solution to a truly exasperating problem!

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THANK YOU!!!!! You fixed my printer, right before it took a trip out my living room window!!!

❤️

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Your right on track with your solution to fixing the issue, You definitely want a static IP address for your printer not Dynamic from DHCP.  In your example however you set the printer to a static IP address that was assigned by the DHCP server in your router from the whatever the range was. If you add a device you can and will eventually have 2 devices on the network

with the same IP address. One the router gave out and the one you set your printer to manually. 

 

Now let's say you have a router that is set to use the subnet  in the IP range of 192.168.0.1 - 192.168.0.255

 

The router dependent on Model will have the address of 192.168.0.1  or 192.168.0.254   192.168.0.255 is a broadcast

address and should never be used to assign a device to.

 

Ok so different makes Dlink, Linksys, and Netgear the DHCP setup in the router  a range that you can set.

since the Class C address range of 192.168.X.1 - 192.168.X.254  the X being any number 1 -254 will still be a valid

Class C . Dlink uses 192.168.0.1 -- 192.168.0.254  Linksys uses 192.168.1 1 -- 192.168.1.254 . etc. 

You can technically have 254 devices you can connected to the network with the above differnt address ranges

Since the router takes an addresss (it's a device ) you can have another 253.

Since most home networks don't have 253 devices this address schema works great.

 

The DHCP address range that the router DHCP server uses can be configured so your device will get the information

it needs to connect to the network.  So what I do is set the IP range start for DHCP at 192.168.X.100 -- 192.168.X.200

Most home networks will not have 100 devices trying to connect to the network. If you do your not needing the information

on this post you are a network wizard already.

 

So you need to go back and look at the configuration in your router and see what range the addresses are.

If your printer say grabbed when it was Dynamic 192.168.X.105 . Your home computer that is connected via

the Lan cable to the router say will get 192.168.x.100, Then every time a new wireless laptop comes into your network

the address gets incremented for the next device by the DHCP server in the router. Eventually your printer and a device that you add will have the same address which means it will not be able to communicate and you will go nuts trying to figure out why.  Let's say  your printer was off when you bud come over with his laptop and connects and then you turn on the printer that tries to connect to the network with the address that was given to the laptop.

 

You guessed it  the printer will not work. Most cases your printer will be on and your bud will not be able to surf.

which ever device gets the address first normally work and the other does not.

 

So you need to setup your DHCP in the router so the address range does not fall in the range of any of the devices you

will be putting on the network with a static IP address.

 

so I use 192.168.X.90 for my network HP laserjet 2300 network pinter that is hooked to the wired lan.  

 

I setup my Router DHCP  to use 192.168.0.100 -- 192.168.0.200

 

Router  =  192.168.0.1

HP Laserjet 2300 = 192.168.0.90

Windows server - 192.168.0.50   <--- Server must have static address so you can always get to it

Workstation on the wired network 192.168.0.40 

 

In this configuration you can use 192.168.0.2 - 192.168.0.99 for your static devices and never have a problem

 

Medic1 needs to go into the configuration of the router and change the starting address 1 above the address of the printer

and you will be fine forever. Or use and address outside the Range of the router and change your port setting

on the pc's that are configured to use this network printer.  

 

Dr__Bob

 

 

 

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With regard to the directions about how to get your printer from saying "printer offline" so much, I have some further questions.  When you give directions of go to the printer and do this and that, I don't see on my printer anything that lets me do anything except turn it on and off.  It's a HP Photosmart C4795.  Do you mean on your computer go to the printer?  There the printer  is listed as the printer and says it is ready to print.

My computer says that it is sending things to print, but then I get the message that the printer is offline. 

Also, your directions say to print something out--I can't --that's the problem. 

Sorry if I sound grouchy.  This is really annoying.  Thanks for your help.


@Medic1 wrote:

If you are having a problem printing, scanning or faxing with any HP Printer because of it going offline and constantly disconnecting from the network, here is the fix!

