network printer kills internet connection

English Hardware
#1

The hardware,

Printer
HP Photosmart C309g-m Search HP Australia - Results - ‘c309g-m’

ADSL wireless router
D-Link DSL-G604T/AU V.B3,D-Link Support Resources latest firmware installed.

The problem,

After setting up to print using wireless access, printing works fine, there is however no longer any internet access available, wired or wireless ( from PCLOS, Mandriva, openSUSE, win7, or whatever!) To restore internet access requires rebooting the router and turning off the printer (or disabling its networking) similar issues with wired network printing.

The result,

I’m now pulling out my hair faster than it is falling out !!!
Any ideas much appreciated.

#2

So I have no idea why a printer would knock your network offline unless it is using the wrong IP address. I might go into the printer, set it for a WIRED IP of 192.168.0.50/24 and a router IP of 192.168.0.1, if we can assume you left the IP addresses the factory default. Then, there should be no way the printer can step on the router DHCP setup. You did not talk about the setup of hplip in openSUSE to use this printer. To run setup in KDE, type the run command:

kdesu hp-setup

I always go into manual mode and enter the printer IP address, then is another reason to use a fixed IP for this printer, to make the setup in openSUSE much easier to handle.

Thank You,

#3

Maybe a bug in printer or router software that for example causes the router to utilize 100% of it’s CPU or memory. Just a wild guess though.

Best regards,
Greg

#4

Hi, a few more thoughts on this one,
(1): a config issue, the printer has virtually no options to work with here, and so, the OS? it makes no difference which OS, the problem is still there, that leaves the router, I acknowledge that my networking knowledge is poor, the problem could easily be in the router config!

(2):A hardware issue, The printer is new, but it may have come out of the factory with a fault. On configuring it, it prints an output of that config, it looks OK, I can type that output here if needed.
The router is a few years old, Perhaps it’s failing ?

Help finding the cause of this problem would be great, any thoughts or ideas?

#5

I would go for the router problem but as the printer is new You might want to eliminate that it’s not the printers hardware fault as the warranty will replace it for You for free :slight_smile:
You can check the router logs and maybe find some hints there.

Best regards,
Greg

#6

So I have no idea why a printer would knock your network offline unless it is using the wrong IP address. I might go into the printer, set it for a WIRED IP of 192.168.0.50/24 and a router IP of 192.168.0.1, if we can assume you left the IP addresses the factory default. Then, there should be no way the printer can step on the router DHCP setup. You did not talk about the setup of hplip in openSUSE to use this printer. To run setup in KDE, type the run command:

The problem there is, setup is almost totally automatic, there really are very few to no options! ( i am talking about the options available at the printer here)

I will look further into what can be done with the driver from within linux.

#7

I would go for the router problem but as the printer is new You might want to eliminate that it’s not the printers hardware fault as the warranty will replace it for You for free

The printer was a gift and had been bought some time before being presented to me, I think they have quite a short guarantee, and if it is not a printer hardware problem, I would prefer to not ask for a receipt.

#8

While the printer is on the LAN and active, do:

arp -a

to see what MAC address it claims.

#9

While the printer is on the LAN and active, do:

Code:

arp -a

to see what MAC address it claims.

[david@localhost ~]$ arp -a
? (10.1.1.1) at 00:11:95:9d:ab:d7 [ether] on wlan0
[david@localhost ~]$
#10

While the printer is on the LAN and active, do:

Code:

arp -a

to see what MAC address it claims.

[david@localhost ~]$ arp -a
? (10.1.1.1) at 00:11:95:9d:ab:d7 [ether] on wlan0
[david@localhost ~]$

naturally, I then needed to turn off the printer and reboot the router to post this.
The sheet printed out during the printer setup states,
Hardware Address (MAC) 78:e7:d1:6c:bf:34
I have no idea weather or not this is helpful. If useful I will type out all info on that sheet if you like, I’m a lousy typist, it could take a while!

#11

Have You tried checking your router logs for something suspicious ?

Best regards,
Greg

#12

No, that’s your router. That MAC address belongs to D-Link. Your printer needs to be active. Ask it for its status or something before doing the arp.

#13

I’ve seen this. IIRC the situation was like this:

Output of ‘route -n’:


Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface
10.11.12.0      0.0.0.0         255.255.255.0   U     2      0        0 wlan0
127.0.0.0       0.0.0.0         255.0.0.0       U     0      0        0 lo
0.0.0.0         10.11.12.1      0.0.0.0         UG    0      0        0 wlan0

then, for some reason the printer got 10.11.12.0 as it’s IP. As soon as it was switched on, internet connection dead.
If you connect it wired, can you reach it’s IP with a browser? A lot of printers have a web interface.

