Question Brother printer printing 1-2 line gibberish

[BoomerD]

Ever since I got the Brother HL-L2395DW printer connected to my network, it's printing occasional 1-2 line gibberish pages. Some are just a myriad of odd-ball graphics characters, once in a while I'll get something like:
CONNECT example.com:80 HTTP/1.1
HOST: example.com:80
Connection: keep-alive
I've been through the Brother site looking for answers...find nothing.

I have the latest drivers installed, network is run through a Netgear 5 port switch connected to my Netgear cable modem.

I'm REALLY getting tired of wasting paper and toner on this crap.

Edit...kind of like this:

This just happens...no print jobs pending, none in the queue, it just happens.

 

[Steltek]

That printer has onboard WIFI for wireless access. Have you tried checking the WIFI settings or turning off the WIFI access entirely if you don't use it?

 

[BoomerD]

That printer has onboard WIFI for wireless access. Have you tried checking the WIFI settings or turning off the WIFI access entirely if you don't use it?

I'm pretty sure I have the wifi turned off. I'll double check when I get home.

Yep. wifi is turned off for the printer.
Got home tonight, there was 6-7 more pages, each with only one or two lines of misc. symbols. (like wingdings from Word)

 

[fralexandr]

OSvC Header

xszdcsxc

help.brother-usa.com

Maybe try reinstalling the print driver?

Downloads | HL-L2395DW | United States | Brother

support.brother.com

Otherwise maybe try a firmware update?

Update the Driver or Firmware for your Brother machine | Brother

Update the Driver or Firmware for your Brother machine

support.brother.com

My brother printer doesn't like going to sleep, so its fan stays on for a long time... haven't been able to figure it out. I have to open and close the brother utility a couple times to get it to quiet down or else it just stays on...

 

[Steltek]

Firstly, you might check the printer port in the Windows settings to make sure it is set up to print on a standard TCP/IP port and not a WSD port -- WSD ports can be very unreliable and cause all sorts of issues.

It also might not be a bad idea to reset the printer settings to default. There might be something in the settings that is causing this to happen.

A final suggestion is to try swapping out the Ethernet cable to see if there is something wrong with the current one.

 

[mindless1]

Random symbols, garbled text, garbage print, or prints unexpectedly

OSvC Header

xszdcsxc

help.brother-usa.com

 

[BoomerD]

Random symbols, garbled text, garbage print, or prints unexpectedly

OSvC Header

xszdcsxc

help.brother-usa.com

I've seen all that stuff. This doesn't happen while trying to print...it just happens out of nowhere.
Now that I think about it...this started happening after I moved the network cables from the wifi router to the Netgear switch.

 

[mindless1]

Don't see why that would make a difference, but if putting it behind a router helps, how about temporarily putting a router between the switch and printer? Do you have Brother's Cloud Print or similar functionality, and if so then disable that?

Is "example.com" really literally that or some other domain name?

 

[BoomerD]

Don't see why that would make a difference, but if putting it behind a router helps, how about temporarily putting a router between the switch and printer? Do you have Brother's Cloud Print or similar functionality, and if so then disable that?

Is "example.com" really literally that or some other domain name?

that's exactly what it says...."example.com."

I threw the switch into the mix when I was trying to clean up the mess of cords feeding from the router to the pcs and printer. I suppose I can just move the router...IMO, it's not an "ideal" location, but it will still work. AFAIK, I can't isolate the printer to the router...seems to kill the network connection to it. I'll have to also move the ethernet cables to the pcs baack to the router and eliminate the switch. (which would be the simplest fix...if it does fix it)

 

[BoomerD]

Spent about an hour on the phone with Brother tech support...we uninstalled drivers, re-installed drivers...basically went through the rep's script. We'll see if it makes a difference. I tried chatting with one of their reps...who basically said that since my printer and PCs were connected via a switch instead of an actual "router," that was the cause of my problems. When I tried to explain that the wifi router's ethernet connections were essentially a switch...he didn't know how to respond other than to suggest I reconnect my ethernet cables back to the wifi router.
(who knows? He COULD be right...but I don't think so. The wifi router has a built-in switch.)

 

[mindless1]

Found the following but a little vague:

printer printing weird messages by itself

Once per day for the last few days, my HP Envy Photo 7155 prints several pages with weird messages. Today's was: Page 1 = CONNECT example.com:80 HTTP/1.1 Host: example.com:80 Connection: keep-alive Page 2 = diamond image Page 3 = club image This is wasting my paper and ink. Thanks for any...

h30434.www3.hp.com

... less than a week ago, maybe join that forum and reply or PM gailiemp.

