Yet another question about a printer not printing

Support and Help
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Ubuntu Version:
25.10 (minimal version of my flavor)

Desktop Environment (if applicable):
XFCE (minimal version of Xubuntu)

Relevant System Information:
The printer that’s at the center of the problems is an HP Color Laser MFP 178nwg

The computer is a bit difficult to describe, because it’s is not a brand factory computer, but was put together from individual pieces by a small independent computer shop. It does have four Intel Core 3.30 GHz CPUs (original parts) and about 16 GB RAM (installed myself) and an overall 1 TB SSD (installed myself), with about 68 GB still available in the system partition and about 365 GB still available in the user partition.

The network through which they are connected is standard Wifi, through a Speedport router.

Problem Description:
I want my computer to first, recognise my printer which is on the local network, and then print documents on it. Sometimes it doesn’t do the former, sometimes the former but not the latter, and sometimes it works.

Sometimes, several printing jobs seem to have been lost, but it turns out that they just got “stuck” somewhere, and then the printer belatedly prints them all at once. If that keeps happening, it might needlessly increase my paper consumption.

However, often, everything works fine if the printer is “awake”, that is, not in “sleep” or stand-by mode, at the very moment when I boot the computer, and it hasn’t gone back into sleep mode since I most recently booted yet.

Screenshots or Error Messages:
There aren’t really any error messages. The printer simply doesn’t print, or prints very belatedly, or doesn’t show up as a printer as well.

What I’ve Tried:
I’ve tried installing hplip, including the GUI, but that doesn’t recognise the printer even at times when the rest of the system does.

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@raphaell I have a similar issue. I have an HP printer Officejet 7200 that works fine, but also an older Brother MFC885CW printer (bought in Australia some 14 years ago) that behaves in exactly the same manner you describe. All my computers and printers are in the loft of my grandad/granny flat, with HDMI, USB and Cat5e cables down to my living room and I use my 55inch tv as a monitor.

After putting up with this and having to go up the loft ladder to unplug the printer then plug in again to wake it up, my solution was to put a smart switch on the printer. Then I just tell Google to turn the switch on before I want to print. I then only have to go up the ladder halfway to collect the printouts, and tell Google to switch it off. It works well for me in this manner.

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Oh, since the printer is in my bed/living room, I don’t need a smart switch to turn it on from my desk. It’s just that turning it on, in itself, usually doesn’t solve the problem.

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@raphaell This always solves my issues. The Brother is on a Cat5 cable, the HP is wireless. I can scan from both machines as well. Don’t forget the way local lans work, the “ghost” presence of your printer persists and is available on the local lan network for about 20 minutes after switching the printer off. This is why my solution works well, I just switch it off after printing, it could be days before I switch on again.

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This could describe a hardware-powersave issue.
Or it could describe a flaky wireless network connection.
Or both.

Ah, good troubleshooting.
You have narrowed the problem to hardware-powersave.

Ubuntu can’t help you too much with that, since it’s the settings on the printer that govern your powersave timeout and wakeup. Ubuntu can merely ask the printer to wake up; Ubuntu has no way to force wakeup.

One imagines you have a way to check and change those printer settings on your (fascinating) Frankenprinter.

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Thank you. Problem is, once the printer has lost contact with the computer by going into sleep mode, simply waking the printer back up out of sleep mode usually isn’t enough to get it recognised by the computer again. Don’t ask me why.

I guess a main part of the problem is that in sleep mode, the printer shuts down its Wifi. It (usually) turns it back on when I wake it, but even afterwards, it still isn’t recognised before I reboot the computer.

According to official HP documentation websites which I’ve looked at but where I stupidly didn’t save the links (sorry), it’s not possible to keep the printer permanently awake. There simply isn’t any option for that anywhere in the settings. And I can’t get it to stay connected to the network while it’s in sleep mode, either. HP claims I could do that by installing a firmware update, but this particular printer doesn’t have the ability to download and install firmware updates itself, and the cellphone HP app, while it recognises it, doesn’t offer firmware updates, either.

All this wouldn’t be a problem if, every time the printer gets back onto the network after waking up out of sleep mode, my computer would quickly be able to print on it again, but as I said, that’s not the case.

Now, I could get around all this by simply connecting the printer to my computer by cable. But that would leave it impossible to use Wifi. And the problem with that, in turn, is that my flatmate uses the printer, too, and might want to print stuff on it even when I’m not at home and my computer is turned off.

Sorry about the wall of text - as you can see, it’s a long story.

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Flatmate: Do some people have the problem connecting after wakeup but others don’t? Or does everyone encounter the same problem?

Check DHCP: Test that the IP address of the printer before powersave is that same as after wakeup.

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That possibility occurred to me as well - wandering IP addresses.

Can any of these troublesome printers be assigned a permanent IP address? Can any of the printers on powersave mode or sleeping receive a wakeup command from the computers trying to print?

What do the applicable printer manuals suggest?

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@ian-weisser Oddly enough, my flatmate, who uses Ubuntu, too, almost never had any problems with the printer.

@him610 It used to be that everything on my local network might have had a flexible IP. But a few days ago, for different reasons, I told my router to assign my computer a fixed IP, and while I was at it, I told it to assign the printer a fixed IP, too. So now, both of these should have fixed IPs.

Anyway, I think I might have solved the problem for now. I went to HP’s support page for that printer model https://support.hp.com/in-en/drivers/hp-color-laser-mfp-170-printer-series/model/24494366?ssfFlag=true/ and chose Linux and Ubuntu in the drop-down menus, and ended up downloading a tarball which contained a number of shell scripts, one of which seemed to install the printer just fine while it was awake. The printer printed what I told it to print, I left it alone while it spent a few hours in sleep mode, and after I had woken it back up again, it printed what I wanted it to print, too.

Now I just have to hope that things keep working.