Fix Printer Offline
Printer offline Status occurs when the printer is not able to communicate with printer or wifi router.in this post we will lay out the most common reasons that could get your printer offline. Within this post we will guide you on easy methods with images on how to get your printer back online.
When And Why Printer Goes Offline ?
First thing to check would be whether your printer is configured or not. In case your printer has been installed and it was printing before please ignore and check the list to find the trouble for your printer.
There could be one or multiple reasons behind your printer being offline such as –
- Printer and computer are not connected to the same wifi network. Please make sure the wifi is working and the printer and computer are both connected to the same wifi network.
- Pending Print Jobs can also cause printers to be offline so please check if there is a print job in queue.
- Multiple Printers are added with the computer and desired on is not selected as Default Printer.
- Your Printer has Gone into offline Mode Known as Use Printer Offline Feature
- Loose cable connection or faulty USB Cable(in case of USB Connection from Printer)
- Not Configured or corrupted printer driver.
- Stopped Printer spooler services.
- Antivirus or firewall blocking the connection
- Ip Conflict with in wifi network.
- Outdated Printer driver or computer operating system
All of these issues may be similar with the Mac and windows operating system. At the end of the post will you tip you on particular issues with the Mac computer so stay tuned or know more about printer offline issues with windows and mac system.
How To Get Printer Back Online
Getting the printer back online is easy when you follow the correct methods. Best course of action would be to start with a basic troubleshooting method. In most cases regardless of the platform all of these recommendations would help so please follow the steps one by one until you get the printer back online
- Check all the cable connections for loose connections and change the usb cable if it’s faulty.
- Restart the Computer as well as the printer.
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- Check to confirm the Printer and computer both are connected to the same network.
Clear Pending Print Jobs
Pending print jobs may overwhelm your printer and print jobs stuck in queue may cause the printer offline trouble to fix the trouble please follow the steps-
1. If you are using the windows computer please click on the start key at the left bottom of the screen.
2. Search Printer & scanners and click to open it.
3. New window for Printer and scanner will pop up with available printers list.
4. Please select Your Printer in available list and click on open queue
5. Right Click on the Print Job and Cancel it to End and this is how you clear all pending Print Jobs .
6. Restart the Printer and check to see if the printer is back online.
Set the Default Printer
Mac and Windows both have this feature where they automatically choose the default printer for you based on your most recent used printer. It saves effort but it also may cause trouble for users if you have used one or more printers.
Please follow the steps to select your desired printer as default printer-
1. Click on the start key at the left bottom the screen.
2. Search for printer & scanners again and open it.
3. Uncheck the option allow Windows to manage my default Printer
4. Now select the Printer you want to use as default printer and click Manage
5. At the next window please Click on set as default
Now the select printer will be your default printer.
Manually Set Printer Online
When this feature is enabled it might cause the printer to reflect offline mode so please disable it manually to enable the printer back online.please follow the steps below-
1. Go to the Settings>Printer & scanners
2. Select the Printer you would like to use and click on manage
3. Click on open printer app or right click the selected printer to check use printer online
4. Uncheck the option if available for pause the printer or use printer offline option
5. Restart the printer and see if the printer is online.
Restart Print Spooler services
Print spooler services are very essential for printers to operate with computers. Please enable it by going into the services section. Please follow the steps
1. Press the window key + R together on the keyboard or open the command prompt
2. Type services.msc and Press Enter.
3. Drag the bar to application and locate print spooler
4. Right click on the print spooler services and start the services
- Give it a moment while it starts then go back to check whether the printer is back online or not.
When all of these methods given above fail to help you then it’s time to uninstall and reinstall the printer.
Remove Redundant Printers
A computer added with many printers in the past or now may cause conflict and to avoid the trouble the best course would be to remove redundant printers from the list.
- Go to the computer settings and then select printer & scanners
- Click on the Printer not in use and click Remove
- One by one remove all the Printers from the list that you are not using.
Restart the computer and check if the printer is back online.
If the printer is not back online do remove all of it including the one you are trying to use and add it again
Add Remove Printer
Removing and adding the printer back to the printer list would also work to get the printer back to online mode.
Use the same methods as given above to remove the default printer.
- Go to Computer>settings>Printers & Scanners
- Click on the Printer in use and click remove
- Once removed please restart the computer as well as the printer
- No go back to Printers and scanners and then click on add a printer or scanner
- Make sure the printer is on and working while the computer will search printers around you.
