Now I got messages saying that the printer was not connecting with my WiFi. But it never has been connected to WiFi... I've been using in on cable, and that had so far worked fine... But okay, if using WiFi was what was needed now... So I tried loooking for instructions how to connect the printer to WiFi - but I could not find any. I was just repeatedly told to do it - but without any suggestion how...
Finally, somehow, somewhere, I must have done something right, because a message turned up to say there was no printer "driver", and also suggested where I might find and download that. Didn't manage that on my first try either, but eventually I did, and then suddenly, somewhere in the installation process, I was also presented with the option to connect by cable instead of WiFi. And then, some time late last evening, all was finally back to normal, in both directions, with both printing and scanning. As if nothing had ever happened in the first place to break that connection...
Now I only wish I could retrace my steps properly and write it all down (in case it happens again) - but the truth is I still don't know neither what went wrong in the first place, nor what I finally did right to get back on track. (I do have my suspicions that a background Windows update may have been what caused the breakddown. But I can't prove it...)
Today I've been busy with other things and now it's already bed-time again. Ooops!
How frustrating! The same thing happened to us a few years back. One computer tech found out we needed to download a new driver, and that fixed it.
ReplyDeleteWell Ginny, that was what I needed to do as well, but it took me a looong time to (re-)discover how to go about it...
DeleteMy bet is on the Windows update, Monica. It happens ALL the time here - not at home, since I do not have a printer, and keep my work computers strictly separate from my private one. But at work, we are forever re-adjusting the settings for our Outlook calendars, MS Teams and other apps part of the MS 365 world - every update, it seems, erases some of those personal settings, usually just when we got used to something and we have to (re-)learn it all over again. My boss gets extremely annoyed at this, but our IT guys can't help it - the updates are necessary in terms of security, and they can not influence what Microsoft includes in their updates.
ReplyDeleteThanks Meike. It boosts my self-confidence a little to know that even professionals struggle with it... ;-)
DeleteI really hate the chaos that the updates cause and I am thinking maybe the update was the culprit but then the driver could have been. I find that if I write down what I did, when it happens in the future, I look at what I wrote down and have no clue what it means and find myself back to square one. Chromebook and phone does the same thing with updates. for 2 days the chrome book would not open my spectrum email that is has opened for 4 years now. spent a couple of hours and gave up. today it is working.. if I were not so old I would take a few Do It Your Self IT classes.
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Sandra, I know what you mean about going back to old notes not always being as helpful as one thought when one made them... (lol) It's only been a year since I set up my (then) new computer "from scratch" , which involved lots of frustrations as well. But just now I'm thinking that trying to fix something that just suddenly stopped working without any obvious reason is even worse... ;-)
DeleteWow! That is impressive. You must be a computer whizzkid Monica. Maybe you should start up your own business - troubleshooting computer/printer issues in people's homes. It might be called HARMONICA and this would be printed on the side of your van.
ReplyDeleteGreat name for a fake business, YP. I could only pretend to help very wealthy clients with even less clue than myself about IT, though. No one else could afford to have me spending several days on a problem that a real tech guy would probably solve in 15 minutes or less...
DeleteMonica, I'm very impressed too. You took so much time over tracing the problem - I'm so glad that you were successful. I agree with Meike that it was probably a Microsoft update. Each time they do one, I always have some niggling problem afterwards and, not being computer literate, it takes me ages to sort out - usually with my computer "guru" on the other end of the phone talking me through various options. One of the times we did this and nothing worked, it turned out that my computer had given up!
ReplyDeleteThanks Carol. My main problem in these kinds of situations is that I'm not "really" a tech person. While by now I have about thirty years of experience of using computers, I don't really have an in-depth understanding of them, and a lot of the terminology is still hocus pocus to me. I.e. form experience I might have a hunch that I may need to download a new driver, and even manage to do it - but I don't really know what it is. (I just read a whole web-page about it, and my summary would be that okay, they're necessary, and sometimes need updating, and sometimes that happens automatically, but sometimes it doesn't, and then we may need to do it manually. But that's about how deep my "understanding" of the technology goes... The rest is just fiddling about and hoping I'll manage to get it right somehow!
ReplyDelete