A bunch of Bizhub 4020i loosing network connectivity

[Labsy]

Hi,

I have a cuatomer with 5 identical MFPs Bizhub 4020i, all connected to LAN with cables, WiFi is disabled, and they all randomly dissapear on customer computers or go offline. Then we try either troubleshooter, or manually remove and re-add printer, or sometimes restarting print spooler helps. There is no consistent receipe to bring them back on...
....but I can ping them all the time and printer's web interface is accessible all the time.
It' been going on for 6 months already and I am looking for ideas. Does maybe 4020i have some known issue with networking?
Ideas welcome.

[copier tech]

Re: A bunch of Bizhub 4020i loosing network connectivity

Hi,

I have a cuatomer with 5 identical MFPs Bizhub 4020i, all connected to LAN with cables, WiFi is disabled, and they all randomly dissapear on customer computers or go offline. Then we try either troubleshooter, or manually remove and re-add printer, or sometimes restarting print spooler helps. There is no consistent receipe to bring them back on...
....but I can ping them all the time and printer's web interface is accessible all the time.
It' been going on for 6 months already and I am looking for ideas. Does maybe 4020i have some known issue with networking?
Ideas welcome.

As it's happening on 5 devices it does sound like a network issue.

Does it happen when they go to sleep ? Also check they are installed on IP port NOT WSD.

May even help updating they firmware.

[tsbservice]

Re: A bunch of Bizhub 4020i loosing network connectivity

I would try different speed instead of Auto in Ethernet Mode.

[techsxge]

Re: A bunch of Bizhub 4020i loosing network connectivity

Are the MFPs installed with DHCP?
Do you have IPv6 activated?
Have you reached the IP Limit in the Network?
Switched lan cables?
Have you tried another driver?

[Labsy]

Re: A bunch of Bizhub 4020i loosing network connectivity

Hi all,

thank you for ideas! I've been again in contact with customer's IT admin and it came out, that only 2 of those 5 printers have problems. Meaning it is not system-wide, but rather localized. Will try your suggestions, maybe even reset those 2 to defaults, remove printers, drivers and setup from scratch.

[Synthohol]

Re: A bunch of Bizhub 4020i loosing network connectivity

id disable sleep mode if possible.
lock in the network speed to 100tx full duplex
on another computer open a command prompt and ping (copier) x.x.x.x -t so it repeatedly pings.
see if there is an interruption when it fails to print from another pc anymore.
is it going into a routed switch? maybe some details there in a log file?
ping the IP as shown above and unplug the lan cable see if you still get a response in case of possible duplicate IPs
make sure the driver isnt using a WSD garbage port but a real IP4 address set to raw and port 9100.
good luck.

[mojorolla]

Re: A bunch of Bizhub 4020i loosing network connectivity

I would try different speed instead of Auto in Ethernet Mode.

Known issue on the i Series. Change the NIC speed from the default GB speed.

[Labsy]

Re: A bunch of Bizhub 4020i loosing network connectivity

Known issue on the i Series. Change the NIC speed from the default GB speed.

40xxi series (Brother) only have 10/100Mbit archaic NIS AFAIK. No Gigabit.

[tsbservice]

Re: A bunch of Bizhub 4020i loosing network connectivity

40xxi series (Brother) only have 10/100Mbit archaic NIS AFAIK. No Gigabit.

Won't hurt to stop Auto temporarily as a try. Also if it has APIPA turned on make sure it's off as it's part of our default setup of Brothers.

P.S.
You posted a few interesting threads here, would you mind give some feedback on them?

[Labsy]

Re: A bunch of Bizhub 4020i loosing network connectivity

Hi,

Thank you all, I fired with all weapons, as this is obviously isolated case, so after quite a long time bouncing with customer, I did not care anymore to learn something, just wanted to get rid of the problem. So I reset APIPA on printer NIC, set ti to 100Mbps duplex manually, disabled IPv6, changed UTP cable to the printer, on all clients PCs removed all printers, deleted all printer drivers and re-added only this printer via IP and with PCL6 drivers.
So far it works, ping is stable <1ms (except when receiving print data), so let's wait and see if problem is solved.

BTW...does anybody know, if 4020i can be added to CSRC for remote care? The /csrc_index.html URL does not work.

[z3tech]

Re: A bunch of Bizhub 4020i loosing network connectivity

The 4020i is a brother printer, requires you use the DCA (Data Capture Agent) for vCare.