Why Does My HP Printer Say Offline

There can be many different problems with a printing device, but the most unpleasant is when you have to deal with the status that says that the HP printer is disabling, although it is actually on. At first glance, there are no visible problems, but this is far from the case. Let’s try to figure out why does my hp printer say offline, how to check the performance of the device, and eliminate the error.

You often have to deal with operating systems of the Windows family of versions 7 or 10. Of the HP printer models, everyone suffers from such a disease, but the most popular is HP. Using their examples, we will consider ways to turn on the HP printer when the status disabled and find out why does my hp printer say offline.

Why Does My HP Printer Say Offline?

If the HP printer says “Offline” in the normal state, this is a problem, as this status should only appear when you unplug the device. Most often, users, in this case, immediately try to restart the HP printer and turn it on and off, but this does not help to cope with the task but, on the contrary, can only make it worse.

If several HP printers in the same room at the same time received the “Print” command but don’t execute it due to the “Disabled” status, there may be several reasons for this.

• There was a violation of the software process of printing, and any system settings for displaying information were lost. Also, one or more devices could infect with a virus.
• The physical damage was doing to the device, which disabled it, damaging the internal structure.
• The paper is jamming, or the supply of toner (if the HP printer is inkjet) or powder (if the HP printer is laser) has run out. In this case, everything is clear: the program explicitly protects your device from possible damage.
• Offline mode has been enabled.
• Dirty cartridges, out of toner.
• The print service has stopped.

What to Do?

Do not rush to immediately go to the settings section in order to change the installation parameters. To get started, there are a few things you need to do.

Check that all wires are securely connecting, not frayed, and there are no defects on them.

If this does not work, open the machine and check that there is enough toner inside and that the paper is not jamming or caught in the machine in some way. If you find any of these problems, it’s easy to fix it yourself. Then maybe the HP printer will work.

Make sure that the HP printer does not have any physical damage that could adversely affect its operation.

Take out all the cartridges and then put them back – sometimes it works.

Try connecting your HP printer to other computers; it may work on them. This is a great temporary solution if the HP printer is using in an office, as there is no time to try all the methods, and there are a lot of computers around.

Physical Verification of HP Printer Functionality

The most common problem of any HP printer’s “off” state in the office or at home can be simply the power cord or USB cable connected to a computer or laptop. Your further actions to change the status from “unavailable” to “enabled” may be as follows:

• Disconnect the power cord and USB cable from the device.
• Wait 10 seconds. It will be useful to perform a full reboot of the computer during this time.
• Connect the USB cable first and then the power.
• Turn on the HP printer.

Only one green light should constantly lit on the panel, which indicates the device is ready for operation.

If the HP printer status has not changed, try using different cords and cables. You can always find them in your home or office. If you have another computer or laptop, you can try to connect to it temporarily. To exclude the PC itself from the list of “culprits” of problems, you need to try connecting another, exactly working, HP printer to it. If this does not help, then the problem lies elsewhere. Follow the instructions in this article to fix everything.

Checking the Settings

The second way to solve the problem with a disabled HP printer is to check and, if necessary, change the machine’s settings. Further steps are relevant for Windows 7.8 and 10.

Go to the control panel and find the “Hardware and Sound” section. In the section itself, there is a subsection called “Devices and HP printers.” We go there and see all the connected HP printers.

We find the device we need, and by double-clicking the mouse, we go to its properties. And then open the print queue. Alternatively, select View Queue from the context menu.

Restarting the Print Service

If it is not possible to change the status of the printer using the methods listed above, then you need to resort to more complex options for fixing the problem.

On Windows systems, all print jobs and their execution, as well as print devices, are controlling and managed by the Print Manager service. In English terminology, it is referring to as Spooler. The essence of this method is to restart this service. To do this, you need to follow a few simple steps.

• Press the “WINDOWS+R” buttons on your keyboard. This will open the command execution window. In it, enter “services.msc”.
• Find the “Print Manager” service in the window that opens and restart it.

Fix Driver Issues

Perhaps the reason is in the drivers (they are outdating, their work was broken, some files were damaging). To understand that the trouble is in the driver, you need to go to “Start,” then to “Devices and HP printers,” and find your device there. If an exclamation mark appears, which indicates that an error has occurred in the software, or you could not find your HP printer next to the driver, you should take a number of actions.

