Printer Issues- Multiple Printers- same IP

[Scott Shepherd]

Greetings! I'm convinced there is a conspiracy to lead me to an early death through technology related issues.....

Current problem- I have two printers. One color laser printer and one dye sublimation printer. Both worked fine until something happened a couple of months ago. I think it was a power outage that took them down. I went to print something on one, it gave me a dialogue like it was printing to the other. I went to the printer control panel, got the IP address off the printer itself and entered that as the path to the printer, so I was "IP" printing, so to speak. Both printers back online, no big deal.

Same thing's happening again.

When I got into the control panel for both printers, both show the same IP address. I don't know enough about that stuff to know how to resolve the conflict. I think they are using DHCP, but I'd have to check.

How can I assign addresses that I KNOW are VALID and I know will be static?

Thanks!

[Scott Shepherd]

I might add, both are network printers running through a router and then a switch.

[Prashun Patel]

From whatever control panel yr using for each printer, configure them to "obtain IP address dynamically (or automatically)".
There's little reason to assign a static IP to a printer on a local network.

[Scott Shepherd]

From whatever control panel yr using for each printer, configure them to "obtain IP address dynamically (or automatically)".
There's little reason to assign a static IP to a printer on a local network.

I thought DHCP did that. DHCP is turned on.

[Greg R Bradley]

No two devices on the same network can EVER have the same IP address.

I assume by "going through a router" that you mean these are on the LAN side of your router., right? All LAN ports on your router will be on the same network, at least for any small networks. A switch or hub is irrelevant.

A router is a device that routes traffic from one network to another. In a typical small network connected to the internet, the router routes traffic from your private network to the internet.

[Prashun Patel]

"How can I assign addresses that I KNOW are VALID and I know will be static?"

If you are truly using DHCP, there should be some way to release and renew the IP addresses for each device - either at the router level or through the device ctrl panel. If you cannot find that, then I would try rebooting EVERYTHING. Bring the router and modem up first, then turn on one printer, wait until the IP's assigned, and then turn on the next. If each is configured for dynamic assignment of IP addr, the conflict should resolve.

[Rich Engelhardt]

Greetings! I'm convinced there is a conspiracy to lead me to an early death through technology related issues.....
Nah....it's just a minor anomoly.
Just follow what Prasun suggested.
The only change to that advice I'd make is to power down and unplug the printers from both th LAN and the power and let them sit for a half hour or so.

[Brian Elfert]

I only have one color laser printer at home and finally gave up on network printing and went to USB. The IP address of the printer would change any time my router was rebooted or the power went out.

I would look at your router or whatever provides your DHCP and see if you can reserve addresses for your printers so they always get the same IP.

[glenn bradley]

With hundreds of printers networked we see our share of printer DHCP misbehavior. Without boring you with a bunch of techno-babble, suffice it to say that not all consumer devices (and even supposedly enterprise-class ones) perform DHCP well. Most meet enough of the standard to work in their intended environment but, cut corners or allow for a "best guess" approach as to what services will be offered on the LAN. The most common problem we see with RICOH's and Canon's is that you must turn BOOTP off in order for DHCP to work well in an inter-networked environment.

Your printers should be in the same LAN (not internetworked) and receive their DHCP lease from the same server (most likely your router). If you are receiving host addresses from different networks, you have multiple devices trying to act as a DHCP server. There are home-networking apps that assume your "master" PC will be your DHCP server and so enable that service. Many other possibilities can cloud the issue. Keep it simple; power up your PC and see that it gets an appropriate IP address. Power up one printer and see that it gets a different but, also appropriate IP address. Power up your next printer; if he gets the same IP address, try disabling DHCP on that printer, save the config, power cycle him, re-enable DHCP, save the config and power cycle him (or another method of forcing him to refresh his DHCP lease if you know of one).

[Scott Shepherd]

Problem solved for now. Turned off all the printers, rebooted the router, turned on 1 printer at a time and ended up with 2 different IP's and both work, so we're good.

Thanks!

[Prashun Patel]

Great!
As an IT manager for a small business, I can say that 99% of our user problems are solved by either rebooting, turning on the monitor, or pressing the num-lock key.

[paul cottingham]

As dilbert says "shut up and reboot."
works more often than we IT people would like to admit.
Failing that, sometimes printers just want a static address (a massive oversimplification, but you get the point.) You can manually assign one in the printer, or at your router. We would need to know how your network is configured but I am sure we can step you thought it.

[Curt Harms]

As dilbert says "shut up and reboot."
works more often than we IT people would like to admit.
Failing that, sometimes printers just want a static address (a massive oversimplification, but you get the point.) You can manually assign one in the printer, or at your router. We would need to know how your network is configured but I am sure we can step you thought it.

I haven't messed with networking printers with Windows much but I find using *nix(Apple?) that assigning static IPs to printers and using HP's JetDirect/appsocket protocol to be the most reliable. There are a number of printer communication protocols (if that's the right word) but some don't seem reliable after shutdown/suspend/reboot.

[Greg Portland]

Problem solved for now. Turned off all the printers, rebooted the router, turned on 1 printer at a time and ended up with 2 different IP's and both work, so we're good.

Thanks!
To hard code things you need to go into your router control panel (usually a web interface, go to http://192.168.1.1). You can then find the MAC addresses of the printers and assign them specific IP addresses. Use IP addresses that are higher than the range DHCP will use. For example, most networks use 192.168.1.100 -> 192.168.1.255 and you might only have 40-50 devices connected. DHCP typically starts allocating IPs at 100 (unless you override the behavior). So, for your printers, hard code them to 192.168.1.200 and 192.168.1.201. Note, this works for small networks and homes... not large offices where all the IPs could be taken.

[Jim Becker]

It's somewhat a "best practice" to use assigned IP addresses for things like printers on a network, rather than have them use DHCP. Yes, it takes a few extra minutes when setting them up, but you insure consistency over time for what is effectively a "fixed" resource. I limit the DHCP range on my router to, say, a range of 20-30 addresses and then use valid addresses for the subnet outside of the DHCP range for "fixed" device assignments. For me, that's printers, storage servers and additional wireless access points, etc.