goodhead Posted November 4, 2009 Posted November 4, 2009 We have server 2003 sp2 A number of our printers are going offline. I have turned off powers save etc and turned off snmp. I have searched one of the printers in registry and found refrences to some of these printers when they were named diffarenty. So in affect multiples for same printer. There are other parts of reg that stores printer info. Is this a reg issue?
sted Posted November 4, 2009 Posted November 4, 2009 try disabling snmp on the server esp if they are hp printers 1
Ric_ Posted November 4, 2009 Posted November 4, 2009 Also try locking the printer buttons if you can... it's amazing how much havock can be created by a group of kids going around and pressing the buttons to put printers offline. 1
goodhead Posted November 5, 2009 Author Posted November 5, 2009 try disabling snmp on the server esp if they are hp printers Is that in the driver settings or an overall setting on that server? I dont know a great deal about snmp. Dan
goodhead Posted November 5, 2009 Author Posted November 5, 2009 Also try locking the printer buttons if you can... it's amazing how much havock can be created by a group of kids going around and pressing the buttons to put printers offline. Some are locked. I think i will make it a job to do when quiet to disable all buttons. Dan
ZeroHour Posted November 5, 2009 Posted November 5, 2009 Hi These wouldnt happen to be HP printers would they? We are having a hell of a time with our P2005 and P2055's with this issue.
goodhead Posted November 5, 2009 Author Posted November 5, 2009 Hi These wouldnt happen to be HP printers would they? We are having a hell of a time with our P2005 and P2055's with this issue. Yep. all hp Its not just one model either. 5200 1320 2420
maniac Posted November 5, 2009 Posted November 5, 2009 We get this problem a lot with the 2015 HP printers we have. We just instruct users to turn the printers off at night and on again the next morning - it only seems to be a problem if the printer is on for a long period of time. I gave up trying to find a solution ages ago! Mike.
ZeroHour Posted November 5, 2009 Posted November 5, 2009 Our P2015's have the same issue. We switched to HP from Brother and tbh they have been nothing but hell. Next time you get a offline try a ping to it. If the ping does not work changing SNMP wont fix the issue. Our P2055's wont response to ping until restarted.
SteveMC Posted November 5, 2009 Posted November 5, 2009 Another -albeit unlikely- cause could be a failing hard drive on a client machine. We had a server where all the printers were getting paused, and eventually tracked it down to a single client machine whose hard drive was corrupted; due to that, the printer drivers never installed correctly, so were sending garbage back to the server which in turn was upsetting the print queues. Stephen
K.C.Leblanc Posted November 5, 2009 Posted November 5, 2009 We had this with HP3600 printers. It pretty much started over night, and got progressively worse. The official answer is they're only designed for small network where people will print direct to the printer's I.P. We've binned the ones in our ICT suites (some were under a year old) and told departments they've got to buy a new printer or live with it. The key thing seems to be to avoid anything that's 'host based'.
Michael Posted November 5, 2009 Posted November 5, 2009 A few things come to mind - either some form of power setting, or occasionally users sending documents which are not A4 which pauses the whole print queue! I'd recommend you put some paper in the bypass tray too. If you want a recommended printer brand, take a look at Ricoh's. Their drivers are excellent and their printers extremely reliable. Please note I am not in anyway associated with Ricoh and that this is a personal opinion
ZeroHour Posted November 5, 2009 Posted November 5, 2009 I am just working with the settings on a P2055 to see if I can solve it. I have not really had a crack at the issue here until now but I am determined to solve it now.
maniac Posted November 5, 2009 Posted November 5, 2009 I am just working with the settings on a P2055 to see if I can solve it. I have not really had a crack at the issue here until now but I am determined to solve it now. Best of luck, I must have spent 10+ hours investigating these issues previously, and I never came up with a specific set of circumstances that would definitely cause it, or anything like a solution. They just seem to drop off the network after a while for some bizarre reason, no amount of plugging and unplugging wires or changing settings seemed to make a blind bit of difference, turning the printer off and on is the only fix I've ever found. Mike.
