Calling all IT geeks…I need help! I have an Epson 3640 printer that’s on my network via wifi. It has worked flawlessly with laptops, tablets and phones…until yesterday. I installed a new router yesterday and now I can’t print from my laptop, which is what I used to install the router. I’m definitely in contact with the printer…I can scan via wifi and run utilities that show me ink levels, etc. Every other device in the house works fine, still, too. When I try to print, the job seems to get stuck in the spooler and eventually return an error. I have cleared the spooler both via the print manager and by going to the folder and deleting the spooler file manually. Still no go. It’s almost as if win7 uses a separate spooler file for wifi…? The one thing I suspect is this…when I was setting up the router, I had my laptop connected to it via an ethernet cable. Early in the setup process I was asked if I wanted to print out the new router settings. When I tried that, it was obvious I wasn’t connected to the network yet, so I cancelled the print job. I’m wondering if that left something bogus somewhere. Other than that, I got nothing but frustration. Anybody have any idea what could be going on, or how wifi printing in Win7 works?
Denny - go into Win 7 printer and look for the IP address. Compare that to the IP address on the printer on the router (should have a window that says connected devices). I used to have to do this everytime something reset - and finally dedicated an IP address to the printer at the router and manually set the IP at the printer. This seems to have stabilized my problems - we are a mixed platform household. The problem was not the printer or the router - it was the inability of Win 7 to adjust to a new IP address. FYI - this issues showed both for WIFI and cabled devices and Win 7.
The alternative is to uninstall and reinstall every time DHCP reassigns IPs in the LAN.
Matt has the most likely issue covered (DHCP address of the printer changing and your printer settings/queue not updating). The other possibility is that the new router has some sort of Wireless Isolation security setting which prevents two wireless devices from talking to each other.
Doubt it’s the latter becasue another laptop, an iPad and 2 android phones can print to it without issue. That should eliminate that, right?
Just checked the printer’s IP…yesterday it was 192.168.1.9, today it’s 192.168.1.10. Hmmmm…
I’m lost…where in windows do I look for the printer IP?
Devices and Printers → Right-click on printer → Printer Properties → Ports tab
If the port that’s checked is a “Standard TCP/IP Port” (or something similar to that), click it and click the “Configure Port” button.
Pretty sure those instructions should work for Windows 7 or 8.
Yep, although Win 8 seems to poll and grab the correct IP address. At least so far…
Win 8 seems to work with most WSD print devices better (though not all).
Thanks, guys. Reset the router, deleted every trace of the printer (I hope!) and I’m reiinstalling the pronter now. Then I’ll check IPs. Let ya know…
OK, my printer is set to EpsonNet Print Port. The printer is using DHCP.
End of story…seemed to be an IP conflict. Epson support talked me thought setting up a custom port and all i good now.
I was wondering which forum would win the help desk award, this one or FB and it turns out neither.