Xubuntu v.8.04.1 does not detect HP wireless printer

I booted up the computer today and tried again to print a test page. The printer icon did appear but the page does not print. Instead I get the error " Not Connected? Printer 'PhotoSmart_C6100' may not be connected."

The printer is connected by wireless to the network router, a WRT54G, and the 700Z laptop is connected to the router by wireless and does get the internet access. I am using it to make this report.

The 700Z just doesn't detect the printer.

The printer's IP address may have changed (I have a networked HP printer as well). From a command prompt, run "hp-toolbox". This should bring up a list of HP printers (probably just the one), and after a few seconds it will give it a little red (X) icon to show that it can't connect. Remove this (select it, click the minus, agree to the "annoying confirmation"), then click the plus to setup a new printer, and follow through the instructions on screen.

Unfortunately, it seems that you currently need to do this every time the printer's IP address changes. I don't print very often, so I put up with it, but if it's annoying you, you'll need to configure your router to always give the printer the same IP address.

Hope this helps!

I tried that and got this result:

david@700Z:~$ hp-toolbox

HP Linux Imaging and Printing System (ver. 2.8.2)
HP Device Manager ver. 11.0

Copyright (c) 2001-7 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, LP
This software comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
This is free software, and you are welcome to distribute it
under certain conditions. See COPYING file for more details.

error: PyQt not installed. GUI not available. Exiting.
warning: Qt/PyQt initialization failed.
error: hp-toolbox requires GUI support. Exiting.
david@700Z:~$
david@700Z:~$

I guess I need to install PyQt.

As a note, I went to the printer keypad and printed the "HP Network Configuration Page." The IP address remains 192.168.1.104 which is what I set it as in the Xubuntu Printer configuration page.

Hmmm...ok, well, it looks like it's not the same as my problem, then. Since it's a HP printer, I'd install PyQT (I think it uses QT3, so "sudo aptitude install python-qt3"), and try to get hp-toolbox up.

I opened the Synaptic Package Manager and installed Python-QT3 and it's related dependencies and rebooted. Twice. Now the system boots up telling me it won't give me privileges to make changes. Then I open a terminal window and enter "hp-toolbox" at the prompt and get:

david@700Z:~$ hp-toolbox

HP Linux Imaging and Printing System (ver. 2.8.2)
HP Device Manager ver. 11.0

Copyright (c) 2001-7 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, LP
This software comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
This is free software, and you are welcome to distribute it
under certain conditions. See COPYING file for more details.

error: PyQt not installed. GUI not available. Exiting.
warning: Qt/PyQt initialization failed.
error: hp-toolbox requires GUI support. Exiting.
david@700Z:~$

So there has been no change except that I can't use the Synaptic Package Manager anymore. This is getting beyond frustrating.

Hrrmph, that's odd. I've checked my installation, and it's definitely using python-qt3. Did it install properly?

There shouldn't have been any need to reboot. Where/how does it tell you you don't have privileges to make changes? What happens if you do "sudo synaptic" at a terminal?

When the desktop appears I get a small window with a message "Starting without administrative priveleges" and in a smaller font telling me I can't make changes but I can export something or other. I didn't copy the whole thing.

Doing sudo synaptic I get
sudo:unable to resolve host 700Z
[sudo] password for david:

The Synaptic Package Manager opened after I put in the password. The window must have referred to administrative privileges in the GUI.

The PyQT may must not have been properly installed. I searched for Python-qt3 and the list showed not installed, so I installed it again.

In the terminal I called up hp-toolkit again and got a window for that. I selected the button for Cups-add a printer, filled in the name (HP Photosmart Series C6100), location (700Z) and description, and pressed <Continue>.

I tried a number of URI and then adding the printer but each time I try to print a test page it gives the error "Unable to Connect". The printer is on and other computers on the network can print to it. I can't even press the <Delete> button in the CUPS window without that "Failed to connect" appearing.

Printer Configuration window says not connected.

The Refreshing Device list-HP Device Manager window says "Error: no device found or unsupported device"

For some reason the system is simply not detecting my printer.

OK. I went to this website:
http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web/index.html

Tried to install the new hplip. That didn't work for some reason. But I browsed their Knowledge Base in trouble-shooting and found "Troubleshoot network issues".

There I found the command <hp-makeuri> and tried it in the terminal window with the IP address for my printer. Great tool! I took the URI it created and pasted it in the URI bar for the Printer Configuration window. Presto! The printer works. There was a little "+" sign after "hp:" in the URI which was making the line invalid.

Thank you to all who helped on this. I still don't know why it didn't work on it's own from the beginning, but it's fixed.

At least for now. I have another problem on the forum which reappeared later after the fix was made.

Ah, well done. It's always the little things.

Did you resolve the problem with the administrative privileges?

Thank you. No, it still boots up without administrative privileges. I think it's part of #45462 "Start up error" which I submitted.

That should go as a bug report. That began with the first system boot up after installation, stopped for a few boot cycles when I changed the hosts file, then reappeared.

I don't know how to search by number, but it sounds similar to this bug, which is supposed to have been fixed, but I'm not sure that it has. Try adding a line to your /etc/hosts file as described there.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/sudo/+bug/32906

Thomas, look for "Start up error - can't find host name on internet" or "700Z".

As I read things, the bug has not been solved, merely altered. I don't get administrator powers in GUI but my sudo works, yet I can't do su root. There are also supposed to be some other things that don't work.

The problem that this blog is about is really not solved either, it's just that I got things working for me. The trouble is that Hardy did not detect my printer until I went through a lot of work to get things going. Hardy should detect anything that is connected to the computer, or the network once Hardy is tied in. Then there should be dialogue to install missing drivers and packages. It doesn't happen. That is a bug that should be addressed.

Anyone wanting to install a HP printer should install HPLIP and maybe CUPS first. That should be added to the documentation, or maybe it should be part of the standard installation.

Thanks again, Thomas. - Dave

Thomas, look for "Start up error - can't find host name on internet" or "700Z".

As I read things, the bug has not been solved, merely altered. I don't get administrator powers in GUI but my sudo works, yet I can't do su root. There are also supposed to be some other things that don't work.

The problem that this blog is about is really not solved either, it's just that I got things working for me. The trouble is that Hardy did not detect my printer until I went through a lot of work to get things going. Hardy should detect anything that is connected to the computer, or the network once Hardy is tied in. Then there should be dialogue to install missing drivers and packages. It doesn't happen. That is a bug that should be addressed.

Anyone wanting to install an HP printer should install HPLIP and maybe CUPS first. That should be added to the documentation, or maybe it should be part of the standard installation.

Thanks again, Thomas. - Dave