Reaching Printer but no print

[Tech bud]

Hey Everyone, Just got a in house call today about a printer not printing. Not the most experienced troubleshooting printer, but figure I could handle it with what I know. At the end I believe he needs a new printer, just double checking my logic.

Background: Customer said that the printer was working fine up until he moved to the new house. So figured it would be a setting or something.

HP Officejet pro 6320

Things I tried:
1. Made the customer show me how he was printing and he was doing it right.
2. Device and printers showed it as default.
3. Networking and sharing showed that printers were fine to be shared.
4. Restarted: Laptop, printer, and router.
5. I did notice that when printing, it acted as if the document was printed. It didn't say the printer couldn't be reached. It would vanish from the printer que like it actually printed, but didn't. Tested this further by turning off the printer, then printing, then it would yell it couldn't find the printer.
6. Uninstalled all printer drivers and software reinstalled.
7. Tried a differnet ethernet cable to the printer and a different port on the router.
8. The router could see the printer was plugged in, I also could ping the IP address of the printer.
9. At this point I was thinking something wrong with the printer itself.
10. I hard reset the printer to get rid of any old IP configurations and try to see if its a software issue.

I informed the customer that the printer was his problem and he needed a new one.

Was there anything else I could have tried?

I still charged the customer, was that the right thing to do?

Its not often I can't fix a problem, if it would have been an in shop repair, I wouldn't have charged, but it was a house call.

 

[fencepost]

You could check for updated firmware, and did you test whether you could get the printer itself to print a test page? Was the printer completely nonresponsive? Did it attempt to feed paper, move the nozzles, anything? Since it was networked, could you connect to the printer's management web page and see anything there?

Still, there's only so much time it's worth spending on what's a pretty cheap printer anyway.

As for the document simply vanishing from the print queue there are some options on how success gets reported back and in some cases the answer is "it doesn't."

 

[Tech bud]

Did you test whether you could get the printer itself to print a page? Yes, it could physically print, we could get the test page. But I find them as useless as the printer most the time.

Was the printer completely nonresponsive? Also, when printing, it didn't make a sound as if it didn't even try to print. So yes nonresponsive.

Since it was networked, could you connect to the printer's management web page and see anything there? Did not think of that, will have to make note of it for next time. What could I have done from there?

Did you check for updated firmware?I thought about firmware, but in my head, the only thing that changed was the place, why would that suddenly be the issues? But maybe we could have go lucky. Figured with a hard reset it would have solved software issues.

 

[backwoodsman]

Always start with the simple stuff and go from there.

If it prints its own self-test or demo page, next step would be trying USB rather than network connection. Does that work?

Did any hardware change when he moved? New router, maybe?

 

[Tech bud]

Ahh it could have been a bad network port, We know it could physically print with the test page, but wasn't. So try usb to see if it is just that port.

It was a new router, but it was doing its job as I could ping it.

 

[Mick]

Printer properties >Advanced. Fiddle about with the spooler and other settings (but note what they are originally, first, so you can revert if necessary) - never know your luck! These HP printers should print 'RAW', so check that too.

 

[Tech bud]

Oh ya, I forgot to mention I did check if the printer spooler was in the services and it was after a restart of the computer. Never checked if it was a RAW setting though.

 

[Mick]

Sorry, that's not quite what I meant: Control Panel > Select printer > Right-Click >Printer Properties > Advanced. Those spooler settings that you see there.

 

[Markverhyden]

Just a reminder on ping. All that does is test ICMP. That does not mean the network traffic is flowing properly.

Checking the web management page should give you access to logs which may help in determining what's happening with the print job. Since it's a new router I'd check the router logs if they have any. Network printing typically uses port 9100 but might use others - https://www.sonicwall.com/en-us/support/knowledge-base/170503664134344. Retail routers usually have no LAN firewall running but you should check that as well. Testing with USB eliminates the network entirely.

Part of the process of re-installing the app should be physically deleting the print spooler folder for that printer. It's rare but I've actually had that solve situations with similar symptoms.

As far as charging the customer? Absolutely if it was onsite. The only time I don't is if I messed up and have to make a trip to fix something.

 

[Tech bud]

Didn't think about ports either. I'm going to see if he will let me remote into his laptop later

 

[mikeroq]

Have you tried a different computer?

Things I would have done:
Tried printing from my laptop or tablet via network
Plugged into my laptop or tablet and tried to print

 

[dathompson]

bingo mikeroq! plug my laptop into the printer usb/ethernet. If I can print there and access the printers config page. It's a network problem. Before the printer. cable, router, port, setting

 

[nlinecomputers]

Delete print spooler. A corrupted file in the spooler can cause the spool to hang. Don't declare printer dead until you take your own laptop and test with it. https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/90615-reset-clear-print-spooler-windows-10-a.html