# My Printer Isn't Working - Help!!!!



## George Costanza (Jun 28, 2010)

We are operating two computers on a wireless network.  In between the two computers sits a router (wireless) and a printer.  Either computer can use the printer because the printer is shared between them via the wireless network.

All of a sudden, I can no longer use the printer.  My wife's computer can - mine cannot.  When I try to print anything from any program, I get "Failure to initialize output device" or something like that.

I am running Vista Home.  I know how to get into the network settings via the Control Panel.  I have been trying everything I can think of to get the printer working, but so far no luck.  I am wondering if anyone out there might be able to give me a hint or two.

I compared the network settings on my wife's computer to those on mine.  One difference I noted was that in the settings screen, "password sharing" was not checked and it was checked on mine.  So I unchecked password sharing on my computer, thinking that was the difference.  It wasn't.

Everything has been going along just fine for the past year or so - then, all of a sudden, my printer became unconnected from the network.  I need to get that little bad boy reconnected, so I can resume operations.

Help!!!!


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## Mr. H. (Jun 28, 2010)

You may want to re-boot the router by unplugging it for a few moments. But don't quote me on it LOL.


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## George Costanza (Jun 28, 2010)

Mr. H. said:


> You may want to re-boot the router by unplugging it for a few moments. But don't quote me on it LOL.



I didn't try that - I will.  When I try to print something and I get that screen that you hit to start the printer, I can see that the settings appear to be totally correct, i.e., the default printer for my word processing program is the same as the default printer for my wife's computer and, as I mentioned, she can print just fine on her computer.

I tried rebooting my computer, several times.  That had no effect.  I will reboot the router when I get home.  Thank you.


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## Zoom-boing (Jun 28, 2010)

We've had similar a experience.  Try unplugging and replugging the printer and all the cables . . . sometimes it's just a loose connection.  When this has happened to us, if the problem wasn't a loose plug or something and everything else seemed as it should, we uninstalled then reinstalled the printer and that fixed the problem.   Good luck.


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## PatekPhilippe (Jun 28, 2010)

Here...this should help....
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5orss3fAEU]YouTube - Office Space: Printer Smash. None Better.[/ame]


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## syrenn (Jun 28, 2010)

When all else fails George, kick the printer and the router 

Other then whats been already said, reboots of everything and unplugging of everything i don't know. 

Maybe a group hug?


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## George Costanza (Jun 28, 2010)

The only thing that is not working on the network is the printer on my computer.  You can print from my wife's compluter.  Both computers have Internet access.  This inidicates to me that rebooting of the router might not be necessary.

Thoughts?


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## PatekPhilippe (Jun 28, 2010)

George Costanza said:


> The only thing that is not working on the network is the printer on my computer.  You can print from my wife's compluter.  Both computers have Internet access.  This inidicates to me that rebooting of the router might not be necessary.
> 
> Thoughts?



After you glue it back together.... reinstall the printer on the machine it won't print from...see if it even shows up in your available printers window.  Click on printers and faxes...see what shows up


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## Quantum Windbag (Jun 28, 2010)

You should uninstall and then reinstall the printer on your computer, making sure that your driver is up to date. It sounds to me like the driver got corrupted on your computer. Nothing to worry about unless it happens again.


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## Ringel05 (Jun 28, 2010)

Quantum Windbag said:


> You should uninstall and then reinstall the printer on your computer, making sure that your driver is up to date. It sounds to me like the driver got corrupted on your computer. Nothing to worry about unless it happens again.



Also check your firewall settings, especially if you just did an update.  Make sure your printer is authorized.


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## PatekPhilippe (Jun 29, 2010)

George Costanza said:


> We are operating two computers on a wireless network.  In between the two computers sits a router (wireless) and a printer.  Either computer can use the printer because the printer is shared between them via the wireless network.
> 
> All of a sudden, I can no longer use the printer.  My wife's computer can - mine cannot.  When I try to print anything from any program, I get "Failure to initialize output device" or something like that.
> 
> ...



Is there any way you could go to the WhiteHouse and give them some advice on how to "disconnect" the Treasury's Printers from the network?


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## George Costanza (Jun 29, 2010)

Ringel05 said:


> Quantum Windbag said:
> 
> 
> > You should uninstall and then reinstall the printer on your computer, making sure that your driver is up to date. It sounds to me like the driver got corrupted on your computer. Nothing to worry about unless it happens again.
> ...



I am suspicious of that one.  Are you talking about my Windows firewall or my virus program (McAfee) firewall - or both?


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## Quantum Windbag (Jun 29, 2010)

George Costanza said:


> Ringel05 said:
> 
> 
> > Quantum Windbag said:
> ...