#14

No, that’s your router. That MAC address belongs to D-Link. Your printer needs to be active. Ask it for its status or something before doing the arp.

Actually, that was from pclos, woops!
From openSUSE 11.2, kernel 2.6.31.14-0.4-desktop

david@linux-3vl1:~> arp -a
Absolute path to 'arp' is '/sbin/arp', so running it may require superuser privileges (eg. root).
david@linux-3vl1:~> su -
Password:
linux-3vl1:~ # arp -a
? (10.1.1.1) at 00:11:95:9d:ab:d7 [ether] on wlan0
linux-3vl1:~ # exit

So, the same, This is with the printer active as proved by printing and scanning using the hplip driver.

To configure with yast I manually enter the host name or IP address,
To configure hplip the equivalent is offered is network name or IP address, network name does not help, the IP address is assigned by DHCP.

Last night for the first (and so far only) time when rebooting the lot I had both a printer and internet access for about two hours, I could boot to different distro or reboot the printer without affecting this, It only reverted to its previous behaviour when I rebooted the router. I have no explanation for this. And have not been able to get it working a second time.

linux-3vl1:~ # route -n
Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface
10.0.0.0        0.0.0.0         255.0.0.0       U     2      0        0 wlan0
127.0.0.0       0.0.0.0         255.0.0.0       U     0      0        0 lo
0.0.0.0         10.1.1.1        0.0.0.0         UG    0      0        0 wlan0
linux-3vl1:~ #

some info from reaching the printers IP with wireless

Link

Network Interface: 	Enabled
Host Name: 	HP6CBF33
Hardware (MAC) Address: 	78-e7-d1-6c-bf-34
Network Name(SSID): 	DLINK
Network Type: 	Infrastructure
Authentication: 	Automatic (Open then Shared)
Encryption: 	WEP
WEP Key Index: 	1
Connection Active: 	Yes
Access Point / BSSID: 	00-11-95-9d-ab-d8
Channel: 	8
Signal Strength (1=low, 5=high): 	5
WEP Decryption: 	Successful (keys match)
Downlink Count: 	128
Total Packets Received: 	3834
Unicast Packets Received: 	2178
Broadcast Packets Received: 	1656
Total Packets Transmitted: 	1445
Unicast Packets Transmitted: 	1323
Broadcast Packets Transmitted: 	122

IPv4

Configured By: 	DHCP
IP Address: 	10.1.1.4
Subnet Mask: 	255.0.0.0
Default Gateway: 	10.1.1.1
Domain Name: 	

DNSv4

Configured By: 	DHCP
Preferred DNS Server: 	10.1.1.1
Alternate DNS Server:

Have You tried checking your router logs for something suspicious ?

I will check the router log soon, weather or not I can make sense of it is another thing!

Edit: everything in code tags is with printer active and no internet access available

#15

The problem there is, setup is almost totally automatic, there really are very few to no options!

It seems I should have looked somewhat closer, there is no shortage of options there.

I have set the wired IP address manually instead of DHCP, and am using that, everything has booted to proper operation a couple of tines since, but not every time.
I will look at it further tomorrow after work.

#16

I have set the wired IP address manually instead of DHCP, and am using that, everything has booted to proper operation a couple of tines since, but not every time.

At this stage the following combination is working for wired.

1.) A static IP address set.

2.) The printer is booted before the the router.

3.) If the printer is booted after the router, a reboot of the router is essential, as is restarting the wireless connection at the PC.

4.) If any of these conditions is not met, the result is “network printer kills internet connection”

I have tested with openSUSE 11,2 and PCLinuxOS 2010.1 only at this stage,

This is my first encounter with network enabled printers, how much of what I have discussed here is standard, or to be expected? What is not?

#17

It certainly is weird and I’ve never seen anything like it. All I can say in my best pointy-eared accent is: fascinating.

#18

@ ken_yap, can you think of any commands that may shed some light on this, thanks.

#19

The reason why I asked for the arp output is that the MAC address of the printer should show up there. My theory was that maybe it was grabbing the broadcast address of all zeros, as faulty NICs are sometimes wont to do and preventing normal DHCP operation. But since it didn’t show up in the arp output, I have no idea what to do next.

Hmm, maybe you could wave a brochure of a newer printer model and a hammer in front of the printer? lol!

#20

Hmm, maybe you could wave a brochure of a newer printer model and a hammer in front of the printer?

Its shaping up, as “I can live with what I have now, (not totally sure yet)”. I still think this is hardware related, ie, printer, router, or how they “talk to each other”.