Network Printing Problems with my Laptop

[Gilbo]

Hey guys,

I'm having really annoying printing problems in Vista x64 Business. Essentially, I work in 3 different places, a main office, a construction site, and from home. At each of those locations I have printers I've configured on my laptop. They're all networked and are never directly connected to the laptop. At home and at the office they're shared off computers (a desktop and a server respectively), and at the construction site I connect directly to the printer without a server or computer sharing it --it's plugged into the router.

I connect wirelessly over the network at all these locations, but a significant fraction of the time I can't print. It seems that Windows doesn't understand that these printers are in different places and once it tries to contact one (at bootup maybe?) and fails, it considers the printer unreachable for all eternity. I can't print. It works when I first set it up and then just keeps failing.


If I uninstall the printer and then reinstall it, I can get it working again. Obviously this is a HUGE pain in the ass,and it seems to only last until I take my laptop out of range of the network and then it's broken again. I never had these problems with my Linux laptop and Windows' behaviour seems to be rather opaque --I'm not sure how to fix it, so I'd greatly appreciate any help anyone can offer.

 

[ddrueding]

It sounds like the printers are going into offline mode. Try right-clicking on the printer icon and unchecking "use printer offline"

 

[ddrueding]

The other thing to think about is that your default printer doesn't change just because it is unavailable. Be sure to select the printer you want (or change the default) when you change locations.

 

[udaman]

The other thing to think about is that your default printer doesn't change just because it is unavailable. Be sure to select the printer you want (or change the default) when you change locations.

So what you're trying to imply is that, after initial setup, where you specify connecting to the printer in question, once the network connection is broken, the printer driver settings are resetting to a 'default' driver and when Gilbo tries to print, the print job spools and is sent to the 'default' unattached printer, resulting in nothing printing out, because the print job(file) was sent to the wrong printer (not attached)? Correct?

So you're saying Gilbo should/may need(check each time) to select the appropriate printer in the printer control panel...wherever that is ?

Or

Gilbo needs to check *each* time (PITA too, but better than nothing), that the network is configured/selected for the laptop connection to the appropriate printer ... :stpd: ? Perhaps Merc will chime in.

So a print job is spooled, it just is not printing out, correct? Should be able to open the printer control panel to see if the printer job is correctly spooling and being sent. No error messages being reported by the network software or printer drivers, when printing is attempted???

 

[Gilbo]

It sounds like the printers are going into offline mode. Try right-clicking on the printer icon and unchecking "use printer offline"

I'll look into that. I've noticed that the networked printer at the construction site (where I am not right now) seems to be indicated as offline. I'll check if that changes when I connect to that network. At the moment the networked printer available where I am indicates Ready, and I can print to it (today anyway!). I assume this status should change to "Offline" when I'm away, and change back to ready when I connect back to the network.

My home printer, that's shared from my desktop, seems to not be indicated as either "Offline" or "Ready". It just has a zero under it (indicating the number of pending jobs. The specific error that appears in the print queue is "Error - Sent to Printer", which is not particularly helpful in my mind .

The other thing to think about is that your default printer doesn't change just because it is unavailable. Be sure to select the printer you want (or change the default) when you change locations.

Ya, I'm aware of this one. I've always made sure I'm trying to print to whichever one is local at any given time. This isn't the source of my current problems (although it's always good to check).

 

[Gilbo]

Hmm. I got 2 of the three working.

1. WORKING: A Xerox M24 Workcentre hosted on a SMB share on a Linux box.
2. WORKING: A Borther MFC-8460N plugged into the network on its own.
3. STILL-NOT-WORKING: Brother HL-1440 attached to a Vista 64 box.


Basically the printer shared at home from my Desktop still doesn't work. I literally have to uninstall it and reinstall it every time I want to print. Booooo!

 

[ddrueding]

I'm sure you knew this, but Vista sucks at sharing to clients. You might even be better off with something like this. Even more reliable if you skip the wireless part and wire it into your network.

 

[Mercutio]

I hate to admit this, but I like the DLink wireless print server a lot better. Mostly because it supports four printers but also because the setup is actually easy enough that users can handle it themselves.

 

[Fushigi]

I'm sure you knew this, but Vista sucks at sharing to clients. You might even be better off with something like this. Even more reliable if you skip the wireless part and wire it into your network.

It works seamlessly for me. Both XP (32) & Vista (32) clients were once-and-done to set up to print to my Vista (64)-attached OfficeJet. Easy as :cherry: pie.