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

Edited September 30, 2010 by ZeroHour

[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 http://www.edugeek.net/forums/hardware/34633-hp-laserjet-2420n-network-problems.html

 

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

Edited June 1, 2009 by flyinghaggis

[ezzauk]

We have just installed one of these last week (Friday), and already has stopped printing, if i switch it off then back on it works for a few mins, Everytime i try to access the webpage i get "The system is initializing. Please wait... "

[flyinghaggis]

Just to update this thread we've been running some more tests and it turns out it may not be enitirely HP's fault (though their tech support's about as much help as a chocolate teapot). We plugged the printer into a standalone network switch with only it and another PC connected and couldnt replicate the fault. So at the moment it's looking like it's some kind of randomly occuring traffic on our network that's causing the issue

 

We've tried disabling all of the network management protocols on the printer apart from SNMP and the '9100' print services protocol both of which appear to be required. So far the printer's now lasted a week before apparently going offline (this has been mentioned to us by one of our staff but would like to confirm it's happening after witnessing it ourselves!). So the above seems to have improved the situation but we're still kind of in the dark as to the cause of the probem unfortunately.

 

I ended up cancelling the return of the printer until we get a chance to run more tests just to confirm it's a fault with the printer and not something on our network. Given it may not necessarily be a fault with the printer they could potentially charge us for the return of it. At the same time I'm curious to see if they update the firmware or change the onboard NIC after returning it? They've not volunteered any of these solutions as a potential fix over the phone though.

 

It's really frustrating because if it now only happens once a week it's going to be near impossible to diagnose the fault in anything like a workable time frame. That and it's a problem which isn't affecting any other printers apart from the P2055DN's

 

So we've go 10 potentially dodgy printers, past the 30 day return window, and all HP's support can suggest is to reset the BIOS to factory defaults. I'll run some more checks as it looks like there might be some firewall settings on the printer which can limit communication to it for only a fixed number of IP addresses. If the above fails I guess we'll try returning one of the printers to HP to see if they can do anything with it?

 

I'm feeling like I'm stuck in limbo here

Edited June 10, 2009 by flyinghaggis

[Oops_my_bad]

We have a few of these now and we have no issues with them. Perhaps we can compare each others config to try and sort this out:

 

How are you configuring? With a static address? Try configuring with a DHCP reservation if you can and see how long it runs with that. HPs have a tendency to "lose" manully configured settings.

 

EDIT just realised you're running the same FW also.

Edited June 10, 2009 by Oops_my_bad

[Batman]

HPs have a tendency to "lose" manully configured settings.

 

As I said earlier, I'm not convinced that they just "lose" the settings.

 

The loss of the settings is IMO down to a badly thought out feature, you can reset the printer to DHCP using the front panel and it's very easy for a user who doesn't know what they're doing to do it by accident. All you do is press the go and cancel button simultaneously, and that's not hard to do by mistake. It's on page 109 of the user guide for the 2015dn. I suspect the same is true of the 2055.

 

This, I think, is why the problem does not persist when the printer is in a test environment (I refer to the last post by flyinghaggis). It's because there are no users in the room attempting to cancel jobs they didn't mean to send or trying to make it print when there is no paper!

 

I think this is the cause of most of the issues I've heard of with these printers; IP reservation may be the only way to fix it, unless there's a firmware version that changes the behaviour.

[Oops_my_bad]

As I said earlier, I'm not convinced that they just "lose" the settings.

 

Oh yeah, I agree 100% with that and the poor design. But if the button is pressed, at least the printer reverts to default settings (ie, DHCP) and if you have a DHCP reservation set for that printer, you shouldnt notice.

 

Only problem is then the printer can be accessed via HTTP as the password will have been reset also..

[Batman]

I know it's a dirty hack... but if I wasn't already convinced the buttons were the problem I'd be tempted to set up the printer, get a strong piece of acrylic from DT and hot glue it onto the printer so it covers the buttons. Put it back in the computer suite and if you don't get the issue any more you know it's the buttons that are causing the problem.

[DMcCoy]

I know it's a dirty hack... but if I wasn't already convinced the buttons were the problem I'd be tempted to set up the printer, get a strong piece of acrylic from DT and hot glue it onto the printer so it covers the buttons. Put it back in the computer suite and if you don't get the issue any more you know it's the buttons that are causing the problem.

 

Or just lock the control panel, ours are all locked out with webjetadmin.

[Oops_my_bad]

Or just lock the control panel, ours are all locked out with webjetadmin.

 

Thought you could only do this on HP's with the LCD display?

[DMcCoy]

Thought you could only do this on HP's with the LCD display?

 

I've never used one so assumed it would be the same as the others, we only use P3005s and up. It may not be possible in that case then.

[Batman]

I desperately searched for such an option and could not find it. If anyone knows how to do it I would be extremely glad of knowing but I do not think it can be done.