Wireless Printer setup

[Dancing Lemur]

Hi,

I have an ASUS mesh network system -- two RT-AC3100s running the latest Merlin and AIMesh. I'm using SmartConnect to have a single SSID for both 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz, connecting to the best node in the mesh network. While I'm running Merlin, I think this is a more general question, so I'm posting here.

I just got an HP Laserjet and started to connect devices to it. Not all devices could see it, either via HP's printer app or by Windows. This was true by auto-discovery or IP address. I called HP and, of course, it started to work on a computer that it hadn't before as soon as I spoke with that. He said that it was because the device and the printer had to be connected to the same nodes and wireless band. Is this true? I tried to force the computer to a different band than the printer and it still worked, but maybe there's some hysteresis there? Or maybe this is only necessary for initial configuration?

Is there any way to expose my printer to all nodes/bands? I Is there any documentation on this? I recall having similar problems with an older printer and never figuring it out.

Thanks,

Dancing Lemur

 

[ColinTaylor]

If you assign a fixed IP address to the printer (either statically on the device or through DHCP) you don't need to worry about whether it can be "discovered". Just configure your clients to use the printer's IP address or host name.

 

[eibgrad]

He said that it was because the device and the printer had to be connected to the same nodes and wireless band. Is this true? I tried to force the computer to a different band than the printer and it still worked, but maybe there's some hysteresis there? Or maybe this is only necessary for initial configuration?

That would be true *if* the two wireless bands were NOT bridged to the same ethernet/IP network, but instead connected to *different* ethernet/IP networks. Network discovery does NOT typically work across ethernet/IP networks without help from something like the Avahi mDNS replicator. He was just assuming the above was your current configuration. But the fact you can discover/access the printer from either 2.4GHz or 5GHz shows the two radios are bridged.

In fairness to the HP rep, he has no way of knowing exactly how you're configured. He's just guessing given the facts you presented, but could easily be wrong based on bad assumptions.

As @ColinTaylor suggested, the issue is NOT terribly important as long as you can reach the printer by a direct reference from anywhere you need it to be available. Network discovery is nothing more than a convenience. It does NOT in and of itself determine if you have access to the printer.

 

[Dancing Lemur]

Maybe I jumped the gun a bit. I was able to discover and print from an iPad connected to the node; the printer is connected to the main router. This didn't work yesterday when I first hooked things up. It's almost as if it took a few hours for the presence of the printer to propagate across the network. I don't understand why that would be the case...

While I don't have a static IP set yet, it hasn't changed, though I know it possibly could. I'll do that later.

Is there a single DHCP server in my AiMesh network? For some reason I assumed that the node assigned IP addresses separately, but maybe that's not true. Looking at my network map, it appears that IP addresses are unique regardless of interface. I guess when I had the node setup as a repeater that wasn't the case.

So I guess things just settle down for everything to work properly...? Since the printer appears to be usable across nodes now. I'm hoping this is permanent and there isn't some intermittent issue here.

DancingLemur

 

[ColinTaylor]

Is there a single DHCP server in my AiMesh network?

Yes, it's the main router.