7740 Wide Format All in One Printer

[CSense]

I've gone through a lot of the community questions and answers with the HP 7740 printer with scan issues.  I've run into the same problems as most, but cannot find a solution for a Windows 7 64-bit system.  This is my second 7740 as the first was destroyed by a lightning strike through the fax line.  The first 7740 worked without an issue ever.  The second 7740 sometimes will and sometimes won't print from the computer.  It is a wireless setup.  I have a fixed IP address with the printer.  I finally resolved the print issue by manually turning off and on the wireless function at the printer, but cannot get the scanner to work from the computer.  The computer is an HP Pavilion.  The computer and scanner won't communicate with each other.  I've uninstalled and reinstalled the printer, updated software, and yet the two will not communicate to scan or even do ink levels.  Scan doctor fixed the issue once when it first reared its ugly head, but cannot fix it now, because it can't communicate with the printer.  But, I can print so it is communicating.  What's up with your software?  And what is the fix?  This is an extremely frustrating problem.  I can scan manually to a thumb drive, but that's it.

[CSense · Accepted solution]

Found the issue to the scan portion of the 7740 that I had written above.  Apparently, the scan software misreads the IP address during its updating/check processes and literally changes the IP address of the printer in the scan side of the 7740 by one digit.  So if your printer's IP address is xxx.x.x.190 the scan software internally changes the address to xxx.x.x.191. It appears that the scan software reads the IP address as dynamic instead of static.  At that point, the computer and printer stop communicating with each other.  If it doesn't affect the wireless settings, you may still be able to print because the print side of the software and the printer's actual IP address stay the same.  I  had to manually reset the wireless several times on the printer's home screen at one point to fix that issue to allow printing on an individual print job basis--until I found the scan issue.  I found the error by doing a network scan with my antivirus software that showed a different IP address for the 7740 than what showed on the 7740's home screen and in the printer properties.  After that, the tools portion of the 7740's print/scan/fax software showed the one digit off IP address.  I changed the IP address in the update IP address box, saved the change, restarted the program and the computer and printer started to communicate with each other and all is good again with printing, scanning and faxing.  Hope this may help anyone reading this post.  My 7740 has been running great for 10 days now without any hiccups!