Locally connected Printer shows as offline on Windows 7 network after initially working

Anonymous
2010-02-06T13:46:55+00:00

Ok, have checked similar threads wihich got no successful answers.

I have a PC with Epson printer connect directly via USB. Print driver installed correctly.  Works fine. 

Windows 7 Ultimate (32 bit) no security other than windows firewall and microsoft security essentials.

Laptop connected wirelessly to PC.  On same network and homegroup, file and media sharing all working fine.

Laptop running Windows 7 Ultimate (32 bit) same security as PC.

When I add a network printer it finds printer on PC and correctly installs driver etc.  Printer appears in devices and will print the first couple of times.

However, by the next day the network printer shows up as "offline" in the print spooler on the laptop.  Documents simply stack up.

The PC does not go to sleep and is left on all of the time except for the monitor which is switched off.  Printer works fine on PC, indeed with docs stuck on the laptop I can still print directly from the PC - even this does not show the printer as online on the laptop.

Have checked that the printer spooler on laptop is running and set to automatic.

Epson unable/unwilling to help - have found a similar thread with no answer - anybody any guesses as to what to try?

Many thanks

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Internet and connectivity

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Anonymous
2010-05-03T09:50:43+00:00

I had a similar problem and for me  the Problem is with the EPSON driver.  

My printer was connected wirelessly to my network, I had IP address and could ping it but WIN 7 showed it as OFFLINE.

I then went and had a look at the printer driver, (start, Devices and printer, selected the epson printer then under printer management, customise printer, ports then configure port)

And noticed that for Standard TCP/IP Port it was pointing to a different IP than that what my printer currently had. I edited it to match what the printer was and it came ONLINE.

When you turn your printer off, its IP address goes back in your routers pool to be reassigned.

The Epson windows driver still has the old IP. You turn your printer on and your router happens to give it a different IP from last time. It now doesn't match with what the Epson driver stored before and tells you it is OFFLINE.

For me,  rather than changing the IP in the driver each time this happend I assigned a static IP (fixed host ) address in my router to match my printers MAC address. This way it always gives my printer the same address everytime and no more fake OFFLINE messages appear in Windows.

This is an Epson driver problem, not a windows problem.

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Anonymous
2010-05-28T07:49:43+00:00

Set the IP address of the printer to a static address as stated earlier in this thread.  If you add the printer again by browsing the network, the Standard TCP/IP port will only work as long ast the printer retains the same IP.  If the print device support DNS or WNS name registration you can add a Standard TCP/IP Port using the hostname rather than a transient IP address for DHCP enabled print devices. 

Alan Morris Windows Printing Team; Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base here: http://support.microsoft.com/search/Default.aspx?adv=1

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  1. Anonymous
    2013-04-20T20:24:22+00:00

    Hi there,

    I am a novice when it comes to IP addresses etc.  Any chance you could explain how to insert a static address via a router please??

    Thanks:)

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-04-21T23:45:03+00:00

    Greetings,

    I decided to write a post, because it seems that I could manage to solve the printing problem which I was struggling with for 3 days now. Hope this might help others, so I' ll try to be clear.

    The problem:

    On a network exist an older PC with WinXP 32 bit installed on it via USB there is an ancient Xerox PE220 connected to it. The PC has static IP. On the network there are 5 other PCs: 2 WinXP 32 bit, 2 Win7 Pro 32 bit, and a Win7 Pro 64 bit. The printer is shared on the network. Until recently every PC could print without problems.

    Then suddenly the Win7 64 bit computer stopped being able to print. Note that only the 64 bit Win7 had the problem, so it might be a hidden 64 bit driver problem on Win7.

    I tried reinstalling the printer as network printer, it seemed to install normally but I couldn't print (message was something like "no printer installed") with any of the programs, altough in Devices and Printers the printer appeared and was selected as default.

    Wich led to the solution was the second approach (which I found on some other forum):

    Step 1: I clicked add printer, selected local printer, added  a new local port. This port should be //<address_of_PC_with_printer>/<printer_share_name> (in my case //192.168.1.21/X_PE220). Note that it may work if you don't specify the actual IP address but the name of the PC. Windows should resolve this to the current IP address of the PC, so it should work even if you don't have a static IP (when using DHCP).

    After this I was able to print, but when I restarted Win7 the printer showed offline and any print just appeared in the print schedule list.

    So Step 2: was as Umesh P suggested in Method 3, to click Printer in print schedule list menu and uncheck the row referring to use offline printing (sorry if the menu and window names are not entirely correct, but we don't have Win7 in english). With this even after reboot the printer shows online automatically (so no need to repeat Step 2 upon every reboot).

    (Step 3: I don't know if it had to do anything with the solution, but I also installed Microsoft's kb2713128 hotfix as suggested on an other forum. I suggest you only install it if Step1-2 didn't solve the problem.)

    I still don't know if this will be a permanent solution, but it works for now.

    I really hope Microsoft will somehow fix this bug because it clearly isn't acceptable to spend this much time on a problem, that shouldn't even exist and didn't exist in previous versions!

    Finally I'd like to thank to all you people - and especially Umesh P - who posted so that I could solve this issue by reading throug the topic!

    Good luck to everyone sharing the above described problem, hope I could help by summerizing,

    Bence

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-04-21T23:56:23+00:00

    Hi nadiacharmed,

    you have two options:

    1, to set your router to assign a predefined IP to a specific client. This is done by providing the pair of the MAC address of the client and the desired IP. The actual workaround depends on your router model, but it's certain that you will have to log in to your router's administrative page.

    2, is to set an IP in Windows for the network adapter with which you connect to the network. This IP should be outside of the routers DHCP pool (which is a range of IPs the router assigns to clients requesting an IP). To determine this range you should again log in to your router's administrative page.

    I suggest you search for a manual for your router model, or ask some friend who knows how to do it!

    Bence

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