Printer is Offline


I am going to assume you have done the usual troubleshooting. Here is a small collection of initial steps I take to troubleshoot printers.

Check network connectivity
Reboot printer (not the soft boot on enterprise printers, but a real power down)
Restart print spooler on either server or client or both
Printer Offline
Windows 7 Printer Offline

If you know your have performed adequate troubleshooting steps, and your printer is offline, it could be a simple SNMP issue as explain here at Robin’s Blog, thank Google for the easy find.

In the process of locking down some of my errant SNMP strings on a new printer install, the printer would not come online. I had changed the default SNMP string to a unique identifier. Once this changed went into affect the printer showed offline for all my computers and servers. In order to fix this, I had a three options.

Modify the SNMP setting in the properties of the offline printer
Go to the properties of your printer on your server or client
Printer is Offline
Windows Properties

Select the ports tab in properties
Select configure port, you should see this popup appear
You have two choices:

You can turn off the SNMP status
Modify the public string to represent the new string you have used on your printer.
Change the Printer SNMP string back to Public
This one is self explanatory, and one I have opted to not do. You can always add back the read-only string “Public”. This may be a quick way to fix the problem until you have a more viable solution.

Refer to your manufacturers manual or support for changing the SNMP.

My Printer is Offline
So you have tried to fix this by modifying the properties in your printer. You have also gone through the basic troubleshooting of making sure it is connected and working on the network. There are lots of potential problems, I personally would head over to the manufacturers site, check your drivers and firmware. You could also hit up Microsoft. They have some good tools to help trouble shoot printer problems.

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