- Select your Printer and follow the on screen manual to add the printer to the computer.
- Set the printer as the default printer and exit the screen and this should bring it online.
Check for Ip Conflict
All of these methods should help get your printer back online however in case of ip conflict you might face issues that’s why it’s best that you check the router to make sure there is no ip conflict.
Sometimes due to a gitch or technical mistakes you end up having the same ip address assigned to 2 devices and that would cause conflict. Just login to your wifi router and range extender and locate the available devices list.
To login any router and range extender ip address you would require few things such as-
- Default Router ip address (you can find it at the bottom the screen)
- Default username and password
- Computer or smartphone with full browser
Find this information and use it to login the router. Once logged in check the device list and make sure that the printer, computer and router ip address is not the same or if you need help contact support.
Check Firewall and antivirus Settings
Sometimes your antivirus or firewall may block the constant connection from a device not in use and they might terminate or block the connection because of automatic or manual protocols.
Antivirus security Programs scan every email you get and anything you download or print and recently the virus attack on printers have shown that printers too need to be covered and secured with antivirus programs to protect your data and privacy.
Connect with the Printer support to help you understand and get the settings checked for you.
Remove and Reinstall the Printer
This is probably the most used method for any computer and printer device. Just remove the printer from the added list from the computer as explained above under the add/remove program headline then restart the computer.
Also you should remove the printer drivers from the computer and do it all over again. If you have connected the printer with a wifi router manually there is no need to do anything with the printer as of now.
Follow the steps to remove the program from the windows machine-
1. Press the Windows Key + R Both at the same time to open the run command box.
2. Type appwiz.cpl into the box and press enter or you can do it the old way
Follow the steps to remove the program from the windows machine-
3. Click on the start key and type programs and click Apps and Features
4. Now on the next window under the apps and features please locate your printer program please select it and uninstall it from the system
5. Restart the computer and let it boot for a minute.
6. Go to the official website of your printer and download the latest driver suited for your printer and computer.
7. Run the application downloaded from the printer website and follow the onscreen instruction to set up the printer again.
How to Get Printer Online
on Mac
The methods provided Above for a user using the windows computer is almost the same when you are trying to get a printer online using the mac computer, just the implementation is different for mac OS.
Please Follow the steps Given below to fix the printer offline using mac computer.
Try a Basic Troubleshooting First
- Restart the computer as well as your mac computer
- Check the cable connection if you are using one usb cable method to connect printer with computer (ignore when you are using wifi to connect printer)
- Make sure the printer is not in sleep mode and to get the printer out of sleep mode press the power key for 2 seconds and this should put it out of sleep mode.
- Check the paper tray and in cartridges to make sure they are inserted properly.
Update the Mac OS
1. Click on the apple icon at the left top of screen
2. Select the option about this mac
3. Check the latest version and find if there is a new update available.
4. Please Click update now to download and install latest system update.
5. Restart the computer and give it minute to boot it.
How to Change/select default Printer For Mac
1. Click on the apple icon and On your apple menu click on system preference
2. Find Printers & Scanners and select the printer from the left side you would like to use as the default printer.
3. From the same page see the option from default Printer Please click on it and from the pop up select the printer you would like as the default printer.
How to Remove/Delete Printer From Mac
If multiple printers with same name added to the printer list they may cause conflict or if there are many printers with different name occupied the whole list it gets tricky too for your system to select which printer to choose while printing
By default the mac will automatically select the last used printer as default printer and if you have used a different printer last time then this printer will be offline so remove the other printer used
To resolve the problem please remove all the printers from the list that you don’t use frequently. Here is how to do it: –
- Click on the apple icon at left top and go to the system preferences >Printers & scanners
- Select the Printer you would like to remove and click on the remove button – icon then delete printer.
Reset Printing system
Sometimes you may face an error adding/ removing a printer to the system and a reset would really help you.
Resetting the printer system would remove all the added printers from the list and all the settings and configuration done to customize the printer.
Here is how you should do it and it should cause no problem as its quite easy to add the printer again so please follow the steps-
1. Click on the apple menu and go to system preferences
2. Find options such as Print & Fax or Printer & scanners
3. Now Right click on the blank space near the list of installed printers. then Click on “Reset printing system”
4. Click on Reset to confirm the resetting the printing system
Now from the same menu you can add the printer again and it should bring the printer back online.
We hope all of these methods and information would really help you solve printer offline problems. Contact us and let us know if you need any other help getting the printer back online.
Thanks a lot for reading
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