Real Tech Fix #1 - Wireless Printer Goes Offline

Welcome to the first installment of Real Tech Fixes. I've spent a lifetime working with technology and yesterday, it suddenly struck me as I fought to print a PDF on my wireless printer, that perhaps my experiences in battling technical matters would be useful to others as I sorted through these troubles.

This said, I'll be writing often on matters technical and hope to hear your responses and comments to my solutions (or lack thereof) for common technical problems. The idea is to document real user experiences and document solutions that ended up working for me. It is my hope that these might help you in your trials and troubles in the technical world.

So, for  this first post, my troubles began with a simple desire to print a document on my Epson printer. The printer refused to print and I noted that the device registered itself as "offline" when I checked it's status. I'm running Windows 7, 64-bit, with all the latest patches and I've seen this behavior before.

The standard line from Epson and all the other wireless vendors is to recycle your router and restart Windows. So that I did. Repeatedly. Rather than see "Printer: Ready" like in the image below, I was treated to the "Offline" status instead.

So... After two hours of fighting to get my printer to work. I sat back and looked at the situation. A little critical thinking and a nice cup of coffee to reflect on where things stand ALWAYS helps in these situations.

That is the real trouble with technology. You can fritter away hours, chasing a ghost and to lose sight of what the root of an issue is in the first place. So, my advice #1 to you is to RELAX and THINK when you hit the wall. Often, a little time to let the mind work it's magic will be enough to solve the problem when the magical insight arrives in between sips of coffee...

Critical Thinking Exercise Bears Fruit...

So... I sipped coffee and thought things through... Where had I been I been? I'd chased the printer as the problem for hours with no luck.

I had queried the printer with it's built in web presence and it was absolutely rock solid with the latest firmware and was responding normally. But Windows 7 was refusing to play ball. Suspicion turned to the OS as the culprit, specifically the printer and wireless communication from Windows.

So I focused my attention away from the printer and on Windows. And to good effect.

Many Google queries later, I happened on a post that mentioned deleting the printer software as a solution. A little radical I thought. Why completely remove the software when you can start with simply removing the printer device definition and to rescan for the device?

 So, I did just that.. I went to "Devices and Printers' in my Windows Control Panel and right-clicked on my device and selected "Remove device" from the option list. Once the printer was removed, I set about adding a new printer and instructed Windows to scan for wireless printers. I had to give it the IP address of my printer and when I gave it that information, Windows immediately spotted the printer and set about adding it back as a working printer.

 Voila! My printer began to work immediately! I went ahead and printed my document and was back in business.

But, in hindsight, the question arises; "Why did it happen in the first place?"

My guess is as good as anyone might give. I have a couple of ideas on why it occurred, but they are uninformed suppositions and perhaps one of you good folks could provide further insight.

Guess #1: IP address change. With DHCP expiring IP addresses periodically, perhaps the printer IP goes away and the printer definition becomes invalid? I doubt this is the answer, but then again, it is worth asking just to find out what is really happening with the printer and it's communications with Windows.

Guess #2: Corrupted definition. A more likely explanation. Perhaps there are circumstances that can confuse the printer configuration in Windows and cause it to seize up and refuse to print. Removing and re-adding the printer clears the bad data structures and initializes everything back to rights.

Final Observations

First off, suspecting a perfectly good printer is the easy way out when going after a problem like this. The hardware was working fine before and then suddenly wasn't. Blaming the vendor is easy, but that wasn't it. Epson makes a damned good printer and their print engine is superb.

Coffee is what fixed everything. Taking time to think things through and deduce the nature of the problem and use good old hypotheses to explore possible causes and fixes are what did the trick. And I'm not throwing rocks at Windows either in all of this. Software is the hardest thing there is to make work all of the time. It is too easy to blame Microsoft for everything. Their software works pretty well for the most part. My guess is that the printer driver has some negative property that is causing all of this and that with enough time, these wireless printer issues will become a rare issue... For now, I have a fix that worked!

For our next article, I'm going to cover problems with wireless access cards in Windows and the trials  I've experienced in dealing with getting these to work. See you soon!