AirPrint Problem

[Wing rider]

This I believe isn’t so much an Apple problem as it is printer related but here goes anyway.

I have an HP Officejet 8040 printer that is fairly new which supports both regular print via wifi as well as AirPrint. Neither my iPad Air 2 nor iPhone 6+ can wake up the printer from sleep mode to cause it to print. However, I can print something with my wife’s Windows 10 laptop via wifi just fine and, if I get to it quickly, I can then print something with either I-device. In other words, once the printer has been woken from sleep mode by the Windows 10 laptop it can then be used by the iPad and iPhone till it goes back to sleep. Once the printer has entered sleep mode neither I-device will detect it.

I’ve been through the printer settings and troubleshooting guide and found nothing wrong. Distance from I-devices to the printer is less than 10 feet. For whatever reason, neither I-device will wake the printer.

I’m guessing this is a quirk with HP’s AirPrint comparability but I’m sure open to suggestions.

Thanks!

 

[twerppoet]

I have the same issue with my Brother printer. It won’t wake for AirPrint.

I haven’t been able to solve it for mine, but for yours, see if somewhere in the printer’s settings there are some sleep mode settings that can be tweaked.

In my case, I just leave the printer off until I’m ready to use it. It only works for about 5 minutes after it’s been turned on, so timing is essential.

 

[Wing rider]

Thanks for the response. With this printer I can set the delay for sleep mode but can’t disable it. Also simply turning it on manually doesn’t work either. I have to actually send it a print job from one of the Windows laptops then it will print from the iPhone or iPad. I rarely have to print anything so it’s more of an annoyance than anything but it really should work properly.

Even more interesting, I have one of those HP all-in-one computers that’s maybe five years old that I inherited from my father. A couple years ago I dumped Windows and loaded Ubuntu Linux which has been kept up to date with the latest LTS versions. It works exactly the same way as the iPhone and iPad with the printer.

Three different OS’s in the house but only Windows works properly with the printer.

 

[twerppoet]

You could try someting like O’Print. This is a program for your computer that makes all printers connected to you computer available as AirPrint for iOS. Because the actual drivers are on the computer, it might wake the printer, just like printing directly from the computer.

Upsides:

Any printer you can use with the computer will work.
You can print PDF’s to folders.
Other stuff.

Downsides:

A user must be logged into the computer.
O’Print is not free.



AirPrint Activator is free, but more difficult to set up and limited in it’s features.


I used to use Printopia, which is a Mac program with similar features. I liked it a lot, but since I rarely turn on my iMac these days, I no longer use it.

 

[Wing rider]

I did download an HP print app but it can’t detect the printer unless I wake the printer with a laptop so at this point I’m just gonna cruise as is. 99% of what gets printed is done by my wife with her laptop so I’ll leave well enough alone. Thanks for the help and hey, we gave it a good effort!

 

[twerppoet]

No problem. I don’t print much myself these days, which is why I haven’t persued a different printer. If I do need a quality color print of something, I print it to PDF, slap it on a USB drive, and take it to Staples.