HP Envy 4500 WiFi printer not found using WiFi

Question

I'm not a 'power user' so please be patient. Wife and I are both running 14.04 on our respective laptops with no problems. We connect to the Home WiFi with no issues. I purchased an HP-Envy 4500 All-in-one printer. Works well with USB connection, no problems. But when I attempt to set it up as a Wireless printer on our laptops it can not be found.

The 'Wireless Network Test Results' (created by the printer), shows a good connection, and passing traffic between the printer and the wireless router.

When I go to system settings > Printers > Add Printer > Network Printer there is nothing listed. If I click "Find Network Printer" no printers are found.

If I try to use HPLIP Device Manager with the USB cable connected, HPLIP will enter a crash-loop and not add the printer.

We would both like to have wireless printing capability but from other questions here, there seems to be some issues. Before we moved, we had this functionality, but have had updates to Ubuntu, changed from DSL to Cable, and changed WiFi routers from Asus to Belkin. Any ideas or suggestions?

Answer 1

I suggest that, rather than having the System Settings > Printers tool attempt to automatically find the wireless printer, you specify the Device URI. I have an HP printer and, although it attaches to my router with ethernet, I think the process is the same.

I assume the 'Wireless Network Test Results' shows the printer's IP address. I suggest you use this to add a network printer:

ipp://<IP address>:631/lpr

Then continue and let the system look for drivers, select HP and, I assume, since the printer worked by USB, the exact model is selectable. Test by printing a test page.

Answer 2

Thank you for your proposed solution. Your suggestion got me thinking and it turns out that the HP-Envy-4500 E All-in-one printer MUST be configured using a USB connection to the printer. After connecting with the USB cable, using HPLIP I was able to enter the wireless printer setup utility. Even though I had successfully connected to our home router, it was necessary to over write that information. Once the connection was made according to the HPLIP configuration tool, all was good to go. It is now working properly.

Thank you for prompting my old gray cells.

Answer 3

If the printer isn't found automatically you must manually enter the printer's IP.

Here's how:

• Connect the printer to your existing WLAN access point

You'll need to use the printer's menu interface to connect to your wireless access point by following the prompts to enter your username and password.

Once your printer has connected to the WLAN, just to verify your computer can see the printer is on the network you can ping the printer using the following command:

ping 192.168.X.XXX

Whereas 'X' will be substituted by the printer's IP address. You can find the printer's IP address by scrolling to the "Wireless" submenu and hitting enter. The IP address should be at the top of the screen.

When you ping the printer you should see a reply, or else you know your machine can't view the printer on the WLAN.

In that case you should check your printer is connected, your firewall settings on your machine, and lastly the router's firewall settings if the problem persists.

• Connect your computer to the printer:

Use the hp-setup GUI to scan for the device on the network.

hp-setup

1. Select connection type "Ethernet/Network/Wireless"

2. Use the "advanced" option and enter the IP address of your printer under the "manual" section. Submit.

Your computer should now be connected to your printer.