Having a lot of trouble setting up an HP WiFi printer.

[cptrohn]

Hello again to everybody...


I really love jaunty so far myself how about you?
The only think I am having a real problem with is setting up my new HP Officejet J4680 WiFi printer....

I just bought this printer after my old one finally gave out for good, so I decided to buy a WiFi printer and specifically got this model because I checked the ubuntu documentation to see if it would have issues and in the printer test they said it worked connected to both USB and with WiFi...


My problem is I can't seem to get it set up for WiFi.. (And I have never owned a WiFi printer before so I am probably missing something very easy too).... The printer works flawlessly when connected via USB, as a matter of fact it "just worked" out of the box that way, Kubuntu had zero problem with it... So then I went to set up the WiFi features of the printer, I went through the printers WiFi setup on the printer itself with zero problems.... I then went to my printer configuration in applications>system>printer configuration and removed the printer as I wanted to set it up using hp setup with hplip... So I went to hplip toolbox to set up the printer via WiFi, I selected the Ethernet/networking/Wireless connection option in the first screen of add device in hplip and then clicked next and it started working at discovering devices... only my printer is never discovered in the devices, as a matter of fact nothing is. I've googled this, I tried the HP support forums I emailed HP's tech support (and was pretty much told they love the linux community but it's my problem and not theirs) and now I am completely lost on which way to turn with this... it just seems strange to me that everything works great EXCEPT for the WiFi which makes me think I am doing something wrong with the setup attempt, especially since it was listed as working in the ubuntu documentation. So I figured I would ask today to see if anybody with more experience than me knew what might be going on. Because I am really just at a complete loss on how to get the printer working with WiFi...

So please help me while I still have SOME hair left?

[flarson]

Re: Having a lot of trouble setting up an HP WiFi printer.

can you ping the printer over wifi?

[cptrohn]

Re: Having a lot of trouble setting up an HP WiFi printer.

can you ping the printer over wifi?

Thanks for replying mando_hacker, I am still very new to linux and Kubuntu, How do I ping the printer and I will try and see if I can.

[flarson]

Re: Having a lot of trouble setting up an HP WiFi printer.

You need to know the ip address or hostname of the printer on the network and then you run (in a terminal) "ping -c 3 ip_address". That will test the network connectivity to the printer.

[cptrohn]

Re: Having a lot of trouble setting up an HP WiFi printer.

You need to know the ip address or hostname of the printer on the network and then you run (in a terminal) "ping -c 3 ip_address". That will test the network connectivity to the printer.

Ok I tried this with the IP address that shows up on the printer set up and I got this message back in terminal

Destination host unreachable

I also tried to set up the printer with the printer configuration in the system and the same IP address that I pinged showed up for the printer there... I ran through the setup process and when I went to print a test page this showed up in the printer state

Printer State: Processing-recoverable: Network host "ip address" is busy; will try again in 15 seconds

And then at the same time another error message opens in another window stating

Error printer Officejet_j4680 series may not be connected.

When I went through the printer configuration via Kubuntu software it listed 2 sets of drivers and I selected the recommended drivers...

BUT if I can't ping the printers IP address then I guess I really have no clue to what is going on or why...

[cptrohn]

Re: Having a lot of trouble setting up an HP WiFi printer.

Ok, so and then just for grins I decided to try to reach the IP address through the browser and this is the error i got there..

Firefox failed to connect

Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at 'IP Address'
Though the site seems valid, the browser was unable to establish a connection.

[flarson]

Re: Having a lot of trouble setting up an HP WiFi printer.

So what you have is a network problem. Getting the printer on the network is not much different than getting a computer on the network. It sounds like you assigned a static IP address to the printer. Are you computers getting addresses from a modem/router? Have you assigned the printer an address that is already in use by something else?

[cptrohn]

Re: Having a lot of trouble setting up an HP WiFi printer.

So what you have is a network problem. Getting the printer on the network is not much different than getting a computer on the network. It sounds like you assigned a static IP address to the printer. Are you computers getting addresses from a modem/router? Have you assigned the printer an address that is already in use by something else?

Ok, all I did was take the printer through the wireless set-up as was listed in the instructions.. it sets up through the printer itself when it does this, so what I did on the printer was go to it's wireless set up, it asked the name of the the network and the password for the network and then the router assigns the IP address I guess.... I have 3 different devices going through the router, one is my laptop, the other is a SKYPE enabled cordless phone and then there is only the printer after that.

