Hello,

I have an HP OfficeJet Pro 8100 printer which I used to connect via ethernet cable to my router, and have been using it without problems. However, after a recent house move, when I connect it in the same way to the router, it no longer seems to be assigned an IP address. I looked at the set-up page of the router, and the printer is not among the connected devices. When I go to the CUPS admin page (http://localhost:631) and click on 'Add printer', the printer is not discovered, although the same printer with the old configuration is still showing (but of course I can't print using it). When I print out the printer's own network config pages using the button on the printer itself, it prints out the old network configuration - I know it's the old configuration because the wireless network SSID is still the one in my old house. The old IP address certainly doesn't work any more because I've tried pinging it. The ethernet icon on the printer's LCD screen still lights up (and goes off when I disconnect the ethernet cable), so the printer still seems to think there is a working ethernet connection. However, without an IP address, I can't do anything to update its configuration. What am I missing here?

After doing all this, I can only think of 2 possibilities, both of which seem highly unlikely to me:

1. the printer's ethernet port got damaged in the house move - but then why would the ethernet connection icon still seem to work?

2. in the new house, I've had to change ISPs, and change from a cable router to an ADSL router, and the printer doesn't work with the ADSL router (at least without further changes to my network configuration). Again, this seems highly unlikely - every other device worked just as before after plugging into the router.

It's been a while since I've had to configure a printer; is there a crucial step I've forgotten to do?

Finally, I should say that connecting the printer via USB works just fine. But I'd really like to get the networking to work as I'd like to use the printer from multiple devices.

Any help much appreciated.

Just recently suffered through this. Here's some possibilities:

1. Your printer may be set up for the last location as an AP
2. You may have wpa/wep blocking router access if the printer hasn't been programmed with the wpa/wep key.
3. There was a way for me to reset my printer's wifi. I found that on google, and then disabled wpa, and gave the printer a fixed IP in the router. That done, I could reenable wpa

Two possible causes:
1 - The network cable is defective; or either of the interface either side
2 - The new router ADSL runs on a different network than before, thus, new IP/Netmask combination must be used to tune the signal between the machine and printer.
For the second solution:
a - Make sure that your machine and printer share the same network (usually 192.168.1.x / 255.255.255.0 assigning the printer IP to 192.168.1.x / 255.255.255.0, whichever network your new router defaulted; or check the router which is sometimes set to 192.168.0.0 at which your machine and printer have to operate at that range). Use ifconfig to do this. Read manual b - Route the two devices to the same network and gateway. Use route in the terminal. Read manual Example:
Assuming your new router defaults to 192.168.1.1, set your machine to 192.168.1.2 /24.
Set your interface to the working network of the new router <assuming router defaulted to 192.168.1.1 as gateway>
Then assign your printer to 192.168.1.3 /24 which is within range of the network.
Check them:
If they are reachable then you can configure the printer via 127.0.0.1:631 on the browser. Test print.

Hope that helps. Good luck.

m.m.

Had the same problem with my HP Officejet 6500, it was my firewall.
All I did was to shutdown the firewall, discovered the printer and configure it, turned the firewall back on.
Now everything run perfectly.

Hope this solved it.

Thanks for all the answers/suggestions. In light of some of the answers, I did a bit more specific Googling. It turns out the solution is a lot simpler. As I said in my original post, when I first printed out the printer's network configuration, it was still using the old configuration. It turns out I had to manually reset the printer's network config. I never had to do this before because the printer was newly purchased when I installed it at my old address. HP's user guide is totally useless in this regard - nowhere is it mentioned how and when it is necessary to do this! I had to Google it to find out which buttons I need to press to reset the printer's network config. After doing this, I printed out the network config page again, and sure enough, a new IP address was assigned and the printer showed up as a connected device in my router. I could then update the printer configuration in CUPS as normal and everything is working fine now.

Glad to save someone else. You can mark this solved, then.