Did you already have the latest drivers installed when the problem started, or they self-updated? Maybe try older driver? Newer firmware?

 

[BoomerD]

Found the following but a little vague:

printer printing weird messages by itself

Once per day for the last few days, my HP Envy Photo 7155 prints several pages with weird messages. Today's was: Page 1 = CONNECT example.com:80 HTTP/1.1 Host: example.com:80 Connection: keep-alive Page 2 = diamond image Page 3 = club image This is wasting my paper and ink. Thanks for any...

h30434.www3.hp.com

... less than a week ago, maybe join that forum and reply or PM gailiemp.

Did you already have the latest drivers installed when the problem started, or they self-updated? Maybe try older driver? Newer firmware?

I'll check that out. I have the newest (and only available from Brother) drivers...and updated firmware.

Edit: I posted a reply to that thread asking for more info. So far, <knock on wood> the printer hasn't printed any of the gibberish, but somehow, in the process of uninstalling/reinstalling the Brother software, I've lost a few of the Brother programs that were helpful. Tomorrow I might just delete the printer and uninstall the software...AGAIN, and reinstall it via USB instead of the network...then, IF that works, make the change back to network printer.

 

[BoomerD]

Didn't get around to setting the printer up via USB yesterday, and it did its random print thing again, but this time only 2 pages. While searching, I found a bit from MS about turning off the reports. I did that ..we'll see if that helps.

 

[BoomerD]

Well...that didn't work...dsmned printer printed about 50 pages...all with 1-2 lined of gibberish.
At this point, I'm probably going to go back to it being a USB printer for me, and wifi printer for my wife.

 

[BoomerD]

I'll check that out. I have the newest (and only available from Brother) drivers...and updated firmware.

Edit: I posted a reply to that thread asking for more info. So far, <knock on wood> the printer hasn't printed any of the gibberish, but somehow, in the process of uninstalling/reinstalling the Brother software, I've lost a few of the Brother programs that were helpful. Tomorrow I might just delete the printer and uninstall the software...AGAIN, and reinstall it via USB instead of the network...then, IF that works, make the change back to network printer.

Got a reply from that user. HP reset his printer. Something I've done numerous times.

 

[BoomerD]

Since this nonsense started after I switched my network connections from the Netgear wifi router to the Netgear switch...even though I don't think it should matter...I changed everything back to connecting through the wifi router's switch. We'll see.

 

[BoomerD]

It's been several days since I changed the connections back to the wifi router's switch. Since then, (knock on wood) the printer has behaved itself. Not a single page of gibberish printed.
I have NO idea why it would matter whether the network was connected to a simple switch or the wifi router's switch.

 

[Steltek]

It's been several days since I changed the connections back to the wifi router's switch. Since then, (knock on wood) the printer has behaved itself. Not a single page of gibberish printed.
I have NO idea why it would matter whether the network was connected to a simple switch or the wifi router's switch.

If you get a chance in the future, you might try a different switch. There might be something weird with the one that you have that is causing it (i.e. maybe the connection it was providing wasn't stable, etc).

 

[BoomerD]

If you get a chance in the future, you might try a different switch. There might be something weird with the one that you have that is causing it (i.e. maybe the connection it was providing wasn't stable, etc).

Maybe so. I used it for a couple of years in the last house, but it was connected via powerline ethernet after the wifi router and fed my TV, Dish Network box, and a couple other things.

 

[snoopy7548]

It's probably aliens trying to send a message.

 

[BoomerD]

It's probably aliens trying to send a message.

Now why didn't I think of that?

 

[mindless1]

Come to think of it, back in computer science class in high school (pre-windows era), I used to make the one shared printer do something similar, send it a lot of invalid characters and it would print gibberish and beep like crazy, lol. Unfortunately the teacher eventually figured out that I was the only one that knew enough to cause that.

SO, figure out which aliens are getting bored.

 

[BoomerD]

Since I re-did the network...moving ethernet cables from the Netgear 5 port switch to a wifi router's switch, the gibberish has stopped.

 

[sdifox]

That switch probably had a grounding issue.

 

[A///]

I was hoping for aliens. how does a grounding issue cause this exactly?