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Trouble printing to HP HL-4040CN printer on peer-to-peer network.

Have a home peer-to-peer wireless network with a desktop computer and a laptop both running Windows 7, both wireless connections to network. The desktop computer can print to our HP HL-4040CN printer with no problem, but the laptop says that it cannot communicate with the printer and will not print. I have reinstalled the print driver and in the process it was able to find the printer just fine during the installation process. I have Norton 360 and have checked the firewall settings and they are ON for file and printer sharing. I have compared all of the firewall and network settings of the laptop to the desktop computer that is printing and they are the same.

When I use the troubleshooter it tells me the following two things:

Printer Brother HL-4040CN series cannot be contacted over the network. Contact your network administrator (that is me).

Printer Brother HL-4040CN series is not shared with the homegroup.

 

I tried sharing it with the homegroup, but that didn't fix it and the desktop is printing to it just fine without it being shared with the home group. The laptop should be printing directly to it through the network rather than printing through the desktop anyway.

Thanks for any help you can give.

 

Answer
Answer

Hello loosledi,

To add to what 'Cari [MS-MVP]' says. The error ‘printer cannot be contacted over the network indicates that there printer is not able to communicate with your laptop. To be able to print over the network, your Laptop and the printer should be essentially in the same network.

Check if the connections are made properly. I would also like to know how you have actually setup the network.

1.     Have you connected the printer directly to the laptop or the desktop?

2.     Is the printer connected directly to the network?

To begin with, I suggest that you disable the Antivirus software temporarily on your computer and check if you are able to connect.

Note: Please make sure that you enable the antivirus software after performing the test to keep your computer protected.

Also make sure that your connections are right, here is an link you can refer on the Brothersoft support website that will give you information on checking connections:

http://welcome.solutions.brother.com/BSC/public/us/us/en/faq/faq/000000/002600/000056/faq002656_000.html?reg=us&c=us&lang=en&prod=mfc8840dn_all&Cat=8

I also see that some of the users fixed this issue by assigning static IP address to the printer, check out this article that will give you information on this:

http://welcome.solutions.brother.com/BSC/public/us/us/en/faq/faq/000000/002500/000086/faq002586_000.html?reg=us&c=us&lang=en&prod=mfc8840dn_all&Cat=8

Important Note:This response contains a reference to a third party World Wide Web site. Microsoft is providing this information as a convenience to you. Microsoft does not control these sites and has not tested any software or information found on these sites; therefore, Microsoft cannot make any representations regarding the quality, safety, or suitability of any software or information found there. There are inherent dangers in the use of any software found on the Internet, and Microsoft cautions you to make sure that you completely understand the risk before retrieving any software from the Internet.

 

Thanks,
Irfan H, Microsoft Answers Support Engineer. Visit our Microsoft Answers Feedback Forum and let us know what you think.

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Last updated March 13, 2018 Views 1,995 Applies to: