Problem using static printer services after reboot?

[vibroverbus]

Situation:
- HP printer w static IP. Minimal network config in device, ie no IPv6, all whacky HP and non essential services stuff turned off except AirPrint. Wired connection direct to router.
- PC, Mac, iOS clients all properly config'd to point at printers static IP
- Start all devices, works perfectly. Print from PC, Mac, iOS clients. Zero issues.
- AC3200 has nightly reboot scheduled. Works fine for all devices and zero WAN or wifi access issues before or after reboot.

Problem:
- After reboot no printing to wired printer works from any device
- Printer internal web server works fine - easily accessed from. 192.168.etc. can navigate printer info and config pages etc. but still cant send print jobs.
- Clients still seem to see printer - no error in connection - but jobs never seem to start, sit in hung in queue and printer doesnt show jobs coming through.
- Forceably reboot printer - all is well.

I have seen this weird problem before occaisionally with other printer makes/models on DD-WRT routers but not consistently and never figured out a cause or solution. Its like after the reboot either some packets arent getting to the printer, or, its print service demon hangs after the ethernet connection cycles.

Suggestions or BTDT?

 

[sfx2000]

Situation:
- HP printer w static IP. Minimal network config in device, ie no IPv6, all whacky HP and non essential services stuff turned off except AirPrint. Wired connection direct to router.
- PC, Mac, iOS clients all properly config'd to point at printers static IP
- Start all devices, works perfectly. Print from PC, Mac, iOS clients. Zero issues.
- AC3200 has nightly reboot scheduled. Works fine for all devices and zero WAN or wifi access issues before or after reboot.

Problem:
- After reboot no printing to wired printer works from any device
- Printer internal web server works fine - easily accessed from. 192.168.etc. can navigate printer info and config pages etc. but still cant send print jobs.
- Clients still seem to see printer - no error in connection - but jobs never seem to start, sit in hung in queue and printer doesnt show jobs coming through.
- Forceably reboot printer - all is well.

You didn't mention what Printer and OS's in use, but I'll try to generalize - Mac/Win/Linux...

Having fought and won a recent battle with an HP Printer with E-Print services....

1) Park that sucker outside of the DHCP range and give it a static IP

2) Toggle WebServices - I was off, as I didn't need e-Print, and then the printer did - so toggle on, let it get it's stuff, and then you can safely turn it off again...

3) Keep all the HP printer stuff on the PC's up to date - Windows wants a fixed IP, but oddly enough, Mac's don't care... but if the IP changes, Windows loses trace of where the printer is.. linux, depending on what flavor, doesn't particularly care for changing IP's either...

HP sucks...

 

[vibroverbus]

Thanks for quick reply man, but guessin you are big on scanning and not so much on reading the deets?

I very clearly said printer has static IP several times. Like 3 times, 4 if you count my ref of the IP address. Did that on purpose to get readers on the right foot that i've covered that base early...
I clearly say Mac and iOS, though its true I didnt say for PC's, them is Winblowz. Since its ALL clients including AirPrint its pretty clear its not just some win or mac driver thing i think. Also why i mentioned that up front.

Yes i have the HP ePrint stuff off having zero zero need for it or desire to have it constantly phoning home (thats what i meant by "HP stuff"). You think having it on will help?

 

[sfx2000]

Thanks for quick reply man, but guessin you are big on scanning and not so much on reading the deets?

I very clearly said printer has static IP several times. Like 3 times, 4 if you count my ref of the IP address. Did that on purpose to get readers on the right foot that i've covered that base early...
I clearly say Mac and iOS, though its true I didnt say for PC's, them is Winblowz. Since its ALL clients including AirPrint its pretty clear its not just some win or mac driver thing i think. Also why i mentioned that up front.

Yes i have the HP ePrint stuff off having zero zero need for it or desire to have it constantly phoning home (thats what i meant by "HP stuff"). You think having it on will help?

get the printer centered first... and stable - bad thing with HP's network stack - it looks like it is working, but it perhaps isn't - not much removed actually from many low-end router/AP's - it's an ugly stack and they've grafted on mDNS for Airprint, which makes it even...

settle down the printer first - otherwise your clients will be chasing it to no end...