If you are using both then definitely both. Turn off the Windows firewall and check the settings in the McAfee firewall.


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## George Costanza (Jun 29, 2010)

How do I make sure my printer is authorized in my firewall settings?  I am able to get into my firewall settings for both McAfee and Windows, but, once there, I don't know how to determine whether or not my printer is authorized.

Thoughts?

And as a side issue - what does my printer software have to do with a firewall?  I am not going onto the Internet with any portion of my printer software, so what's to protect my computer from?  I thought the purpose of a firewall was to keep unwanted and malicious programs from getting onto my computer from the Internet.


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## Quantum Windbag (Jun 29, 2010)

The easiest thing to do is turn off your firewall and see if the printer works then. If it does the problem is the firewall, it it doesn't then you need to do more work.


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## Ravi (Jun 29, 2010)

I dunno, but I think you are supposed to turn off your windows firewall if you are using Norton or another antivirus program because they conflict.

The newer printers can automatically connect to the internet on their own.


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## ConHog (Jun 29, 2010)

First of all George, if You're sitting behind a router, you have no need of any other firewalls, turn them ALL of on BOTH computers. firewalls can do weird things. 

Second, can you visually see the printer on the network from your computer?

We'll go from there


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## George Costanza (Jun 29, 2010)

I have turned off both firewalls.  Printer still won't work.  

The printer had been working fine on both computers for months.  My problem started three days ago, when I tried to print a CD label from a freeware program I had downloaded a month or so before.  This (three days ago) was the first time I had tried to print anything with this program.  When I tried to print, nothing happened.  No error message - just nothing happened.

So I went to WordPerfect, just to see, and tried to print something from there.  That is when I got the error message: "Error initializing output device."  From that point on, whenever I try to print anything from any program, I get that same error message.

So I uninstalled the CD label printing program.  Printer still won't work.

This is one thing I will never understand about computers - how everything will work just fine with a program or a piece of hardware for months and months and then, all of a sudden, _for no reason at all and when you have done NOTHING to effectuate any change in any settings_, the program or piece of hardware won't work any more.  Drives me flipping nuts.


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## George Costanza (Jun 29, 2010)

ConHog said:


> First of all George, if You're sitting behind a router, you have no need of any other firewalls, turn them ALL of on BOTH computers. firewalls can do weird things.



Are you totally sure about that? 



ConHog said:


> Second, can you visually see the printer on the network from your computer?



OK - Start Button/Control Panel/Network and Internet/View Network Status and Tasks/View Computers and Devices

This gets me to a screen where the left hand side of the screen shows the tree structure of my Network folder, which is under my Desktop folder.  The Network folder looks like this:

Network/Mike-PC/Printers

Under the Printers folder are three items: Add Printer, Epson Stylus Photo R320(M) and Quicken PDF Printer.

Both the Epson and Quicken printers are offline.

Now comes the tricky part.  Even if the Epson printer was online, I don't think it would work, because the guy who set up the network listed the printer as: 

MARILYN-PC\Epson Stylus Photo R320(M)

and had it in the network under that listing for both computers.

So that's where we stand.  Oh yes - one might think I should double click on Add Printer, hunt down the MARILYN-PC\Epson Stylus Photo R320(M) designation somewhere (God knows where that would be) and then add it.  But, when I double click on Add Printer, I get a message that says: "You do not have sufficient rights to perform this operation."  Remember - I am running Vista Home Premium.  I know about right clicking and selecting "Open as Administrator," but when I right click on Add Printer, the Open as Administrator option isn't there.

Thoughts?


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## ConHog (Jun 29, 2010)

George Costanza said:


> ConHog said:
> 
> 
> > First of all George, if You're sitting behind a router, you have no need of any other firewalls, turn them ALL of on BOTH computers. firewalls can do weird things.
> ...



Yes, I'm sure. just make sure the firewall on your router is enabled. if you don't know how to do that , open your web browser, and type in 192.168.2.1 in the address bar, that will take you to your router's wepage, usually there are a few that use a different default page if this doesn't work for you let me know and I'll give you a different address to try, find the firewall tab and make sure it's on. Seriously windows firewalls are both useless and troublesome. 

As to your second problem. Why is the printer have a different name on your iwife's pc then you own. That shouldn't be??

I'll answer the rest in PM, this could be complicated.


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## George Costanza (Jun 29, 2010)

ConHog said:


> As to your second problem. Why is the printer have a different name on your iwife's pc then you own.



It didn't.  It appeared in the network for both computers as MARILYN PC\Epson Stylus Photo, etc.  It was just a name the guy decided to give it for our local network.  I suppose you could call it "Garbage Printer xxx" and so long as it was on both computers and the path was correct, I suspect it would work.


