topic Re: Printer unable to get an IP address from EE Smart Router in Broadband & Landline

Printer unable to get an IP address from EE Smart Router

JamieDow — Fri, 29 Dec 2023 20:31:27 GMT

Hi,

I'm trying to configure a Samsung printer (Xpress M2825ND) - wired (NOT wireless) - so that it will be given an IP address by the DCHP on the EE Smart Router. No matter what options I try, it doesn't seem to work. I've tried.

Setting the printer to Automatic assignment of IP via DCHP (both with and without "Auto IP" ticked).
Setting the printer to Manual assignment of IP - specifying an IP within the range assigned by the router, and I've tried with an IP outsider that range. I've always set the default gateway to 192.168.1.254, the address of the router.
I've attempted to set the router to fix the IP of the printer as some particular IP address matching the IP I've set at the printer end, but to no avail. The router doesn't seem to want to assign the printer anything other than weird things like 169.254.160.170 -- addresses that seem to come (somehow!) from the printer itself: the printer seems incapable of accepting an IP address it is assigned by the router.

Can anyone please help?

I've had some excellent tech brains on this (albeit those not specifically familiar with EE's router), and we've drawn a blank.

Cheers,

Jamie

Re: Printer unable to get an IP address from EE Smart Router

Mustrum — Fri, 29 Dec 2023 20:42:40 GMT

@JamieDow which router do you have?

Is it working OK and connecting to the internet?

You are not trying to use thw WAN port are you? Have you tried another LAN port?

Are any of your devices able to see the printer?

Re: Printer unable to get an IP address from EE Smart Router

JamieDow — Fri, 29 Dec 2023 20:57:58 GMT

@Mustrum thanks for engaging!

Router doesn't give me any more useful information than "Smart Router". It's white ... I'll look on the back of it in case there's anything more useful.

I'm using a LAN port on the router.

That LAN port and cabling work for other devices (e.g. laptop).

Internet connection is fine. Router is in every other respect working beautifully.

No other devices can see the printer.

Thanks, Jamie

Re: Printer unable to get an IP address from EE Smart Router

Mustrum — Fri, 29 Dec 2023 22:31:48 GMT

@JamieDow OK, sounds like you have covered lots of possibilities..

On the settings on the first post, was that on the router or the printer?

Has the printer ever worked?

Going back to basics, have you tried a factory reset of the printer and router?

Re: Printer unable to get an IP address from EE Smart Router

JamieDow — Fri, 29 Dec 2023 23:10:59 GMT

HI, @Mustrum ,

On my original post, under #1 and #2, where I said "Setting the printer to ...", I was talking about settings on the printer; and under #3 where I said, "...set the router to ...", I'm talking about using the Smart Router's web interface to adjust settings for the smart router.

The printer works. We can print from USB to it. It also shows up perfectly when I connect it directly (via an ethternet cable) to a laptop and adjust the laptop's IP / subnet settings to match the printer's. When I do that, in fact I get a whole load of notifications on my laptop that there is a new network printer available: this suggests that the printer is able to "talk" to the network perfectly, once it has an IP that is recognised by another device on that network. What I can't work out is how to set it so that it will do this with the Smart Router. The printer seems incapable of being allocated an IP by the router's DCHP. And the router is seemingly incapable of recognising a static IP set by the printer (and it seems to be impossible to set a static IP at the router).

Very frustrating.

There is no sign at all that either the router or the printer is malfunctioning (i.e. broken). The challenge is to configure them in some way so that they communicate in such a way as to settle an IP for the printer. I just can't see any settings that will help us here.

The only thing I wondered about is somehow setting the printer's "domain". But what to? And why would that help?

Cheers, Jamie

Re: Printer unable to get an IP address from EE Smart Router

Mustrum — Sat, 30 Dec 2023 10:49:35 GMT

@JamieDow It sounds like your printer is too smart for its own good.

I suggest turning off DHCP and any other functions, and just let the router do IP allocation.

