'Broken Pipe' wireless printing issue solved

Does anyone have an issue printing with a wifi printer stopping halfway through a job and then spitting out the paper and going to a paused state, then the print driver banging on about a broken pipe error?

Try changing the radio channel number on your wireless router and reinstalling.

My HP Photosmart C4580 was doing exactly that, with me tearing hair. I had reinstalled all drivers/stacks, reset everything I could find (including the router) and was almost ready to re-format my MBP. I read a post elsewhere on a forum about a very similar problem and the person curing it by buying another router. I thought this was a bit OTT and was even more determined to find the solution. I then had a head slapping moment when I realised that the only thing I had not changed was the router's radio channel. I changed it from 6 to 11 - and it worked!

I'd not seen this mentioned on any other googled discussion so here is my contribution to wifi printing nirvana. Hope it helps someone someday.

...and then what happened?

And it's broken again. Great.

I'm going to buy an Airport Extreme. If the c4580 doesn't work off that, then it'll have to live next to it!

Sorry if you've had a short lived spell in printing heaven.

Usually the reason a wireless printer will stop in the middle of a job is because of signal loss or interference. Wireless printing requires a strong steady signal especially when doing a large print job. Nothing worse than the printer quitting in the middle of a 50 page document printout.

I'm not sure an Airport Extreme is going to solve your problem. I had to return one because of poor performance. My D-Link router thus far has outperformed the AE and has been very reliable for wireless printing. Of course like anything else, your mileage may vary. ;D

Regards.

Sulphur man said:

And it's broken again. Great.

I'm going to buy an Airport Extreme. If the c4580 doesn't work off that, then it'll have to live next to it!

Sorry if you've had a short lived spell in printing heaven.

Click to expand...

My advice is to pause before u race off to buy a AE on the assumption that it will cure your issue.
Have u upgraded any software since Nov?
Is it an old HP that is no longer being updated for new OS upgrades?
Anything moved in locally that could be providing new interference on that channel?
There are probably other possibilities as well, but having said that i have had no trouble with Extremes and printing but have had trouble with one computer of 2 on LAN not being set up correctly.

Yes, points taken - thank you both. I should be trying the printer in different positions in the house and trying all the channels in all the positions.

The curious thing is that the page seems to stop at the same point every time, as if the printer gets bored about 1/5th through the job, sometimes 2/5ths, and decides to spit out the paper and pause.

I have been wanting to take advantage of the AE's other features though, so I may throw caution to the wind in any case. The DI-524 I've got now has a bit of a nightmare in Safari for the config pages (they don't load properly on the whole) and the feature set is a bit hard to get on with. I wish I could just update the firmware with something better but I don't think that's gonna happen.

EDIT:
I should add, that I've not done much printing since the OP, and that nothing much has changed in the humble abode. I will admit that the printer and router have some pretty hefty solids in between though.