My network printer doesn't work with new router

[mirko1234]

Hello,

As the title says, I have an HP C5280 printer which I connect to my router through USB so I can print wirelessly with my PC and especially with my android devices on the go without the need of switching on my PC every time I have to make a quick printing.

With my previous router provided by my old ISP the trick worked like a charm and the printer was detected by every app and every system.

With my new router provided by my new ISP provider (I now have the Vodafone Station Revolution with a faster 100 Mbps connection and various ISP specific services so I'm afraid I can't change the router).

Now, I can print from windows using the IPP address (http://vodafone.station:631/printers/*printername*) but I managed to find my printer on my android devices (both smartphone and tablet so I guess it's not a device specific malfunction) only with Starprint app (but has the proprietary watermark that is not good while printing official bureaucratic documents) and with Let's Print Droid but has very few options (I can't print in fast draft quality meaning that I will have to change my cartridges once a month with all that excessive ink used).

Every other app (like Printershare which was my favourite wifi printing app with my older router) can't find it at all, and other apps with manual setup options give various errors and won't print through my network printer.


Since it works only with certain apps (so I guess under specific conditions)I wonder if any of you knows if maybe there are some router settings to tweak to make it work or know some way to get a log file or something so we can figure out this issue once and for all.

Thank you very much

 

[morinookuni8919]

I would look at the port settings on your router and see if any have been enabled or disabled. The traffic going to the printer needs to be pushed to the printer so forwarding may do the trick. What kind of errors do you get when attempting to print?
Shot in the dark but I don't guess your network settings changed on the printer or anything?

 

[mirko1234]

Thank you very much for the answer morinookuni8919,

My printer is a USB only printer so it doesn't have its specific network settings, on the LAN I guess it's entirely managed by the router, and these are disappointingly few printer sharing options (if one can even be considered as few xD) my new router has to offer (http://ibb.co/iAPbqR) (the sharing settings under the sharing panel only allows to add a username and password, which I didn't set but encountered the same effects even when I set them, and allows to enable some disk sharing privileges, namely DLNA/Twonky, FTP, SAMBA, UPNP, they are all set as allowed and from my experience those I know of are mostly server sharing protocols).

Regarding port forwarding, I'm not so acknowledged about it so I did some research and from what I found I understand that by port forwarding to the printer it would allow to remotely access the printer even from outside my private LAN and on numerous threads it was suggested to not do it (https://forums.techguy.org/threads/setting-up-remote-printing-port-forwarding.543682/) but since I'm new to port forwarding I can easily be wrong about it and port forwarding can be done even for requests coming exclusively from inside my home network.

As for the kind of errors most of the times applications seem to not find my printer when entering the IP address (I always try with both 192.168.1.1 and vodafone.station that I really don't understand where the router constructors took it form even if the vodafone.station... address works fine with my windows PC)

Those application that allow me to add the printer with the aforementioned IP address show these errors:

sendto failed: ECONNRESET (Connection reset by peer)
Error: Can't print. IPP error 1024

Another thing I found that differs from the behavior of my older router is that with the older one I could see my printer in windows under Network>Name of the Router>Name of the printer that from what I understood is the same process that Printershare app goes through too, in fact when looking for nearby wifi printers I can access Home (I gues it means home network)>VODAFONE (I gues the router) and when I open it it's blank, this is the place my older router showed the printer.

My guess is that there is some tweaking to do to make the printer visible in the network environment because the router is in some way hiding it or not showing it the proper way but the only setting in my router native control panel is the one I showed you in the screenshot so I'm struggling to find another setting that forces the printer to be shown as we want by all the private network devices by any mean they prefer and not only by some unexplainable and extremely peculiar circumstances or if there is a way to install a custom control panel that allows me to have all those ISP specific services I was talking you about in the first post.

Thanks again for the answer,
Hope we won't give up on the issue

 

[morinookuni8919]

You are correct about the port forwarding typically do not want to do that but it has saved my butt in the past and figured its worth a try just to isolate what the problem is if it didn't work could go back and disable it.
The error that you said is definitely a network error, you don't have a DNS server on site by any chance do you? I heard of this error being associated with DNS and it is true that everything lives and dies by DNS but in this case doubtful but worth checking.

Is there a firewall on the router that can be disabled? You did everything that I would have done from the start too. What kind of router do you have?

Just for shits and giggles, are you able to disable the printer from the USB And make it wireless or wired connection and test that way to see if you are presented with the same issue? Somethings dropping the connections but its hard to tell right now where and how. I wont give up on this issue, I'm invested now to find out what the cause is

 

[Alabalcho]

Do yourself a favor, and get USB print server. I have seen some available for as low as $20 (although I would rather go a little bit higher).

 

[mirko1234]

Thank you everybody for your answers,

These days I contacted both my printer and router manufacturer supports and nobody had a clue on how to solve the issue. Doing some research I found out the easiest and cheapest solution for my needs would be buying an USB OTG cable and I've already checked my printer and all of my android devices and they all support USB OTG connection.

Since I'm very new to USB OTG technology I don't really know how android behaves with this kind of connection so I have one last question for you:

My printer is an all-in-one so it's both a printer and a scanner and it's several years I've been using my routers' built in print servers and never had any luck scanning through them since from what I understand not all printers/scanners support scanning functionalities with print servers and not all print servers support every kind of scanners so, my question is:

Will I finally be able to scan documents without the use of my PC and directly from my printer/scanner to my android devices? Are all USB OTG ready devices able to use an all-in-one printer's scanning functionality regardless and effortlessly? Or only certain kind of scanners/printers allow to do that? Or scanning through USB OTG needs some other system requirement maybe of the printer, the mobile device or maybe even the cable itself that I should check to be sure whether I will be able to do that or not? Or it only works under strict circumstances I should follow to be able to do that?

Thank you very much again

 

[Alabalcho]

USB OTG would be good for printing from your phones, but I doubt you'll be able to scan - whether thru USB/OTG or (when working) over network. Over the network - look for print server with Google Print support (or ask yourself how important is to be able to print from a phone). And you will be out of just a couple of dollars for USB OTG cable, so give it a try,

Cheap print server is all you need to print over the network from a PC. As for scanning - I doubt it will be possible, unless you use a print server specifically designed for that printer (and HP DirectJet's, if they support scanning, tend to be expensive).

 

[mirko1234]

Thanks,

Wow I didn't know HP had its own line of print servers, I'm going to definitely check out if they have scanning capabilities. I just bought a 2 dollars USB OTG cable on ebay, if I'll have any problem I think I'll have to consider a print server, Vodafone Stations are well advertised but their built in print servers suck xD

Best Regards