Re: Printer unable to get an IP address from EE Smart Router

JamieDow — Sat, 30 Dec 2023 11:01:50 GMT

Yes. But that's what I've tried to do.
Printer offers me manual ip, or automatic.
Under automatic, I can choose BOOTP or DCHP.
With DCHP, I can select/unselect "Auto IP" but it doesn't work either way, as far as I can establish. I don't even know which of those options let's the router establish the IP (I've tended to assume that "Auto IP" means roughly: let the router determine the IP).

sent from my mobile device

Re: Printer unable to get an IP address from EE Smart Router

JamieDow — Tue, 02 Jan 2024 17:24:17 GMT

Been away for a few days. I'm still stuck.

I'm trying all these options again. I just don't know what else to change - particularly on the printer interface to make it accept the IP that it is allocated by the router.

But equally, suppose I set an IP using the printer interface of something like 192.168.1.20 or 192.168.1.90 (either outside or within the router's set range of IPs to dish out) ... I don't understand why the router couldn't just accept that IP and use it.

Any ideas?

Thanks, Jamie

Re: Printer unable to get an IP address from EE Smart Router

JamieDow — Tue, 02 Jan 2024 19:25:09 GMT

I am able to access the printer (and print from it) if I plug an ethernet cable between it and my laptop, and set my laptop manually to an IP address in the same subnet, etc.. If I do this, then I can access the printers SyncThru control panel, but it is also noteworthy that ALL of the functionality that I want from the printer works for that laptop. In effect we have a tiny LAN between the printer and the laptop. The laptop respects the IP address from the printer, and the printer recognises the laptop as belonging to the same subnet.

Why will the router not play nicely with the printer when the two are connected?

The router doesn't seem to be capable of recognising the printer and allocating it an IP, despite being connected (and despite the printer's being sometimes semi-recognised by the router - it appears on a list of "My Devices", but with a weird IP address on a different subnet .... and none of the printing functionality works). And it doesn't even seem capable of recognising a fixed IP address specified manually at the printer end.

V frustrating.

Re: Printer unable to get an IP address from EE Smart Router

JamieDow — Tue, 02 Jan 2024 20:08:33 GMT

Here's a new piece of information from an HP printer forum, in response to a query with some similarities to mine (though not exactly the same). It seems an important insight!
"If the IP Address [that the printer reports e.g. when you print off its "network configuration"] starts with 169.254, the printer is not obtaining a proper IP Address from your router. Contact your internet provider or whoever provided you with your router to determine why the router is not assigning proper IP Addresses."

This is EXACTLY what I get when I set the printer to accept an auto IP from the router. It just doesn't seem to find the router, and thus doesn't get allocated an IP properly. Its addresses starting 169.254 seem to be some kind of default subnet that it uses when it hasn't received an IP from the router.

When I set the printer to "Automatic" for DCHP, this is what happens. It doesn't allow me to specify a default gateway (I can do that when specifying an IP manually at the printer control interface -- but that then doesn't seem to be recognised by the router when I connect it back to the router).

I'm wondering whether I need to do a "factory reset" of the network settings, yet again, and (since this takes effect from reboot) while the printer is switched off, move it downstairs so that it is literally right next to the router and connect it by cable directly into the back of the router, so that the first thing it "sees" when it does its factory reset is the router.

Ridiculous procedure to be thinking of, but I've tried everything more sensible that anyone has suggested.

Re: Printer unable to get an IP address from EE Smart Router

XRaySpeX — Tue, 02 Jan 2024 21:16:49 GMT

169.254... IPs are known as Link Local addys & are reserved for that purpose when a device can't obtain an IP normally:

NetRange: 169.254.0.0 - 169.254.255.255
CIDR: 169.254.0.0/16
NetName: LINKLOCAL-RFC3927-IANA-RESERVED
NetHandle: NET-169-254-0-0-1
Parent: NET169 (NET-169-0-0-0-0)
NetType: IANA Special Use
OriginAS:
Organization: Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA)
RegDate: 1998-01-27
Updated: 2014-01-09
Comment: Computers use addresses starting with "169.254." when they do not have a manually configured address or when they are not told which address to use by a service on the network. They are commonly called the "link local" addresses. Routers are not allowed to forward packets sent from an IPv4 "link local" address, so they are always used by a directly connected device. These addresses were assigned by the IETF, the organization that develops Internet protocols, in the Standards Track document, RFC3927, which can be found at: http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc3927

Re: Printer unable to get an IP address from EE Smart Router

JamieDow — Tue, 02 Jan 2024 21:16:52 GMT

Even immediately after a factory reset of the printer, and having it startup from that reset plugged into the router .... the router is still not able to detect the printer and supply it with an IP address, nor is it capable of recognising a fixed IP address set using the printer interface.

