[PLUG] Network Printer Debugging

Jason Martin nsxfreddy at gmail.com
Fri May 25 18:09:01 UTC 2007


On 5/25/07, Richard C. Steffens <rsteff at comcast.net> wrote:
> Jason Martin wrote:
> > On 5/24/07, Richard C. Steffens <rsteff at comcast.net> wrote:
> >> What tool can I use to watch traffic on my LAN between my XP laptop and
> >> my Brother MFC7820N printer? I'm trying to figure out if there is
> >> something being sent to the printer that is giving it grief.
> >
> > Wireshark (formerly Ethereal).  There is a Windows installer.
> >
> > http://www.wireshark.org/
>
> Thanks.
>
> Last night I looked through the network tools available through YaST on
> my SuSE 10.1 machine and found Ethereal. I installed it, but haven't
> started reading the manual, yet.
>
> I started this morning with the good old fashioned technique of
> disconnecting all the cables, and then putting them back one at a time
> until the problem showed up again.
>
> First, I tried a crossover cable between my laptop (WinXP) and the
> printer (Brother MFC7820N). Didn't work.

This would only work if you had compatible static IP addresses
configured on both the printer and the laptop.  If either is using
DHCP it would not work.

> Then I tried just the laptop, the router (disconnected from the cable
> modem), and the printer. That works.

If your setup is the standard setup, then the router is your DHCP
server, so is required.

> When I added the link to the basement, the problem returned. In the
> basement I have a switch connected to a Thinkpad 390 (Win98SE) and my
> newly installed Slackware 11 machine. I disconnected the Slackware
> machine and tried again. The problem went away. At least the problem
> changed. I need to try again with only the printer, router, and laptop
> and watch the LCD on the printer to be sure. But, at least printing
> works again with the Slackware machine out of the picture. Getting real
> work done has the priority at the moment, so I'll put off watching the
> traffic with Ethereal, or maybe wireshark, until tomorrow.

Check the network configuration on the Slackware machine and see if
you have an address conflict with one of your other devices.  You
shouldn't need Wireshark/Ethereal to do that.

Jason



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