Win10 computer suddenly unable to access printer on home wifi

A computer that, for as long as we've had it - 2-3 years I think - has printed fine on our shared home printer, now cannot.

The computer in question is a Windows 10 computer.

The printer is Canon iP4800, that is USB connected to a Windows 7 computer, but accessed through our home wifi for printing, by every computer in the house.

Printing always worked from the computer in question, but just without warning stopped. Yesterday was the first time I noticed it, but stuff has been printed from it in the past 30 days.

If I turn the printer off and try to print to it from that computer, I get an error message. So the computer "knows" if the printer is available or not.

I have deleted the printer and re-added it. This process "finds" the computer successfully - whether by browsing to it, or by typing in the exact name of the computer, and then the online statuses proceed as expected for adding the printer.

From the Win10 computer, when I view the network, I can "see" the Win7 computer to which the printer is connected. And I can then open the folders on that computer that are shared.

So the network works fine, the printer works fine, the Win10 computer can "find" the printer, and "see" the other computer to which it's connected.

But I can't print from that Win10 computer now, even though I previously could.

What's going wrong?

bro67 said:

Most likely a SMBv1 issue withthe Windows 7 machine or Firewall. See if you can ping the Windows 7 machine. Sharing a printer that is connected via USB, is always going to be a headache.

I was not able to ping the Win7 machine.

However headache-ridden this setup might be, I've had it for close to a decade, and remote machines - XP and Win7 and Win10 and Mac - have all easily printed from it. As did this, until it stopped working.

Two other questions:

1. How does one this SMBv1 issue you suggest? Sorry, not familiar with that term.
2. In looking at the event viewer, I am seeing near-daily critical errors from the machine being powered off by the button, versus the normal Windows shutdown (and will address with the family member who has the machine). Could this have been the cause of it suddenly not working? And any suggestions to look at and fix whatever may be wrong, if this is a possible cause?

Start the Windows 10 computer, press the Windows and "R" keys simultaneously, type "services.msc" into the "Run" box and click "OK". When the services applet starts, scroll down to "Function Discovery Provider Host", double-click it and set its startup type to "Automatic(Delayed Start). Then click "OK" and restart the computer.

Ben

Ben Myers said:

Start the Windows 10 computer, press the Windows and "R" keys simultaneously, type "services.msc" into the "Run" box and click "OK". When the services applet starts, scroll down to "Function Discovery Provider Host", double-click it and set its startup type to "Automatic(Delayed Start). Then click "OK" and restart the computer.

Ben

I tried this (service was set to Manual when I began), and, after restart, same problem.

Also, per response 3 above, enabled the SMBv1 service (which was disabled) on the Win10 computer and restarted. Same problem.

When I run the printer troubleshooter, every aspect of the troubleshooter comes up with "issue not present," except for what we see below, where it says "network problems might be preventing the printer from printing"

Well, I don't like solutions I don't understand, but I got it to work again. I manually typed the name of the printer, versus browsing for it. And for some reason this printer identifies itself as both an iP4800 and an iP4800 XPS. So the manually-typed XPS flavor was what did it.

Why typing versus browsing solved it, and why XPS was needed, and why it was working and then stopped working, are to be figured out on another day.

But now it prints, so in that narrow definition of "solved," I'm marking the thread as such.

bro67 said:

Set the IP for the printer to a Static IP. Using a Dynamic IP or using the name of the printer is always going to cause headaches.

For some reason, the printer lasted less than 24 hours printing correctly, and now I again can't fix it, even by doing what "worked" before (Comment #6 upthread).

Regarding the static IP suggestion:

1. The printer is connected via USB to a Windows 7 computer on the home network. It's not on the network by IP address. Here is a screenshot of the printer port properties.
2. Although there ARE "headaches" as is said above, the vast majority of the other computers on the home wifi network, NEVER have had a problem printing to it. And this applies to computers that have run XP, Win7, Win10, and MacOS. For the most part until now, it's included the particular Win10 computer in question.
3. If I still might be able to give it a static IP address, will this affect the other computers that have been able to print to it fine using printer name?

bro67 said:

Using another computer as the Print share, you will need to make that computer set with a Static IP on your network. Otherwise get a network printserver that allows you to use it in place of a computer to share the device.

So would I specify the printer as [static ip address]\[printer name]? For example, 198.xxx.yyy.zzz\canon ip4800 series XPS?

If not, how would I specify it when connecting to it?

And once I go this route, would the other computers that can now print okay to this shared printer be affected?