Try updating your drivers. To do this, you need to completely exclude them from the system and remove them from the Device Manager. If the drivers are displaying in the installing programs, you need to go to “Programs and Features” and remove them from there.

Then put the software disc in the drive. This disc should include the device when you buy it. If this disk is not left, find the latest driver on the device’s official website, download it, and install it. It is worth noting that, as a rule, all the latest drivers for modern devices are quite easy to use and are an archive.

However, when you download it, it will contain many files. In order to download them, you need to open the “Devices and HP printers” section, which you can access by clicking on “Start,” as already mentioned. Then you need to click on “Install – add local” and do everything as indicated in the instructions. Do not forget to indicate in which folder you unpacked the previously downloaded drivers on the disk. After that, you just need to restart both the HP printer and the computer and then check what status the computer is in.

There is an even simpler solution: if the driver has really become quite old or no longer suitable for your type of device, try using special programs to update drivers. These programs are automating and much easier to work with.

Using Fix Utilities

In order to update the drivers, you will need special programs (utilities) so that the problem is searching automatically, and the device itself reveals why this situation arose.

If all else fails, let’s look at other steps in order to turn on the HP printer. Take, for example, a Windows 10 device.

Find the Start button on your desktop. Press it: this will open the main menu.

Then, in the search box that appears, write the name of your HP printer – the exact model name. In order not to write all this and avoid mistakes, you can simply open the list of devices in the usual way by going to the “Control Panel” section, then to “Devices and HP printers.”

From the list that appears next, you need to find the device you need and find out all the main information about it by clicking on it. Then you need to make sure that it is “Default” so that the files that are sending for printing are output from it.

After that, a dialog box will appear; there will be information about the state of the equipment. There you need to uncheck the checkboxes from the items that say about delayed printing and offline mode.

You may need to return to the previous settings or make the device go offline. You just need to follow the same steps in reverse order to do this. To do this, you need to go to the “Devices and HP printers” section and click on the type of equipment you need there, and then uncheck the confirmation boxes from the “Default” value that was selecting before. After performing this action, you must stop pairing the devices carefully and then disconnect the device from the power source.

Other Possible Solutions to the Problem

If the device connected to the PC is displaying on the computer as turned off, then try checking it on other computers. In addition, to answer the question “the HP printer is disabling, how to turn it on,” you need to turn off the power to the device and remove all cartridges from it. After a short period of time, put the consumables back in place, and after disconnecting the USB cable, turn on the machine. As a result of such an action, office equipment should perform self-diagnosis and switch to ready mode.

At the same time, pay attention to the indicator, which should be constantly on. If you try to connect to a PC, but notice that the indicator is blinking instead of lit, then this indicates the following: one of the machine’s sensors is reporting a print ready error. In this case, you will have to contact the service center. If you have a warranty on the HP printer, it means that its diagnostics and repair should be made absolutely free of charge.

Recommendations

If none of the above methods helped you get rid of the “Disabled” status, the problem may be related to a crash in the program, which also happens quite often. As already mentioned, you can go to the settings and uncheck the confirmation box from the Delay Print command (if it is there) since if this function is confirmed, the HP printer cannot execute the print command. You can also clear the print queue.

If it is still offline, right-click on its shortcut and select Use HP printer Online. This command implies that your device will be used online. However, such actions will only be relevant for PCs running Windows Vista and Windows XP operating systems. If you have Windows 7, then after you click on the icon for your HP printer, you need to click on “View the print queue,” and in the “HP printer” section, if necessary, uncheck the “Use the HP printer offline” box.

After that, it may happen that the device will issue a notification about the Paused status; that is, its work will be suspended. To change this and make the HP printer continue printing, you need to find the appropriate item that will allow you to do this. You can find it after clicking on the HP printer icon or uncheck the “Pause printing” command if there is a checkmark.

Microsoft developers themselves advise all users of devices on the Windows 10 operating system to always use the latest updates. However, if it is impossible to solve the problem on your own, it is better to call a wizard who is well versed in this or contact a service center specializing in printing devices. So you fix the problem, and you won’t pick up viruses.