HP LaserJet P2055DN's going offline and not responding

[flyinghaggis]

We've recently purchased a batch of HP Laserjet P2055DN printers and they all seem to be sufferering from the same issue. After being left on for a seemingly random amount of time their state goes to offline? When in this state they wont respond on the network at all and you can't even ping them The traditional IT Crowd fix of 'turning it off and on again' seem to be the only way to kick them back into life.
No other models of printer have been affected by this AFAIK. The previous laserjet P2015N's we've bought used to this this aswell but generally only once every 2-3 months so it wasnt really a problem but the P2055's seem to be doing it a couple of times a day

We're on the latest version of the firmware so I'm just away to raise a support call with HP regarding the fault. We've got a spare one in our office which Im away to setup and leave sitting on the network so we can track down whether it's a print job/ queue / driver issue or a hardware/network problem.

Has anyone else had any similar problems with this model?

Possible Fix found: see this post for more info

[Earthling]

Exactly the same problems here, with those printers. All updated with the latest firmware.

I wonder whether I ought to spend time and energy doing what you've done, setting up a spare for testing etc or whether I ought to ring our supplier and tell them to take them back as being not up to the job.

[flyinghaggis]

I'd be tempted to send them back but we've opened a new building in our school and have about a dozen of the things now in use Sending them back (and re-configuring replacements) would be a huge job so I'm hoping there's a fix of somekind available.

Out of curiousity what version of firmware do you have installed on them? Ours are on :-

Firmware Datecode: 20081124
(Jetdirect Firmware Version:V.37.10.SD)

[flyinghaggis]

Just unboxed a fresh P2055DN printer, configured it with an IP adress, node name and nowt else but even without setting up anyqueues to it (or even sending any jobs) the NIC on it's died after a couple of hours and wont respond to even a ping. Looks like it's something pretty fundamental going wrong with these printers so I'm gonna give HP a call and see what they say.

Grrrr

[buzzard]

I'll be keeping an eye on this as I was about to order 20 of the buggers, might be opting for something else now!

[MatthewL]

We had similar problems and was told to the use the Firmware & Drivers in the all in one package on their site, since using it I have not had any problems and we have installed around 30 plus of these.

[DMcCoy]

Just unboxed a fresh P2055DN printer, configured it with an IP adress, node name and nowt else but even without setting up anyqueues to it (or even sending any jobs) the NIC on it's died after a couple of hours and wont respond to even a ping. Looks like it's something pretty fundamental going wrong with these printers so I'm gonna give HP a call and see what they say.

Grrrr

Actually I think you will find that it simply doesn't send any traffic out, so the mac address ages and gets removed from the switch.

I made some suggestions on here HP LaserJet 2420n Network Problems

I have a similar issue as I'm using 802.1x and the ports were switching back to unautenticated with no MAC addresses showing. After the changes they stay online when not in use.

[Batman]

I'll be keeping an eye on this as I was about to order 20 of the buggers, might be opting for something else now!

Yeah, we got 5 or so 2015n printers and went straight back to using Kyocera printers... they seem the best for general b&w printing.

[flyinghaggis]

Could be something to do with the switch settings but we're not using 802.1x (or anything particulartly out of the ordinary) and the printers with the problem have been plugged into a varierty of different models/manufacturers of switch. They all still appear to suffer from the same problem which makes me think it's an issue with the printer rather than the switch. I've logged a call with HP so we'll see what they come back with?

So far all they've suggested was to check the firmware's on the latest version (apparently it is!) and do a factory reset of the printer

Guess I'll be calling them back on Monday so will update everyone on the situation then..............

[DMcCoy]

Could be something to do with the switch settings but we're not using 802.1x (or anything particulartly out of the ordinary) and the printers with the problem have been plugged into a varierty of different models/manufacturers of switch. They all still appear to suffer from the same problem which makes me think it's an issue with the printer rather than the switch. I've logged a call with HP so we'll see what they come back with?

So far all they've suggested was to check the firmware's on the latest version (apparently it is!) and do a factory reset of the printer

Guess I'll be calling them back on Monday so will update everyone on the situation then..............

802.1x was just a related symptom, if you monitor the traffic you will see that apart from booting there is virtually no traffic sent by the cards, the switch just doesn't know that they are there, although the card is actually working fine.

[Oops_my_bad]

How are you setting the IP? Static? DHCP/reservation?

I'm wondering if it's the issue with the old 2015s whereby if you set the address statically (on the printer itself) it would loose it.

We have a few of these running for quite some time now set with DHCP reservations and (touch wood) haven't had this crop up yet

[Batman]

I'm wondering if it's the issue with the old 2015s whereby if you set the address statically (on the printer itself) it would loose it.

We had a problem with that. It's because holding down certain buttons for a certain amount of time resets the printer's configuration. If nobody touches the buttons on the printer it will work indefinitely - I tested this!!

Of course, it's a stupid setup - you're always going to get cack handed idiots pressing random buttons, that's why it goes wrong. There's no way of disabling it either

[Danny_t65]

Hi There,
We had a whole batch of P2015s that did this, the only way to get around this was a hard reset by pressing the correct button, go and cancel button as far as i can remember, but even after a while this method wouldn't work, eventually i sent all of these back and they replaced the main processing board in them. I havent had any p2055's do this yet!

[AngryTechnician]

Ours did this when we first got them. They were the straw that broke the camels back and caused me to swear never to buy HP again. After jumping through enough hoops with HP we had the printer boards replaced on the affected units and the problem hasn't recurred since.

[flyinghaggis]

Could be something to do with the switch settings but we're not using 802.1x (or anything particulartly out of the ordinary) and the printers with the problem have been plugged into a varierty of different models/manufacturers of switch. They all still appear to suffer from the same problem which makes me think it's an issue with the printer rather than the switch. I've logged a call with HP so we'll see what they come back with?

So far all they've suggested was to check the firmware's on the latest version (apparently it is!) and do a factory reset of the printer

Guess I'll be calling them back on Monday so will update everyone on the situation then..............

Well just spent 90 minutes trying to explain the problem to some 1st line numpty in an call centre who's flowchart obviously only went as far as doing a factory reset on the printer

So basically 2 support calls and over 2 hours later I'm still at the point where I have to call back tomorrow being no further than I was on Friday. Worse still all the printers we've ordered are past their 30 day return policy of our supplier so all I can do now is to try and speak to HP support to find a fix! At the moment it's looking like either a firmware update or replacement of the onboard NICs in the printers are the only options!

HP's support makes me want to cry