The router ("smart router") seems perfectly capable of dishing out IP addresses to all other devices (laptops, mobiles, Nintendo Wii, Samsung smart TV, etc) but apparently not to this printer. I can't work out why.

Re: Printer unable to get an IP address from EE Smart Router

JamieDow — Tue, 02 Jan 2024 21:39:08 GMT

That seems to repeat what I've found out.

But both your comment and mine highlight that the relevant questions are:

Is the printer failing to present itself properly across the network to the DCHP server, and so fails to be assigned an IP?
Is the DCHP somehow (despite the printer's correctly presenting itself) failing to assign an IP to the printer (or fails to do so in a way that is intelligible to the printer?).

What I have established is that these issues have nothing to do with the way the printer is connected. It successfully talks to the laptop when directly connected to one another. It fails to talk to the router in the required way even when directly connected by an ethernet cable.

Re: Printer unable to get an IP address from EE Smart Router

XRaySpeX — Tue, 02 Jan 2024 21:43:03 GMT

Have you tried connecting by WPS & seeing if that gets a valid IP from the router's DHCP?

Re: Printer unable to get an IP address from EE Smart Router

JamieDow — Tue, 02 Jan 2024 23:52:09 GMT

I haven't. I don't know much about WPS but from what I have found out just now it looks like it only applies to wireless network printers (the Samsung M2825ND is wired only). But if there was some way of triggering the DCHP server to assign an IP, that would be exactly what we'd want.

Re: Printer unable to get an IP address from EE Smart Router

XRaySpeX — Wed, 03 Jan 2024 00:00:35 GMT

Ah, OK! What I asked only applies to wireless enabled printers.

Just to check & clarify would you post an image of the printer's IP Configuration (TCP/IPv4) settings when you want the router's DHCP to assign an IP to it?

Re: Printer unable to get an IP address from EE Smart Router

JamieDow — Wed, 03 Jan 2024 08:22:19 GMT

Here you go. Because the printer has no display panel, and only 4 buttons, this is what one has to use to configure it, which is a pest, because in order to access this control panel, the printer has to have an IP address! So, I'm forever switching the ethernet cables about in order to connect directly to the printer and use whatever IP address (typically 169.254...) it has given itself. Anyway, these are the settings that I think should be correct: Auto + DHCP + AutoIP.
(The greyed out figures are what I'd previously set it to, in order yet again to try and see if it could force the router to recognise a static IP set at the printer (client) end. No joy there, as usual.)

Is it possible that the router is not getting the broadcast messages sent by the printer as the first stage in the DHCP process? If not, why not? ....

Re: Printer unable to get an IP address from EE Smart Router

XRaySpeX — Wed, 03 Jan 2024 12:06:27 GMT

What happens if you take off Auto IP? It's already set as Automatically DHCP.

Re: Printer unable to get an IP address from EE Smart Router

JamieDow — Wed, 03 Jan 2024 12:14:02 GMT

Yeah. As you might suspect, I've tried that. The result is no different.

My sense is that the printer perhaps has a problem undertaking DHCP processes. OR that the router somehow takes exception to what the printer does in DHCP in ways that it doesn't with other devices (which seem to have no problems establishing an IP).

I've been trying to see whether I can upgrade the firmware on the printer. There is some possible indication of DHCP / IP issues in the release notes for firmware that HP sent me, but (a) I haven't been able successfully to install the firmware they sent me; and (b) it's not clear whether that firmware is actually newer / better than the currently installed firmware. The installation has failed when attempted via the web browser interface (which does have a process for upgrading firmware). There is a USB-based method, but it requires a Windoze computer, and I don't have one (all Linux here).

Re: Printer unable to get an IP address from EE Smart Router

Barneyhound — Tue, 24 Sep 2024 22:12:36 GMT

I have the exact same issue with a Star MC Print 3 & EE router.

Firmware up to date, multiple factory resets, changed leads & swapped ports. All other equipment able to get IP address apart from the printer. So frustrating 😡