 

[TonyH]

Tried to ping the printer from a device? If you go into control panel, devices and printer. What is the printer status in the property, there you can try test print. If unable to print, there ought to be an error message. You can run ipscan and see if printer is showing with given static ip address = printer is connected. Owning one HP printer was enough. I never owned
another HP. I moved onto color laser and photo only ink-jet, of course non-HP ones, all wireless with NFC and Airprint.

 

[sfx2000]

Hehe - the current HP's that support network printing/scanning/whatever - it's a subset of the old JetDirect software, and it's unfortunate that it's the part that gives everyone problems

A methodical approach with these devices generally will sort most things, but they're not like PC's or smartphones/tablets...

 

[vibroverbus]

Here is an update in case somebody else with the problem ends up here... unfort no help has come in yet aside from general tendency to not actually read the OP...

• Have tried numerous ways to config the static IP including via GUI and/or dnsmasq.post.conf or not even configuring it on the router... makes no difference
• Printer always is 'alive' on IP - always can ping / http to the static IP of the printer, it is awake and replies to anything that isn't an actual print job - only print queue's cannot reach it
• Unreachable by Win7 and OsX and iOS clients alike but all work fine after the reboot
• Have updated printer firmware
• Found a post somewhere that said maybe there is an SNMP related bug so be sure SNMP is turned on on printer (wasn't, since SNMP is pretty much useless for something like this I usually turn it off) made no difference
• Have tried removing hardwire ethernet to router and putting it on the wireless network in case it was related to the ethernet hardware port cycling at reboot - but same situation, printer connects to wifi fine, again is IP responsive to ping & http but is 'dead' to any kind of actual print job until it is rebooted

The best I can guess is that sfx is correct and it is some weirdo legacy JetDirect vs dd-wrt conflict where the reboot causes some kind of hiccup with the printer. I have seen this before with a different brand printer (Samsung) and non-Asus dd-wrt and I assumed it was the Samsung crappy software but I am now betting it probably used old legacy relicensed HP code. On other hand I have another location with 2 HP multifunction lasers sitting on ethernet happily routing through several (non-Asus) dd-wrt boxes and never an issue at all with mixed clients.

Will post here if I ever find a solution, in meantime, still very annoying and unresolved.

 

[TonyH]

Here is an update in case somebody else with the problem ends up here... unfort no help has come in yet aside from general tendency to not actually read the OP...

• Have tried numerous ways to config the static IP including via GUI and/or dnsmasq.post.conf or not even configuring it on the router... makes no difference
• Printer always is 'alive' on IP - always can ping / http to the static IP of the printer, it is awake and replies to anything that isn't an actual print job - only print queue's cannot reach it
• Unreachable by Win7 and OsX and iOS clients alike but all work fine after the reboot
• Have updated printer firmware
• Found a post somewhere that said maybe there is an SNMP related bug so be sure SNMP is turned on on printer (wasn't, since SNMP is pretty much useless for something like this I usually turn it off) made no difference
• Have tried removing hardwire ethernet to router and putting it on the wireless network in case it was related to the ethernet hardware port cycling at reboot - but same situation, printer connects to wifi fine, again is IP responsive to ping & http but is 'dead' to any kind of actual print job until it is rebooted

The best I can guess is that sfx is correct and it is some weirdo legacy JetDirect vs dd-wrt conflict where the reboot causes some kind of hiccup with the printer. I have seen this before with a different brand printer (Samsung) and non-Asus dd-wrt and I assumed it was the Samsung crappy software but I am now betting it probably used old legacy relicensed HP code. On other hand I have another location with 2 HP multifunction lasers sitting on ethernet happily routing through several (non-Asus) dd-wrt boxes and never an issue at all with mixed clients.

Will post here if I ever find a solution, in meantime, still very annoying and unresolved.

