Printer offline, but it's not

ZenMasta

I'm experiencing a strange issue with a printer that we've had for over 6 years now I think. It started Monday 9/30. Everything was fine in the morning then suddenly we couldn't send printjobs from ANY of our devices because it would appear "offline" in windows. I switched to wifi mode and it worked BRIEFLY but would appear offline again.

We're printing from many devices ranging from windows 10, 11, and server 2022.

I noticed something in Status>DHCP Leases
When the printer is in the list but the status is active/online that's when we can print.
But when the arrow is gray pointing down, we cannot. And even though pfsense says that it's offline, I can still log into the the web management portal of the printer so it's definitely NOT offline.

Except, as I'm typing this I was able to send a print job even though in pfsense it's showing offline. So maybe that's just coincidence and the status in pfsense has nothing to do with it.

One other thing I noticed is on my dashboard
This service is stopped:
bgpd OpenBSD BGP Daemon

I don't know if that's related in anyway but if I press the play button to start the service, the gear turns for a moment but then it still isn't started.

I had to buy a new printer temporarily. I can't have our business put on hold because we can't print orders.

I've tried all the usual things.
full power cycle of the printer(unplugging power and also pressing power button to discharge capacitors)
deleting the printer from various pc's.
reinstalling using new vs existing drivers

It's still printing intermittently

Version 2.7.2-RELEASE (amd64)
built on Mon Mar 4 11:53:00 PST 2024
FreeBSD 14.0-CURRENT

The system is on the latest version.
Version information updated at Thu Oct 3 10:45:14 PDT 2024
CPU Type Intel(R) Celeron(R) J4125 CPU @ 2.00GHz
Current: 2000 MHz, Max: 2001 MHz
4 CPUs: 1 package(s) x 4 core(s)
AES-NI CPU Crypto: Yes (inactive)
QAT Crypto: No

johnpoz

@ZenMasta the online offline status in pfsense just says if pfsense has a entry in its arp table is all..

If pfsense hasn't seen any traffic from that printer in 20 minutes then it would show offline.. 20 minutes is the default in the arp cache.

Are things printing to this printer on the same network as the printer? Or is your printer traffic routing through pfsense?

Here is simple test, can you ping the printer IP if not - then its unlikely you would be able to print too it.. Are you using the IP to print to it, or some fqdn that might or might not be resolving?

ZenMasta

@johnpoz All of our pcs are on the same network, no vlans or anything at this time.

A co-worker and I were both printing jobs literally minutes ago. She was printing a few pages when I sent a 1 page job and suddenly it's off line for me. I try again minutes later and the job succeeds this time. And so being that I just successfully sent some more jobs, pfsense still shows the device offline.

I can't ping the printer from windows but that's possibly because the printer doesn't accept pings. Again I can view the web management page no problem.

Although I can print when I right click and choose properties in control panel>devices and printers. The usual information is "unavailable"

But I do know that normally it's a "web services" device. But when I first encountered the issue I tried adding it manually using both host name/ip address with inconsistent results.

At present, the devices is installed by virtue of adding device, it showing up in the list, and me clicking next.

johnpoz

@ZenMasta said in Printer offline, but it's not:

All of our pcs are on the same network, no vlans or anything at this time.

Well then pfsense has zero to do with device A (you) talking to device B (printer) that are on the same network.. The only thing that pfsense might be involved with is handing both devices IP addresses, and if your using some fqdn to print resolve to the printers IP.

But 2 devices talking to each other - pfsense is not involved at all..

Are you wireless and the printer wired, or both wired - maybe you have a switch issue.. Or maybe the printer is just going..

On your pc, can you ping the printers IP? If not then no prob not going to be able to print.. If you can't ping the IP, do you even see the mac address in the pc arp table?

You can see the arp table in windows or linux with arp -a

JonathanLee

Remember Parallel DB25 print servers where you could connect your laser printer to a couple years ago? Same thing if it has no web server running or access to the network it won't work. My question is can you do a test page from the printer itself? Think in Isolate.

Does the printer work?
Does it get an IP address?
If that works why can't windows see it.
Can you ping it?
Can you ping pong it from the firewall?
Have you attempted a complete wireless reset on it?
Can it see the SSID.