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## Quantum Windbag (Jun 30, 2010)

Can you access the printer via the network through your wife's computer?


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## ConHog (Jun 30, 2010)

Quantum Windbag said:


> Can you access the printer via the network through your wife's computer?



were working on it, I'll have him up and running soon.


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## Ravi (Jun 30, 2010)

George Costanza said:


> This is one thing I will never understand about computers - how everything will work just fine with a program or a piece of hardware for months and months and then, all of a sudden, _for no reason at all and when you have done NOTHING to effectuate any change in any settings_, the program or piece of hardware won't work any more.  Drives me flipping nuts.


Wait til you have kids.


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## George Costanza (Jun 30, 2010)

Quantum Windbag said:


> Can you access the printer via the network through your wife's computer?



The printer is connected to my wife's computer by USB connection.  The printer is also connected to the router.  My computer is connected to the router.  When everything is working the way it should be, both computers can access the printer via the wireless network.

I have reinstalled the printer driver from the factory disk.  Then I unhooked the USB connection from the printer to my wife's computer and hooked the printer up to my computer via the USB connection.  My computer was able to access the printer and to print documents.

I then reconnected the USB connection to my wife's computer.  My wife's computer was able to access the printer and to print documents.

I then tried to print something with my computer.  It would not print anything.  I no longer got the error message I used to be getting ("failure to initialize output device" or something like that), but I am still not printing from my computer.

I think we have verified that the printer driver works all right.  I think all that is left to do is fix the network so that the printer will be shared by both computers.  At present, my computer does not seem to recognize the existence of my wife's computer, although her computer does appear on the network map.

ConHog and I spent quite some time exchaning PM's on this last night and will probably go at it again this evening.


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## George Costanza (Jul 3, 2010)

On Friday I went to Fry's and bought a new printer.  It is an Epson Artisan 710.  It has a scanner and you can also print CD's with it (a requirement of mine).  Computer Guy came to my house earlier today and got everything up and running.  Problem solved.

It turns out that the real villain in this whole piece is Vista.  I had been trying to operate an older, Epson photo stylus printer on a Vista computer and the two were really not compatible.  You could jam the driver onto the Vista system, and the printer would print, but it was like trying to shove a square peg in a round hole.

My new printer works with Vista as well as Windows 7.  It is wireless (as am I, of course  ).   And, magically, my word processor now works like a charm where, with the older printer, it did not.  I had been told that was because of a conflict between the printer software and the word processor.  Seems as though they were right on that one.

So, all in all, George is a happy camper tonight.  All's well that ends well.


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## xotoxi (Jul 3, 2010)

George Costanza said:


> We are operating two computers on a wireless network.  In between the two computers sits a router (wireless) and a printer.  Either computer can use the printer because the printer is shared between them via the wireless network.
> 
> All of a sudden, I can no longer use the printer.  My wife's computer can - mine cannot.  When I try to print anything from any program, I get "Failure to initialize output device" or something like that.
> 
> ...



Paper?


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## strollingbones (Jul 4, 2010)

i hate printers...they are the blane of mankind....isnt it odd they have such a short shelf life?


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## DiveCon (Jul 4, 2010)

George Costanza said:


> On Friday I went to Fry's and bought a new printer.  It is an Epson Artisan 710.  It has a scanner and you can also print CD's with it (a requirement of mine).  Computer Guy came to my house earlier today and got everything up and running.  Problem solved.
> 
> It turns out that the real villain in this whole piece is Vista.  I had been trying to operate an older, Epson photo stylus printer on a Vista computer and the two were really not compatible.  You could jam the driver onto the Vista system, and the printer would print, but it was like trying to shove a square peg in a round hole.
> 
> ...


the problem was most likely in the sharing of the printer
but my solution would have saved you the money
LOL
you should have just got a USB print server for that printer
it would have saved you about half what you paid for the new printer and any setup charge for the guy to come out to set it up
LOL(cant believe you had to have someone set up a wireless network printer in the first place)

you just plug em in


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## MikeK (Jul 4, 2010)

George Costanza said:


> On Friday I went to Fry's and bought a new printer.  It is an Epson Artisan 710.  It has a scanner and you can also print CD's with it (a requirement of mine).  Computer Guy came to my house earlier today and got everything up and running.  Problem solved.
> 
> [...]


As a certified computer dummy I long ago gave up trying to solve computer problems and place myself at the mercy of the _Computer Hospital_ whenever I have a problem I can't solve in three tries.  

I'm glad you solved your problem.  Getting a new toy is always a pleasure and Epson products are first class.  Good stuff.


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