Cannot access wireless printer

[Eric the Grey]

We have a printer located in our living room, connected to a Deco mesh wi-fi access point.  The printer has a valid IP address and the Deco can see the printer as active.

The problem is, We cannot ping the printer, OR print to it (the real problem).   Laptops in the living room, connected to the same AP, cannot see the printer.  The problem started when we added the Deco AP.

 

I've compared the IP and MAC displayed by the AP and printer, and they match, but the Deco shows no data up or down to the printer. 

 

Does anyone have any idea why this might be a problem and what the solution might be?  I've done the obvious, rebooting the printer and laptops, but nothing has changed.  

 

 

 Eric the Grey

[Guest]

A couple of possible solutions can be found here:

https://community.tp-link.com/en/home/forum/topic/208550

[Eric the Grey]

On 10/28/2022 at 11:01 PM, Thomas4 said:

A couple of possible solutions can be found here:

https://community.tp-link.com/en/home/forum/topic/208550

 

Thanks for the reply. 

 

I saw that thread when I first searched, but what they were experiencing was different (showed up, then dropped from the network) than mine.

 

It DID however, provide me with some things to check, which eventually led me to a partial solution.  The Laptops in the living room were NOT connecting to the Deco, but to the office AP instead.   Fixing this, has resolved the printing problem from those laptops at any rate.

 

I STILL cannot ping the printer from my office desktop.  They are all the same network, so in theory, it should work.

 

 

Eric the Grey

[Falcon1986]

On 10/28/2022 at 10:31 PM, Eric the Grey said:

The problem started when we added the Deco AP.

 

On 10/28/2022 at 10:31 PM, Eric the Grey said:

I've compared the IP and MAC displayed by the AP and printer, and they match, but the Deco shows no data up or down to the printer. 

 

2 minutes ago, Eric the Grey said:

The Laptops in the living room were NOT connecting to the Deco, but to the office AP instead. 

Are you sure the Deco isn’t on a different network altogether? Was the Deco unit put into bridge/AP mode at setup or is it running in it’s default mesh/router mode?

 

Are the office AP and Deco on the same IP subnet?

[Eric the Grey]

So, I've got a thread over on the TP-Link forum as well.  Working both threads at the same time.  I think I may have hit upon the problem of cross-communication between them

 

I wonder about the two different devices (our main wireless router, and the Deco) providing differing IP addresses.   My desktop, for example, has a 169.168.0.x IP, while devices connected tot he Deco all have 192.168.68.xx IP addresses.   

 

Could that be the problem?  If so, I'll have to wait for an answer from the Deco folks on how to change the device's IP offering.   I don't see any way to change it.   More than likely, I've just missed it, given that there appears no way to access the device from my desktop, only my phone.

 

 

Eric the Grey

[Falcon1986]

11 minutes ago, Eric the Grey said:

My desktop, for example, has a 169.168.0.x

Are you sure it starts with 169.x.y.z? Sounds like an APIPA address.

 

12 minutes ago, Eric the Grey said:

while devices connected tot he Deco all have 192.168.68.xx IP addresses.

Thought so. You have two different networks which can't "see" each other depending on which part of the network the source and destination are attached.

 

I suspect the Deco units are running in their default mesh mode. Try running them in bridge or AP mode. They will be able to share the same LAN as the primary router, which should facilitate all clients being able to access the printer.

[Eric the Grey]

14 hours ago, Falcon1986 said:

Are you sure it starts with 169.x.y.z? Sounds like an APIPA address.

 

*smacks head*  NO, it's not 169.  It's 192.168.x.x.   I knew what I should have been typing, just didn't type it correctly.

 

14 hours ago, Falcon1986 said:

Thought so. You have two different networks which can't "see" each other depending on which part of the network the source and destination are attached.

 

The folks in the Deco forum suggest setting it to AP mode as well.  I do know it's set up currently for mesh.  I believed that was the best option.   Maybe it is if I was using all Deco's, but I'm not.  

 

Looking at the instructions for setting it up as an AP now.

 

 Eric the Grey

[Eric the Grey]

Ok, (perhaps) one final reply.  It's fixed.

 

Switching the Deco over to AP mode solved the problem.  There was one hitch, where the reboot process.  When you switch modes, it needs to reboot.  Mine did not come back (they always leave me  ).   I had to pull the plug and power-cycle the thing before it started working again.  No idea why, but as I said, it is working now.

 

The solution was here in case anyone else is having the same problem.  

 

Thanks to everyone for the assistance.

 

 

 Eric the Grey