Weird issue won't print (Solved!)

[Friendlytech]

Hi,

I have a really strange issue at work, we have a network attached printer via Wired RJ45 connection, We have about 25 computers all setup to print to it and 23 of the computers print to it fine but for some reason I can't figure out 2 of them won't print anything when I send print jobs to that printer. Both of these computers can successfully ping the IP Address of that printer and the printer shows up as online and there does not appear to be any network connectivity issues but it will send it to the print queue and it will leave the print queue like it has successfully went to the printer but then nothing will print, It is like it sends it to the printer but the printer just throws it away or ignores it. I am the IT Support person at my work and this makes no sense to me. Any ideas? Let me know if I need to give any more details. Thanks!

 

[lakedude]

Does the printer have a static or reserved IP? Do the computers in question point to that IP? Is that printer set to the default or is it maybe printing to a PDF file or something instead? Sorry in advance if this stuff is too basic.

 

[corkyg]

Try reinstalling the network printer on those two devices.

 

[Friendlytech]

Does the printer have a static or reserved IP? Do the computers in question point to that IP? Is that printer set to the default or is it maybe printing to a PDF file or something instead? Sorry in advance if this stuff is too basic.

Yes it does have a DHCP Reservation and yes those computers do point to that IP, It is set as the default printer and no it is not set to print to a PDF file. I setup about 20 other computers to print to that printer the exact same way and they print fine, no worries about these things being too basic as you don't know what I know until you make suggestions, I appreciate the effort. It is a very weird issue as I mentioned. Thanks.

 

[Friendlytech]

Try reinstalling the network printer on those two devices.

Thanks for you reply, Yes I have tried reinstalling several times and also turned the printer off and on.

 

[corkyg]

I have had this happen, and before reinstalling, I had to completely remove the printer from the PC. Then, the reinstalling process worked.

 

[Friendlytech]

I have had this happen, and before reinstalling, I had to completely remove the printer from the PC. Then, the reinstalling process worked.

Thanks for your reply, Yes in the past I had this happen and that previous time removing the driver completely and then reinstalling it fixed the issue but this time it has not, I am going to try installing the newest driver for the printer that I just downloaded from their website to see if that works as I am using a 3 year old driver and maybe that is causing an issue for some reason even though it works fine on all other computers with Windows 10, I will give that a try since weird things can happen with computers. I will not be back at work until Monday so I won't know if this works until then. Thanks.

 

[Lordhumungus]

This is probably not the solution, but trying to think outside the box here.

Is it possible that you have reached some sort of limit on the number of devices that the printer will share to? A way to check this would be perhaps to remove the printer from a known working machine and then try to install it on one of the non-working ones.

Had this come to me and then did some quick searching and this is at least conceptually a thing, very generally speaking.

 

[Friendlytech]

This is probably not the solution, but trying to think outside the box here.

Is it possible that you have reached some sort of limit on the number of devices that the printer will share to? A way to check this would be perhaps to remove the printer from a known working machine and then try to install it on one of the non-working ones.

Had this come to me and then did some quick searching and this is at least conceptually a thing, very generally speaking.

First I wanted to say thanks for thinking outside of the box, however I should give you some more info, What happened to get to this point is we were having a problem with our router and I recently replaced it with a new router and before the router switch all of the same computers could print to this printer, so it is not past any limit, also it is a really high end Copier/printer that supports far more then 25 computers. If I was sharing the printer the old fashion way via another computer over the network yes it defaults well under 25 computers, 10 if I remember correctly, so that was a good thought. Anyway when I started to redo the print driver port settings on all the computers on the network to point to our new network ID 192.168.0.0 /24, printer IP 192.168.0.189 /24, Default Gateway 192.168.0.1 /24, most of the computers printed right away with the new IP added to the print driver, but 2 of them while appearing to be online and nothing be stuck in the print queue would not print despite me being able to successfully ping the IP of the printer from those 2 computers and no other network connectivity issue appearing other than not printing, I as a Network+ and CCENT certified IT Support Tech am very confused as to the problem(I of course don't know everything and am always learning and really appreciate any help I can get). Thanks again for your out of the box thinking.

 

[lakedude]

Could it be a security/permissions thing? I'm a local tech but I rarely have administrator's rights to any given system which can cause problems. There are a few things like that that might help including the "install for all users" option and "run as administrator" type things. Sorry I don't have specific instructions.

The other day we had something is a print queue that hung the printer for all users. We had do manually clear the print queue folder. This is not your issue since you say the print jobs clear. Our print jobs were piling up...

 

[lakedude]

With your network background I don't need to ask if the computers in question are on the same network (IP range). Weird that the print queue clears. Is there any chance there is a duplicate IP (or something) and print jobs are being sent to a different printer?

 

[Lordhumungus]

Here’s another idea to at least maybe narrow down the problem.

Would it be possible to detach the two problem computers and printer from their current network setup and get them and only them on their own router/switch together (something simple and home user style would probably be best)?

I’d think if you can do this and it works, that points to the problem being somewhere on the network setup side, but if you do this and it still doesn’t work, that points to a software/driver issue.

 

[Friendlytech]

With your network background I don't need to ask if the computers in question are on the same network (IP range). Weird that the print queue clears. Is there any chance there is a duplicate IP (or something) and print jobs are being sent to a different printer?