DMcCoy Posted November 5, 2009 Posted November 5, 2009 MAC ageing is the issue for ours. If it's a managed switch check to see if there is an active MAC address on the port the printer is plugged in to. The HPs send virtually no traffic out so drop off the network. You can alter the SLP settings to make them chattier to help stay active. 1
goodhead Posted November 5, 2009 Author Posted November 5, 2009 try disabling snmp on the server esp if they are hp printers I disabled snmp under port settings on each of the printers that have gone offline. They then came online. Yay!! Thanks
ZeroHour Posted November 5, 2009 Posted November 5, 2009 MAC ageing is the issue for ours. If it's a managed switch check to see if there is an active MAC address on the port the printer is plugged in to. The HPs send virtually no traffic out so drop off the network. You can alter the SLP settings to make them chattier to help stay active. What switches are you using? also was this p2055? Thats a possible but we just got a report from a user where they have not had the issue in 3 weeks and we have not changed anything to do with SLP. We are not sure which setting seems to have fixed it yet (for a p2055) but I am using another printer with defaults restored and gradually changing the setttings.
ZeroHour Posted November 5, 2009 Posted November 5, 2009 I disabled snmp under port settings on each of the printers that have gone offline. They then came online. Yay!! Thanks Did they work though? It should always show offline I think because without SNMP it doesnt check any other way? When you have an offline one did ping work?
DMcCoy Posted November 5, 2009 Posted November 5, 2009 What switches are you using? also was this p2055? Thats a possible but we just got a report from a user where they have not had the issue in 3 weeks and we have not changed anything to do with SLP. We are not sure which setting seems to have fixed it yet (for a p2055) but I am using another printer with defaults restored and gradually changing the setttings. Procurves, the SLP setting can only be changed via telnet, not the web interface on the printer. Disabling SNMP will stop windows detecting the port type correctly when you add it. Edit: Printers affected are: 3005 2420 4200 4250 5550 OKI and Xerox are also affected. 1
sted Posted November 5, 2009 Posted November 5, 2009 Is that in the driver settings or an overall setting on that server? I dont know a great deal about snmp. Dan on a 2003 server properties of the printer(s) configure port http://www.stedscarpics.net/images/dissnmp.jpg
m25man Posted November 5, 2009 Posted November 5, 2009 The HP 2015's have a major problem with Formatter boards. If you are lucky and yours are still under warranty you should check and update your firmware and get the formatter replaced if affected. This is a manufacturing issue to do with dry joints on the formatter pcb. The boards are all flow soldered so not much chance of a DIY repair. There are plenty of reports of people baking them in an oven in an attempt to bring them back to life! The 3600's are Host based and only work reliably if you install the driver locally on a local TCP/IP port, I have tried servicing the 3600's on a server queue and have since given up. I have 30 users printing to 3 of them, since installing the drivers locally they have been as good as gold. I have 6 x 2015's, 1 died after 3 months HP replaced the formatter. Now two more have died in the same way just out of warranty thats a 50% failure rate. Since HP switched production to China the reliability of these printers has just nose dived. Google for "HP 2015 Formatter" or visit the HP Forums to see how unhappy 2015 owners are! Shame because they had a great feature set for such a small footprint. If only they worked:mad:
DMcCoy Posted November 5, 2009 Posted November 5, 2009 I should point out that it only became a *major* issue when we implemented 802.1x. Normally the traffic will be on the same vlan and will make it to the printer, if you are being routed via the switch then this would also cause issues when the address was deleted from the table.
Simcfc73 Posted December 3, 2009 Posted December 3, 2009 Just found this thread, really intermittent problems with printers going offline. I have a K5400 thats doing it, a P2015n that seems to have sorted itself out and a crappy Edimax print server thats just started doing the same. Weird how its happened around the same time for everyone.
sted Posted December 3, 2009 Posted December 3, 2009 k5400 its a known issue i believe and again i think latest drivers fix or at least help fix it
srochford Posted December 3, 2009 Posted December 3, 2009 MAC ageing is the issue for ours. If it's a managed switch check to see if there is an active MAC address on the port the printer is plugged in to. The HPs send virtually no traffic out so drop off the network. You can alter the SLP settings to make them chattier to help stay active. We have this problem; I know our switches are configured to not age out the MAC addresses for the printers.
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