I have my Printers manual right here and will browse that and see what it says..... but I didn't set the IP address the router did.

[sithlord48]

Re: Having a lot of trouble setting up an HP WiFi printer.

be ware the last hp wifi printer i hooked up for someone used an AD-HOC network check your wifi networks on the computer and you should see one that the printer puts out. (i am not sure the model but this was the only option for its wifi)

also does the ip of the printer match your ip on ur laptop (konsole and run ifconfig)

they should be similar except for the last bit

in my network everything starts with 192.168.0.

[cptrohn]

Re: Having a lot of trouble setting up an HP WiFi printer.

be ware the last hp wifi printer i hooked up for someone used an AD-HOC network check your wifi networks on the computer and you should see one that the printer puts out. (i am not sure the model but this was the only option for its wifi)

also does the ip of the printer match your ip on ur laptop (konsole and run ifconfig)

they should be similar except for the last bit

in my network everything starts with 192.168.0.

Yes they are similar (mine also start with the 192.168.)

[flarson]

Re: Having a lot of trouble setting up an HP WiFi printer.

They must have aggreement in 3 places, 192.168.0. to work, normally. Are all of your addresses 192.168.0.xxx or 192.168.1.xxx, ... ?

[cptrohn]

Re: Having a lot of trouble setting up an HP WiFi printer.

OK... So I printed up an HP Network Configuration report (which I can do from the printer itself, it doesn't have to connected to the computer for this)

In this report under the 802.11 Wireless it lists a lot of information that I don't know much about.

It lists a Hardware Address (MAC)
Status it is listed as connected.
Communication Mode is listed as infrastructure
In Network name it correctly lists the name of my network
It lists an Access Point HW address
Signal Strenght (1-5) is listed as a 5
Channel is listed as 1
Authentification Type is listed as WPA-PSK
Encryption is listed as Automatic (AES or TKIP)

Then it lists under IPv4
IP address
Subnet mask
Default Gateway
Configuration Source is listed as DHCP
Primary DNS server
Secondary DNS server
Total Packets transmitted is 28
Total Packets recieved is 64

Then it lists mDNS as enabled
Service name is listed as Officejet J4680 series [FB06AF]

Then it lists SLP
Status Enabled

Under general Information it lists
Network Status as ready
Active Connection Type as Wireless
It gives the URL for the IP address(the same one I pinged and that shows up in printer config)
It lists the firmware revision
The Hostname
The Serial number
and lists the Admin Password as Not Set.



When I click on the Wlan interface in the systme tray for the WiFi there are 3 networks that show up (mine and 2 of my neighbors.) but nothing for the printer......

So, I am guessing that the printer IS connected to the network, but for some reason it can't connect to the computer?

Is there something I need to do to set up a manual connection to the printer? (please bare with me I am ignorant on WiFi printers... LOL)

[cptrohn]

Re: Having a lot of trouble setting up an HP WiFi printer.

They must have aggreement in 3 places, 192.168.0. to work, normally. Are all of your addresses 192.168.0.xxx or 192.168.1.xxx, ... ?

Yes they are segmented.....
it looks like they are segmented into 4 places... for example 192.168.x.x

[flarson]

Re: Having a lot of trouble setting up an HP WiFi printer.

If they do not agree in 3 places that is the problem. The fourth position is the host, but to be on the name network the first 3 must agree, unless you are using a different netmask. If your printer is 192.168.0.100 and your computer is 192.168.1.1 they will not be able to talk to each other. If they are 192.168.1.100 and 192.169.1.1 they will be able to talk to each other.

[cptrohn]

Re: Having a lot of trouble setting up an HP WiFi printer.

If they do not agree in 3 places that is the problem. The fourth position is the host, but to be on the name network the first 3 must agree, unless you are using a different netmask. If your printer is 192.168.0.100 and your computer is 192.168.1.1 they will not be able to talk to each other. If they are 192.168.1.100 and 192.169.1.1 they will be able to talk to each other.

Hmm ok, I never knew that....

Ok so the IP listed for the printer is 192.168.002.xxx and the IP address that shows up for Wlan interface under network manager is 192.168.002.xxx So it should be working right?

Sorry for dumb questions but this is actually VERY new to me and I don't know.