This is a really bizzare problem, let me try to explain as clearly as I can what happened:
- I have HP LaserJet Pro MFP 277dw printer/scanner/fax, which is connected to my PC via wireless network. I installed the HP drivers and everything worked like a clockwork - both printing and scanning.
- Yesterday, power went out for about 30 minutes. Computer stayed on thanks to UPS, but the printer lost power.
- After power was restored to the printer, printer initialized and I was able to access its HTTP status page without issues. All the printer settings persisted. Same IP address. All printer self-tests pass. However, I lost the ability to print (the printer no longer shows as an option in print dialogs). Scanner works as normal, saving the scanned documents into a network folder.
- The HP device status icon disappeared from the task bar.
- A bunch of new entries titled "NPIF7BB8E (HP Color LaserJet MFP M277dw)" appeared in Device Manager. This "new" device appears in the Device Manager 5 times under different categories of devices (see attached screenshot). In the Event Viewer, I discovered that Windows installed drivers for this device right when the power was restored to the printer.
- Under Control Panel -> Hardware and Sound -> Devices and Printers, all the devices installed by HP are greyed out and their status shows as Not Connected.
- Rebooting the computer does not fix this issue.
Anyone has ideas on what's going on here? This is the second time this has happened - I was able to fix it the first time by reinstalling printer drivers. However, I don't want to have to do this every time the power goes out. This looks like a bug in either Windows or the drivers.
Thanks!