Avoiding Dreaded ‘Printer Offline’ Errors
I should tag a lot of my posts with “I’m an idiot, so you don’t need to be one, too”.
We’ve been having printing problems at Sympraxis Global Headquarters (aka “My House”) on and off for most of this year. Our devices have beenn seeing the printer as offline, even when it wasn’t. I’d racked my brain, read every darn helpful post out there. (My favorite solution, from some random site: buy another printer.) The most useful article I found from Microsoft is this one: Fix printer connection and printing problems in Windows 10
As with many things, it turned out to be my fault, but it wasn’t necessarily obvious – or I would have caught it sooner! (If you read this and think I’m an idiot, see the first paragraph.)
We have a cable modem from my nemeses at Comcast. They upgrade us every few years to some new black box, and this one is Star Wars-like – it’s definitely cool.
We also have 3 Google WiFi Mesh routers. Once The Dude got to about age 13 and needed reliable Internet access in his room upstairs, the single Comcast modem/router didn’t cut it.
From a WiFi perspective, everything has worked great. I have one of the Google WiFi routers in my office, The Dude has one in his bedroom, and the base unit sits next to the Comcast modem/router. We’ve got a strong signal throughout the house and everyone is happy.
Until they want to print. Do you see where this is going? If you do, refer to paragraph one.
No matter what I did on our individual devices or on our rather old and creaky Epson Workforce 840 printer, our devices saw the printer as offline. Standing in front of it, it was clearly online. To make it even more confusing, sometimes we could print – and it wasn’t predictable.
I figured: well this printer is very old, and Windows 10 keeps changing. Maybe the drivers simply don’t work anymore. We’ll buy a new printer, just like that silly article said. We decided on the HP OfficeJet Pro 9025, which arrived yesterday. I set it up, ran through the configuration steps, and…it showed offline on our devices.
I was about to give up and hire some tech service to fix this for me. It would be embarrassing (I’m the in-house IT department, dang it), but the “I can’t print!” shouts from around the house were getting on my nerves.
Sometimes solutions come to us at the strangest moments. I was in the car last night with The Dude, listening to some new Frank Ocean (yeah, we’re pretty cool), and I thought: “Dang it! I’ve got two devices on the same SSID!” Ok, I didn’t say “dang”.
I’ve had the Comcast modem/router broadcasting the same SSID as the Google WiFi. I changed the Google WiFi’s SSID, just adding a “G” at the end, and lo and behold, the printer was online! Because the two WiFi routers were broadcasting the same SSID, our other devices couldn’t get a firm hold on the printer. That made them see it as offline. So now our devices and the printer are connected to SSID+G, our printer is online, and it works!
Ok, two printers are online. Now we have an extra printer.
Moral of the story: make sure you don’t have multiple devices broadcasting the same SSID. (In this case, the 3 Google WiFi devices count as one, as they act in concert.) I may switch the Comcast modem/router to not broadcast at all, but the “G” solution is good for now.
Well, actually….
You can have multiple devices on the network with same SSID; in fact, that’s how your Google Mesh network works. You have a primary router, and the other devices act as Wireless Access Points. All have the same SSID, and connect on the same intranet. Even without mesh devices, one can setup a network with multiple access points and roam around, and your client device will transfer from one to the other. The router and access points just all need to be on the same backbone physical network and subnet. Mesh systems make that a bit easier by establishing a wireless backbone network between the mesh devices that doesn’t take bandwidth from the client devices.
The problem was that the Comcast gateway and the Google router/access points were on different subnets, so you absolutely shouldn’t let them have the same name; devices connected to the different networks would not see each other.
The solution you came up with is fine; you’re now in a double NATted configuration, which doesn’t matter much unless you have a server or something on your actual network that you expect to be accessible to the outside world. Could be done but not easy to configure. I would suggest that you put the Comcast device into bridge mode. It would then act solely as a modem, and not have any networking capabilities beyond the ability to connect one device (your Google router) to the outside world, and of course the Google router routes all your client traffic.
https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/wireless-gateway-enable-disable-bridge-mode
See, I actually know some stuff!
@Scott:
I talked to smarter-than-me Todd Klindt about this after I posted it, and he told me basically the same thing. My issue is exacerbated by wanting to take my Google WiFi units away with me this summer, thus having to set the Comcast modem/router back to being a router for the people staying here. So it’s definitely a self-inflicted wound. The set up I have now ought to serve me just fine and prevent future me from making the same mistake.
Of course you know stuff!
M.
Given your desire to use the Google equipment at your summer place, I would do one of two things:
If you want to keep renting the Comcast equipment…
The new xFi Comcast gateway that you have can act as the base station for a mesh network. You need to do a one time purchase of xFi pods, put them in appropriate places in your house and you’ll have a mesh network, similar to what you have with Google WiFi. You purchase these ($130 for 3), not rent them, and then you remove your double NAT setup and use the Comcast stuff for all your networking.
https://www.xfinity.com/learn/internet-service/wifi/xfi-pod-3pack
Then you can just take your Google WiFi boxes and use them in your summer place, and leave them there. Note that you can setup the same SSID and password in both locations so your devices will just connect no matter which house you’re at.
If you don’t want to keep renting the Comcast equipment…
I see very little reason to rent Comcast equipment, but if you use them for landline service then I kind of get it (but there are ways around that too). If you don’t want to pay to rent the equipment, then buy a cable modem (depending on speed, $100 to $200), and keep using your Google router and mesh satellites. If you take them with you in the summer you’d obviously need a replacement router for your house while you’re gone that your guests can use; if you don’t care about whole home coverage then you can get something good for $100 or so.
Anyway, enough of my brain dump, hope that helps!
Thank you so much. I was going out of my mind trying to fix this issue. You made this less than tech savvy gals night! Cheers.