Lots of HP printers stopped working properly over network recently

[peon2t]

Hello

I'm working in the IT support business so I see quite a lot HP printers of course.

Now during the last months I experience a huge spike in very similar HP printer issues. So I guess there must be some common reason (bugged driver, Windows 10 update, ...) but I haven't found it yet.

Typical symptoms:

- You install the printer over network using the appropriate driver from the HP website. It works at first but the next day (or a few days later) you get a call from the customer because the printer stops working. You'll still be able to ping the printers, often the print-jobs even disappear from the spooler as if they'd been printed... but the printer remains dead silent. Sometimes it's also shown as 'Offline' but you can ping it.

- The HP software (where you can check ink status, scan etc.) in such cases usually will pretend that there is no printer connected and asking you to connect a new one. If you do so, it'll quickly be found in the network but the installation process will never finish. (Sometimes this is the situation you have from the beginning, so you can't even install the printer in the first place.)

- It usually is possible to (re-) install the printer using the methods that Windows 10 provides ("Add printer") but it will not always print that way. IF it prints when installed that way, it will often stop working a few hours/days later.

As I said, I've seen this A LOT recently. I'd even say that I've seen this issue with EVERY (or almost every) HP Inkjet printer that I installed during the last two months.

It's not that I'm unfamiliar to the typical problems that afflict network printing, especially with HP devices. So I tend to assign static IPs to the printer so that we don't have to rely on the notoriously bad network re-discovery functions. Also I reboot network components (routers), PCs and printers because I've years of experience with partial frozen equipment that looks like it's working but doesn't really do it's job.

However: All of this doesn't help permanently in the cases that I see during the last months.

Anybody experiencing similar issues?

[Valsimot]

Check for win10 update version, some fixes in print spooler

https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/help/4524147/windows-10-update-kb4524147 

[peon2t]

Thanks for your reply. We're speaking about machines with the latest updates.

[peon2t]

This problem continues with EVERY HP InkJet printer I try to install on ANY new Windows 10 device.

You run the installer, it finds the printer, it finishes the installation but at the end of the installation the printer is not installed and if you open the HP software it asks you to "connect a new device" which then doesn't work.

This obviously must be a very widescale issue... I'm astonished that I get no replies here. What's up HP?!