Pc not speaking to printer since VF BB

[andy911turbo]

I’ve just had Vodafone 900 installed. 
everything worked before this got installed. 
My mesh system is connected to the VF router and the printer is connected via wifi to the mesh system. 
the VF router has wifi switched off. 
my pc is wired to the VF router. 

now they can’t see each other ? 

do I need to forward a port or something?

[Jayach · Accepted solution]

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@andy911turbo wrote:

I’ve just had Vodafone 900 installed. 
everything worked before this got installed. 
My mesh system is connected to the VF router and the printer is connected via wifi to the mesh system. 
the VF router has wifi switched off. 
my pc is wired to the VF router. 

now they can’t see each other ? 

do I need to forward a port or something?

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It sounds like your mesh system is configured as double NAT (i.e. it's acting as a router). Could you not configure it in Access Point mode?

Does your mesh not have any ethernet ports?

[CrimsonLiar]

Since this last came up I've discovered a WiFi only HP printer with a driver that expects the local IP to never change, despite the printer relying on DNS to set the actual local IP!  This meant it stopped working when its owner swapped from BT to Plusnet and the new router assigned it a different local IP even if it was within the same subnet!

Solution in that case was to set a static IP on the printer and the same manual IP on the router (only one or the other is really needed), remove the driver and then reinstall the driver.

*Not clever and not something that I'd expected to see after all these years, but it did get it working!

[Jayach]

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@CrimsonLiar wrote:

Since this last came up I've discovered a WiFi only HP printer with a driver that expects the local IP to never change, despite the printer relying on DNS to set the actual local IP!

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Presumably, re-installing the driver would cause it to pickup the new address, otherwise how did it get it in the first place?

[CrimsonLiar]

Yup, just re-installing the driver would have been enough, but there'd already been some hair-pulling before that point!  Setting a static IP on the printer would have meant that at least changing to a new router that used the same subnet would have been easier - though it could still go wrong!

[pctechbloke]

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@Jayach wrote:

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@CrimsonLiar wrote:

Since this last came up I've discovered a WiFi only HP printer with a driver that expects the local IP to never change, despite the printer relying on DNS to set the actual local IP!

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Presumably, re-installing the driver would cause it to pickup the new address, otherwise how did it get it in the first place?

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If I had a quid for the number of times Ive seen this problem.........

The solution is to set DHCP reservation for the printer in the router or mesh master (whichever is acting as the DHCP server and is handing out the IP addresses) so that if the device or any of the network elements are powered off or reboot (such as if they pick up updated firmware) it'll get the same IP.

The option is usually found in the device details in the router or mesh user interface/app and may even just be a tickbox that says 'always assign this device the same address'

If you can advise what mesh you are using I can probably direct you to the documentation

Not sure why HP are still designing their drivers for printers that may end up in homes this way.

[CrimsonLiar]

Not my own printer in the example!  I also have a HP printer but its identified in the drivers by its FQDN, which if anything changed could be just as problematic!  And yes identifying it by its FQDN is just as pointless since for internet printing it still has to go through a server that the printer initiated the connection else the connecting device would just hit the firewall!

[pctechbloke]

Sorry, I replied to you instead of the OP.

[CrimsonLiar]

Not a prob.  On reflection though, while my printer FQDN has remained the same since it was installed, I've migrated away from using the original 192.168.1.0/24  - so it could easily have happened to me in similar circumstances.  Having to fix something like that in the driver settings is quite frankly inexcusable!

[andy911turbo]

Turning it into access point mode sorted it. Thank you