Debugging a 'Wired/Wireless Printer Connection'

Question

I am suddenly having a problem with my 1 month old Epson WF4650 printer. My setup at home is pretty simple 1) Printer is wired (Ethernet) to a conventional Netgear router 2) I have two laptops (both Dell laptps) that print wirelessly (one is Vista and one is Win7) to my router (and that stuff used to go to the printer) 3) Things have pretty much worked, although I did often get a message from the 'Printers and Devices' dialog under Status which is 'Error - Printing'. It would happen occasionally, I would cancel the job, and re-print, and it would work. I would say that this happened maybe 1 out of every 5 jobs. Earlier today I printed a job with no problem, then I tried to print another short document. I am getting the 'Error - Printing' message. And now everything that I try to print creates that end result.  Things that that do not help. 1) Restart my PC 2) Print a different document (a Wordpad doc with one line) 3) Print from the other computer.  4) Restart EVERYTHING (laptop, printer, router) - I also did a 'hard restart' on the printer (unplugged it) 5) Re-setting the ethernet connectors between my router and printer 6) My PRINTERS folder is empty (print spooler thingey) 7) The printer seems fine for purposes of printing status information from the control panel 8) I find the User Guide mostly puzzling in the context of networking stuff. I don't even see my configuration listed, but I cannot imagine it not being supported (plus it worked for a month). But I just don't know enough to be able to comprehend what it is telling me.  I am having zero problems with internet traffic, BTW. Cable modem connection.  I have done an IPCONFIG /renew but that was not helpful. My network savvy is about zero. I can't even tell from the output of IPCONFIG  /all whether or not my printer is known to be wired to my router.  I'm not sure where I should next look (printer, router, laptop, combination, etc). Suggestions?  Thanks.; dave

DaveLeeNC · Accepted Answer

I continued to dig through the manual, figured out a term that I had misunderstood (causing me to skip the relevant section of the manual), and found a step that needed to be done. And that was to disable WI-FI (as I am wired to my router).

Of course I was not connected via WI-FI (ran into some kind of issue with my firewall so I just wired the thing). And I have no idea why I went from 'occasional failures' to 'cannot print a single, darn thing' by doing nothing more than finding and opening a jpg to be printed.

But I am going to mark this one solved, as I do seem to be able to print again.

dave

DaveLeeNC · Accepted Answer

I thought that I had posted this. But I guess not.

After further reading of the User Manual I found that I might need to disable WI-FI (I am wired to my router), even though I had no WI-FI connection (had some kind of firewall issue that I fixed by just wiring the darn thing).

Doing that seems to have resolved the problem. I have no idea how I went from being able to print pretty much all the time to not being able to print anything, by doing nothing more than finding a jpg and trying to print it. But that seems to be the case here, so I am going to mark this one 'resolved'.

dave

Ramesh Seervi · Answer

ok.. so does it happen with both the computers? Because on Windows 7 if you have IE 11, it might be causing the problem.
Create a system restore and uninstall IE 11 -

If you want to uninstall the browser, here's how:

Click the Start button, and enter Programs and features in the search box.
Click Programs and Features in the list of results, and then click View installed updates.
Find Windows Internet Explorer 11 under Microsoft Windows.
Double click and uninstall.

Restart and start printing.. it should be helpfull.. IE 11 may cause printing issues exactly like you mentioned.
Check these articles about people saying that IE 11 caused this issue: Click here to read and this one too

And on Vista, you try reinstalling the drivers or the printer software..

DaveLeeNC · Answer

BTW, Windows Printer Diagnostics process cannot find a problem.

And in case this helps, the output of "config /all"

dave

Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : Dave-PC
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection 2:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : earthlink.net
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller #2
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 5C-F9-DD-43-26-9C
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Wireless LAN adapter Wireless Network Connection 3:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Microsoft Virtual WiFi Miniport Adapter #2
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 58-91-CF-5B-B4-78
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Wireless LAN adapter Wireless Network Connection 2:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Microsoft Virtual WiFi Miniport Adapter
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 58-91-CF-5B-B4-78
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Ethernet adapter Bluetooth Network Connection:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Bluetooth Device (Personal Area Network)
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 58-91-CF-5B-B4-7B
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Wireless LAN adapter Wireless Network Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) Centrino(R) Wireless-N 1030
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 58-91-CF-5B-B4-77
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::2174:97bf:c7df:41af%13(Preferred)
IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.3(Preferred)
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Sunday, November 30, 2014 2:49:54 PM
Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Monday, December 01, 2014 4:30:12 PM
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
DHCPv6 IAID . . . . . . . . . . . : 240685519
DHCPv6 Client DUID. . . . . . . . : 00-01-00-01-18-21-C8-C7-5C-F9-DD-43-26-9C
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

Tunnel adapter isatap.{2E914E69-3A68-477E-9239-5C6E8901575F}:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Microsoft ISATAP Adapter
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Tunnel adapter Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0
DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
IPv6 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 2001:0:5ef5:79fb:143f:2ab7:e7d7:6377(Preferred)
Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::143f:2ab7:e7d7:6377%22(Preferred)
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : ::
NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Disabled

Networking, Internet, & Bluetooth

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