I stayed away from HP printer since ages ago, due to ink cost. Now have Canon wireless photo printer ip7220 which is rock solid. The other day I wanted to download an app. from Canon, it said I can't download it because I am not using genuine Canon ink cartridges, Huh! For daily use we have Brother color laser MFC-9130CW which I picked up real cheap on sale. Never had any issues like HP printer. Brother printer software suite is very nice, no funnies using all the features.

 

[sfx2000]

FWIW - Brother is under-appreciated, they don't market as much as the mainstream HP/Epson, but they're good printers, and the ink/toner is very reasonable...

I would put Kyocera printers in the same category, although they're more focused on the small/medium enterprise market..

 

[vibroverbus]

Agreed, I had a cheap Brother I bought as a cut rate rock bottom budget stopgap some years back and it ended up being great.

I need multifunctions in both my locations and have had reasonable luck w/ the HP's in recent years (although another one had a bad bug if BOOTP was turned on, where it would conflict with something else on the network and think it was seeing BOOTP traffic that wasn't there... as soon as that was turned off it's been fine..) but this could be the last time. BTW HP also has gone to the 'certified toner' thing as well.

Just to fuel the HP haterade, in order to firmware update this particular printer in question - after wasted hours of attempted updates trying different clients and cables, I found I had to hack the .ini files in the HP install package. Literally the package they have posted on their website is completely uninstallable. It contains an .ini file that looks for the update code ("#12345") to match an older software version... it doesn't find it (and never will, since this is the NEW firmware...) and errors out with a completely crap error that says it can't find your printer and you should go clear errors and check your connection and re-install your drivers. Of course the connection is 100% fine, the drivers are fine, it's the installer that thinks it doesn't have the right firmware version. Change the one .ini line to match the firmware version that's actually in the package and bang completes 100% fine. Ironically they have had this categorically-uninstallable software posted on their site for months which goes to show you how many people actually check and upgrade their firmware...

 

[sfx2000]

Agreed, I had a cheap Brother I bought as a cut rate rock bottom budget stopgap some years back and it ended up being great.

I need multifunctions in both my locations and have had reasonable luck w/ the HP's in recent years (although another one had a bad bug if BOOTP was turned on, where it would conflict with something else on the network and think it was seeing BOOTP traffic that wasn't there... as soon as that was turned off it's been fine..) but this could be the last time. BTW HP also has gone to the 'certified toner' thing as well.

HP is probably at a point where their current SW is in need of a rewrite - they've stacked a bunch of stuff on a really old code based - not fixing old bugs, and introducing new ones...

I always get a bit worried with their firmware updates - had one nuke a set of barely used ink carts - yes, a firm but nice call to HP got me a new cart set, but still...

Don't even try to expose them to the public internet - a shodan search will scare the heck out of you

 

[RMerlin]

Brother used to be good (those HL1260/HL1660 were workhorses), but I got too many bad experiences with different customers and different Brother models, so we stopped selling them.

 

[vibroverbus]

Problem apparently solved. For the record for anybody else... here's what I did... not sure if all are necessary, suspect it is just 1 or 2 but am not wasting more time on it to diagnose...

Changes to printer config:

1. IPv4 - Automatic IP via DHCP only - BOOTP, AUTOIP unchecked (most testing prior had been w/ static on-printer manual IP as that theoretically should be far more bulletproof)
2. Network Identification - Use DHCPv4 supplied host and domain names (prior had given host/domain on printer and domain matched what router has)
3. Advanced - WSD turned off (all other services are on except for HP Web Services, IPv6 has always been off on this printer...)

On router DHCP is set to assign the printer the same fixed address on both the Static DHCP & Network Map pages.

I an pretty sure WSD is not the problem and it is the first 2 - has something to do with wanting to use DHCP and a bug in their firmware with static on-device assigned IP addresses, or maybe the network going down/up triggers some process that waits for DHCP hostname, even if DHCP is disabled or something, but at any rate - all good now.