Error While Printing

I was hoping to do a search of the forum but apparently the feature had been disabled. After randomly scrolling through several pages I decided to just post.

I've got an HP Pavilion laptop working wirelessly via a Linksis WRT-54G. However, out of the blue my ability to print to my HP printer connected to my desktop has ceased. After hitting file print and the print box opening, when I hit print I get the following simple error:

"An unknown error occurred while printing"

I have no idea what sets to take to start trouble shooting. If anyone could give me a few things to trouble shoot I would greatly appreciate it.

 

Sorry, some helpful information probably is I'm running Windows Vista on the HP laptop and my Gateway desktop is running Windows XP.

 

Perhaps some additional helpful information.

On my HP laptop when I go to control panel and printers I see the two printers attached to my desktop (and HP and an Epson) as well as Microsoft XPS Document, PDF995, and Send to OneNote 2007.

The printer I want to print to is the HP printer which is tagged as the default.

When I click on "Add Printer" and "Add a network, wireless or bluetooth printer" the laptop finds only the PDF995 and Send to OneNote 2007. The HP (or Epson) printer are not there.

When I click on "the printer I want isn't listed" I can't seem to navigate through any of the three options to find the HP printer.

I've checked and the printer is listed as shared on both the laptop and the desktop. This is where I'm at, and where I've been stuck. Looks like I need to add the HP printer again but not sure how.

 

I am not sure what your problem is , but HP printers DO uninstall themselves sometimes. You may need to reinstall the driver. Check on the HP driver site for your printer to see if there is an update you can download to prevent unexpected uninstalls. There was for my printer.

Also check the HP driver site for your computer to see if there is an update to try and prevent loss of connectivity. Some of the pavillions needed this update.

If your driver is still there, a temporary work around is to turn off all computers and the printer for 30 seconds and then restart. They will all get new IP addresses and you MAY be able to print again. Sometimes it is easier to just unplug the router and then the modem for a few seconds and then restart the modem, wait 10 secs and then restart the router.

Hope one of the above steps helps you. For what is worth, you are not the only one with wireless printing problems.

 

Thanks Cat Mom. I've found the HP page and there are some "critical updates" I can install. I assume these get installed on the desktop computer.

One question for you. When you say the HP driver could uninstall itself and I need to see if it is there, you are talking about on the laptop right? I only ask b/c printing is fine from the desktop.

I just assumed since the HP printer was showing up as the default printer on my laptop that it was there. How do you actually see if a driver is installed?

 

I'm sort of frustrated at this point and just deleted the PDF995 and OneNote printers from my laptop (since I don't know why there are there anyway).

Now, when I go to the control panel, Network and Sharing, and look at printer sharing it says "Off (no printers installed)."

I'm apparently really lost so let me start with a basic question - How do I install a printer to my laptop? You know, I don't even know if I care anymore really. So frustrating that it stopped working. Oh well.

 

You probably only need to reinstall the printer driver on the laptop. However the updates for the printer need to be in all computers that use the printer. Just because the desktop has not uninstalled the printer at this time, does not mean that it won't do it in the future. It is the printer driver that causes the uninstall.

You could also try plugging the laptop to the router to see if it will print.

I am probably not going to be able to help you much more than I have, but maybe someone else can.

Are your printers wireless or are they wired to the router?

Are you printing directly to the printer or are you sharing the printer through the desktop?

All of my printers are wireless, so I probably can't help more if it is a shared networking problem. I suspect it may be a networking problem because the Epson printer is giving you trouble too.

 

Also make sure you've powered the printer down, let it sit a bit, and then powered it back up; sometimes a device that's been left on too long may simply get network-amnesia and "forget" that it's attached to a network.