Thanks for your quick reply, Yes the computers and the printers are in the same IP range(I currently have not setup any subnetting or VLANS, I agree the print queue clearing is weird (it's almost like it's going to the printer and the printer is throwing it out or ignoring it) I manually checked all of the printer's IP addresses and did DHCP reservations on all of our network printers we have 9 of them to make sure they all have different IP addresses in the same subnet/IP Range. Also I can print to all other printers on our network from those 2 computers. I hope this is enough info, I appropriate your assistance and any further help you give.

 

[Friendlytech]

Here’s another idea to at least maybe narrow down the problem.

Would it be possible to detach the two problem computers and printer from their current network setup and get them and only them on their own router/switch together (something simple and home user style would probably be best)?

I’d think if you can do this and it works, that points to the problem being somewhere on the network setup side, but if you do this and it still doesn’t work, that points to a software/driver issue.

In theory I could but it could be really hard as our router is is in a different building and the printer can't be moved as it is huge and very heavy. The best I can do is I can try plugging the printer directly into a different switch and then plugging the computers into that switch and seeing if that works. I will further look over the network setup, though last time I looked I did not see anything different from all of the computers that our working, so if this works maybe a physical connection issue of some kind. I will update you after I try this( I won't be back at work until Monday). Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[Friendlytech]

Here’s another idea to at least maybe narrow down the problem.

Would it be possible to detach the two problem computers and printer from their current network setup and get them and only them on their own router/switch together (something simple and home user style would probably be best)?

I’d think if you can do this and it works, that points to the problem being somewhere on the network setup side, but if you do this and it still doesn’t work, that points to a software/driver issue.

Also I am going to try installing a newer driver( The one I have been using is 3 years old) and there are 2 different drivers for it a regular standard driver and a Universal driver. Forgot to mention this before. Thanks.

 

[Friendlytech]

If it helps at all here is a link to the online manual to the copier/printer: http://kmbsmanuals.konicaminolta.us/c754e/index.html

 

[Lordhumungus]

Yeah I saw that you did have another driver on deck in your previous posts but figured I’d at least toss these ideas out while they were in my head.

I’ve been visiting my mom and helping fix some janky network setup stuff that was left when her comany changed ownership. As such my brain is in full kludge mode as I can only get like half of any of the info I need to fix stuff so the rest has been me doing black box testing trying to figure stuff out and come up with creative solutions.

In any case, good luck on Monday, but do let us know if you make any progress. I am way more interested in the results than I should be!

 

[Friendlytech]

Could it be a security/permissions thing? I'm a local tech but I rarely have administrator's rights to any given system which can cause problems. There are a few things like that that might help including the "install for all users" option and "run as administrator" type things. Sorry I don't have specific instructions.

The other day we had something is a print queue that hung the printer for all users. We had do manually clear the print queue folder. This is not your issue since you say the print jobs clear. Our print jobs were piling up...

Thanks for your reply, I installed as Admin, I will try for all users, however the way I installed as admin worked on all other computers other then these 2. I am lucky that I am the head IT person were I work as it's a 40 employee non-profit and I have full Admin rights and ability to change all permissions on all of our Printers, computers, networking hardware, and Windows etc. I did however check all permissions and there is full admin access to that printer at the driver level, There is a Admin login for the printer that only I and my Boss have. We don't have a separate print server or any Active directory domain/ No Windows Server 2012 R2 or 2016 computers, it is a Peer to Peer Workgroup network, almost like a home network on steroids. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[lakedude]

Maybe swap a working computer and a non working computer and see if the issue is with the location or the device.

Maybe run an alternate OS like FatDog Linux from the optical and see if that works.

 

[lakedude]

Is there anything different or special about the 2 problem computers? Different hardware? Different OS, version, or update status? Antivirus?

 

[Friendlytech]

Maybe swap a working computer and a non working computer and see if the issue is with the location or the device.

Maybe run an alternate OS like FatDog Linux from the optical and see if that works.

Great idea, I will swap a working computer and non-working computer and see if it is that location that is a problem or if it is the computer itself in some way. I have done this with other issues in the past and simply forgot to try doing this, this time, was working really long hard days last week and spaced on doing this, thanks so much for the suggestion. I will try printing from an Alternate OS as well if needed I have several boot discs based on both Linux and Windows lite type recovery discs. Thanks again.

 

[Friendlytech]

Is there anything different or special about the 2 problem computers? Different hardware? Different OS, version, or update status? Antivirus?

I will have to look more closely if there is any differences I did not notice, but I don't think so, They are both Windows 10 pro ( they may be different Builds of Windows 10 like 1607 vs 1709), They are both Dell's different models however. They both have the same AV and updated definitions. I will double check all of this on Monday and make sure they match the working systems as much as possible. Most of our other computers are a mix of Custom Builds, Acers, and Dell's all running Windows 10, Same AV, and same network configuration. Thanks again for the suggestion. Will update you ASAP.

 

[lakedude]

Someone once said something like "the problem is always Windows". Seems like there are settings on if print jobs are queued or not. If not queued maybe they get dumped into the bit bucket. Not sure why these settings would be different...

 

[lakedude]

Sorry I'm not more help. I'm not a printer expert, more of a Jack of all trades. I work on many things, expert in none.

 

[Friendlytech]

Sorry I'm not more help. I'm not a printer expert, more of a Jack of all trades. I work on many things, expert in none.

That's OK, I appreciate your effort. I am not a printer expert either. My best skills are PC Hardware, Windows troubleshooting and repair, and general computer networking, Cisco as well at an entry level. Thanks.