Wireless Printer Stops Working for one PC. Others OK

[Tom from WI]

I am running Vista Home Premium on my laptop. I have a Brother wifi printer
(although it connects to the router with a wire). I have 2 desktops and my
laptop that use the printer. The two desktops use the printer without a
problem. My laptop only works during the period after I add the network
printer. When I reboot, it will seem to print to the printer but it just
gets stored in the printer queue and won't print it. Telling the print queue
to try again doesn't do anything. If I delete the printer from my laptop and
add it again as a new printer, it works great until the next reboot. I have
no other printers in my printer list, only the Brother. None of the desktops
(one Vista Home Premium, one XP) have this problem. Any suggestions?

Thanks for your help.
Tom

 

[Chuck]

I don't know what the model of the Brother printer is.
Saying that--
My experience was that sometimes Brother printers (mainly multifunction) can
have driver install problems that chase back to the registry entries.
Brother may have a "cleanup" utility on their web site that removes
applicable registry entries, so that a Brother may install properly.
It may also be that you need to do the install as administrator, or with
administrator privilege.

 

[Tom from WI]

The printer is an HL-2070N B&W laser printer. The printer is usually turned
off, however when I turn it on, it becomes a "Ready" printer on the other
PCs but remains "Offline" for the laptop. When I turn the printer on and
then print something to the printer it goes in the queue but does not print.
If I leave the printer on and then restart my laptop, the queue gets printed
after my laptop finisihes its startup. For some reason, when the printer is
off at startup of my laptop, the laptop doesn't get the message when I turn
the printer on after the laptop has started. This is the only PC of the
three that works this way. The other two notice when the printer is turned
on and put it in Ready state.
Tom

 

[Alan Morris [MSFT]]

I will assume the queue is sending the data to the printer using Standard
TCP/IP port.

Is the port configured for an IP address or a Hostname? Is SNMP enabled on
the port? Are the other machines that work printing over Standard TCP/IP
Port and are the configurations the same as the port that is not working.

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

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[Tom from WI]

Your questions make me realize how little I know about what I am doing.

At this moment, my printer is turned off. The status of the printer shows
"Ready" on my desktop PC, but it shows as "Offline" on my laptop. When I
look at the properties and ports of the printer on the different PCs, this
is what it shows:

Desktop: Port name: BRN_03A00F, Description: Standard TCP/IP Port, Printer:
Brother HL-2070N series
Laptop: Port name: 192.168.1.196_1, Description: Standard TCP/IP Port,
Printer: Brother HL-2070N

Since I set both of these printers by using the Start/Printer/"Add a
printer"/Add a Network printer process, I don't understand why they set up
differently.

Another curiosity (although not pertinent to my problem) is why the Printer
Properties windows are different on the two PCs. On the desktop, the windows
is wide and has all of the tabs on one line; the laptop has a small window
and the tabs are layered. Both systems are Windows Home Premium, Service
Pack 1 with all of the updates applied.

Even though I started programming computers in 1959, it is amazing how much
I still don't know :-(

Thanks for your thoughts.
Tom

 

[Alan Morris [MSFT]]

UI experience can be different for a number of reason. Themes is the main
thing but I'm a server guy, I turn all that stuff off.

If SNMP is enabled on the port, the printer status should be Offline when it
is turned off.


The desktop prints to the Hostname of the device and the laptop prints to an
IP address. If you typically turn off the printer, the print will obtain a
new IP address so the laptop port will fail while the desktop will call into
the DNS entry for the device and print to the new address.


I suggest creating a new Standard TCP/IP Port for the device using the
hostname. Make sure the printer is turned on. Open Printers folder, right
click Printer, Run as administrator, Properties, Ports, Add Port.



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

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.