 

I figured this all out after many unsuccessful attempts with HP Support, my Internet Service Provider and various troubleshooting tasks including reinstalling HP software over and over and over.  Well, through self teaching on the internet and 6 grueling months of research, I FINALLY figured it out.  OMG!  I am a Paramedic (not IT) and somewhat computer literate but by far no expert.  I here all of you!  Nobody seems to have the answer but I am 97% sure that I do.  Either way, please reply back and let me know that this did in fact work for you!  🙂   

 

It doesn't matter if your printer is installed wirelessly or wired.  Don’t worry about reinstalling your software, no recycling your printers’ power or your Router/Modem.  The reason your printer is unstable on the network and continues to either go offline or disconnect from the network is NOT because the software is glitched, it’s not a firewall problem per say, it’s not a router problem, there isn’t a problem with your power cord, it’s because most networks use a “range” of IP addresses and for security purposes, it sort of “cycles” the various devices’ IP addresses to decrease the chance of an attack.  A printer is no threat but the “network” doesn’t possess human intelligence so it doesn’t know this.  Below are my step by step instructions on how to basically make your printer hold its IP address (static IP) instead of changing back and forth through a cycle therefore dropping your printer off the network or disconnecting. 

 

Funny, if you are someone who has had items in your print cue, they won’t print, and you turn your printer off and then back on and suddenly your documents print…well, join my club.  The reason this works is because when you first turn on the printer, it starts with the same IP address before it cycles.  If you are someone who sits there for a while and suddenly your documents print without you changing anything…this is because through the IP cycle change, it hits your printers IP address and the network will allow it to print.  Not very funny, I know.  It took me forever to figure out why my printer would print sometimes but not all the time.  Since I figured this out, I can SCAN, PRINT and use all of the features of my installed HP software such as HP Solution Center, Photosmart Essentials.   

 

On your printer, go to menu/setup/network and press OK.  Inside the network menu, print a "network configuration page" so you can see the IP address and other settings for your printer.

 

Now, go back to main menu on your printers’ screen.  Or you can go to your web browser and type in the IP address using the decimals too and this will take you to your printers’ web page.  Choose: setup\network and press OK.  Look for IP settings and press OK. Choose "manual" instead of "automatic". Enter the IP address there manually as well as the default gateway which you can see on the network configuration page that you printed earlier.  Note: If you manually set the printer's IP, make sure that it is outside of your router's DHCP range. Otherwise you may run into an issue with duplicate IP's on your network. (If you don’t know how to do this, write back and I will explain).  Don’t forget to click “save changes”.  Now, restart your computer and print anything you want.  🙂 

 

A trick I often use with printers in DHCP networks:
In Printers and Faxes right click on the printer and select “properties”.  Click add a new port.  Choose standard TCP/IP port configured to the printer host name. Read the hostname from the printer's network configuration sheet.

Using my method means that you always connect to the printer even if its IP changes (which may happen with dynamic configuration). This does not jeopardize your network security.  It just tells your printer to stay put and stop traveling the IP address highway.  🙂


 

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Medic1. I have a Mac computer with the HP c6180 photosmart all in one printer...printer won't communicate with the computer. I can't print or use the printer in any way. I had a power outage and since then it won't respond. I'm not sure what to go to on the Mac screen to get the ip address...not very good with the computer...just enough to get me by. I uninstalled..installed the software for the printer several times and I'm not sure if I messed up anything along the way. I need step by step instructions if at all possible. Thanks
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I have an HP Officejet 8500 A910.  It was working fine wirelessly for about a week, and now it's not working.  When I go to print a document, first it says that it's online and ready, but then I get an error message that it's unable to communicate with the printer.  According to my printer, it's connected to my network.  I've successfully printed test pages, but the communication with the computer is not working.  Please let me know what I can do to fix this specific problem.  Thanks.

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Ok so here's MY dilemma... I have the HP Photosmart D110 series... It won't let me MANUALLY put in the IP address that I see on Network Configuration page I print out in the printer itself (because it doesn't even have a menu option that says that) and so I tried THIS option below (by doing it through the my computer) BUT when I get to the part where it says highlight checked "Standard TCP/IP Port” and click on Configure Port I get a big ol nasty box that comes up and says "an error occured during port configuration. Access Denied"

 

NOW what?? I need to print out these newsletters for school NOW ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

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What I did was re-find my wireless network, re-enter the password, and then it connected and printed my documents... I will really like to permanently fix this issue instead of needing to do this EVERY TIME I turn on my printer and want to print something on my computer.. which isn't very often but still....
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I have an HP deskjet 3050 printer and a DI-524 router and tried every possible configuration to solve this problem. None worked.
The workaround was run a ( ping -t "printer ip", obs:this runs continuously) while the printer was connected.

Another more elegant solution was create a shceduled task in the SO to run a (ping "printer ip") periodicaly(each 5 minutes for example).

In both cases the printer stoped disconnecting.

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i went away for a few weeks and when i came back my printer says it's offline. i did the troubleshooting on my laptop and it suggests that i share the printer with the homegroup, should i apply this fix?

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