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Printer fails to connect and shows "Driver unavailable"

Anonymous
2020-04-02T02:08:49+00:00

I'm doing tech support for a friend, I'm trying to help them fix their printer which suddenly went offline. They can still print from their iPhone, so I know the printer and network are in good shape.

Also, I am far away from them, so I was assisting over screen sharing. I don't think that should matter, but just want to be clear.

So here's the problem:

The printer appears to be connected. I can ping it from a terminal on the computer, so it seems like it's visible on the network just fine. But you can see there in the status that it says "Driver is unavailable". If I try to print something with Microsoft Word, it says that it can't connect to the printer. I have uninstalled and re-installed the drivers several times, through Windows and through HP, and I updated to the most recent version of Windows, but it still has the same problem every time.

The last time I fixed this problem for them, I had to manually add the printer, the network discovery feature wasn't working. However, this manual adding seems to have been removed.

The "Not finding what you're looking for?" button just takes me to a Microsoft support page for connecting Bluetooth devices, which is completely irrelevant.

This support page says there should be a "The printer that I want isn't listed" button, and that matches with my recollection from last time, but it's gone.

I'm concerned that these problems may be related.

Is there any additional steps I can take to try and restore connectivity to the printer?

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Devices and drivers

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-04-07T03:16:10+00:00

    Hi Greg! Thanks so much for the reply! I talked to my friend again, so I have some more info.

    1. Printer is on and working, it is a wireless printer. I was able to confirm that it was on the same network as the laptop I remoted into.
    2. I uninstalled everything printer related that I could see. I should have taken better notes, but it was several HP related services.
    3. I forgot about this step the first time through, I came back to this later.
    4. I deleted the printer and its associated fax machine, then restarted the PC.
    5. I downloaded the Full Feature Software and Drivers from HP's website (v40.13). I didn't check for new firmware here, but I did later.
    6. I ran the printer setup from HP and it did complete, which is new, the last time I tried it got stuck loading for 10+ mins.

    After this, I was able to pull up the printers web management portal with it's IP address, which is something I couldn't do last time. Here I checked the firmware and it was already up to date.

    Windows also reported that it was able to connect to the printer, which is progress from my original post.

    However, after trying to print a test document, I got a new error.

    Print Queue

    So here I realized that I had forgot step 3. Option 1 did not work, Windows says "printmanagement.msc not found". Option 2 gave me some more interesting results, I found a bunch of old drivers from different model printers and removed those. However I was not able to remove the printer drivers for the 5742 with the following error:

    I checked again after removing the old drivers and got the same error I did last time.

    I checked the printer's web interface to try to look at the error log, and it did have an event log, but it wasn't anything interesting, just one message with no timestamp about a network connectivity error.

    Normally the way I uninstall printer drivers is through Device Manager. I could try going that route again, but my hopes are not super high that I would get a different result.

    Any thoughts? My best bet would be to try to get more visibility into exactly what kind of error the printer experienced, but I haven't had any luck finding out from the printer or from the internet.

    Thanks again so much for your time!

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-04-02T02:11:07+00:00

    HI Sam. I'm Greg, an installation specialist, 10 year Windows MVP, and Volunteer Moderator. If you will work with me I will be here to help until the issue is resolved.

    I would Clean Install the printer which always works, lasts longer and actually saves time:

    1. Power up the printer, if wired unplug it's USB cable from PC.
    2. Go to Settings>Apps>Apps and Features to find and Uninstall any printer software.
    3. Use one of these methods to remove all of the old printer drivers:

    https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/101274-unin...

    https://helpdeskgeek.com/how-to/remove-uninstal...

    1. Now type Control Panel in Start Search, open CP, choose Icon View. In Control Panel open Devices and Printers, right click printer to delete Printer and any scanner or fax of the same name. Restart PC.
    2. Go to the printer model’s Support Downloads webpage to download and install the latest full software package. Now is also the time to check for any newer printer firmware to install which matters a lot.
    3. Extract Printer software, right click Setup file to Run as Administrator. Follow the setup screens closely as you install the software. For USB it should prompt when to plug in the printer.

    Older software may need to be installed in Compatibility Mode to run correctly:

    https://www.windowscentral.com/how-install-non-...

    https://www.windowscentral.com/how-install-olde...

    If you have further problems reply back with results of each step.

    Once it's installed and you've run a test print, then scanned it to see that it opens on the desktop, open the Printer software and go into its Settings to set the scan-to file location you prefer, also the email app you want opened for Scan to Email, if applicable.

    I hope this helps. Feel free to ask back any questions and let us know how it goes. If you will wait to rate my post until we are done, I will keep working with you until it's resolved.

    ______________________________________________

    Standard Disclaimer: There are links to non-Microsoft websites. The pages appear to be providing accurate, safe information. Watch out for ads on the sites that may advertise products frequently classified as a PUP (Potentially Unwanted Products). Thoroughly research any product advertised on the sites before you decide to download and install it.

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