Losing printer

[dangbert]

Like some other posts, most of which are older, my printer is losing connection.  I can install the printer (Brother 2040, using the 2060 driver) it tests good.  Later, or after a reboot, the printer still shows in Control Panel but I cannot print to it.  If I delete it and reinstall it works fine, for awhile or until a reboot.

My printer is connected to an XP box (cable can reach where the printer has to go in the office setup) and the XP box is on my wireless network.  I do have the Samba shares set up and the printer worked fine under 2009.2 KDE4.

One thing has changed on the setup, I had to change out my wireless router, could that effect this problem?  I had a D-Link DIR 615, in fact still have it, but it has a heat problem, and replaced it with a Netgear WNR 2000.

Deb

[ThirdOfSix]

If it were connected directly to the network, I would say that the lease on the printer IP address is timing out and the you should set it up with a static address.

But, I don't think that that applies here. Even so, you should check and see if your router is set to point to your XP machine for the name lookup.


Unfortunately, I have a terrible memory and can not remember the terminology long enough to really explain this kind of stuff unless I have the configuration setup open in front of me.

If you are a typical home user with only two or three machines and do not constantly connect and disconnect other computers on your network, static IPs would still be the most stable way of setting it up. I hated having to determine the new IP address for my printers whenever the power went out.

Many routers will allow you to have devices with fixed IP addresses yet still use DHCP for others. If yours does, set up the HP machine that the printer is attached to with a fixed IP and this problem will probably go away and not return.