Dell Photo AIO Printer 926 Problem: Cannot communicate with computer

[mcdidd]

Hello,
I have a Dell 926 printer. When I try to print something, it says "communication not available." Could my firewall be blocking it? I have McAfee SecurityCenter. I know many of you do not like McAfee, but please keep your comments regarding this to yourself. Please help. Thanks in advance!!!

[truenorth]

mcdidd, When you go to control panel under printers what does it show? Any faults in device manager? Presume this is a recent problem that you did not always have with this printer--what had you done immediately prior to this issue occurring re changes to your computer (if any)? Could be as simple as having more than one printer in "printers" and the one you want to use is not the default. truenorth

[Allan]

You didn't say - are you connected wirelessly? Did this just start happening (were you ever able to print)? Instead of telling us what you want to hear, it would help if you provided more information. And by the way, you should replace McAfee at your first convenience. There's a reason it has a bad rep - whether you want to hear it or not.

[mcdidd]

I have only one printer and it is connected directly to the computer via USB. The problem may be that the USB ports on the back of my computer have been acting up a lot. maybe this is the problem that we should be trying to solve. Allan, go ahead and tell me why McAfee has such a bad reputation and tell me what firewall/antivirus you suggest.

[dahlarbear]

The problem may be that the USB ports on the back of my computer have been acting up a lot. maybe this is the problem that we should be trying to solve.

1.  Maybe...  I need you to lie back on the couch and relax...  Now - why do you think the USB ports are acting up?

2.  Are you trying to print from the "host" computer (connected to printer) or another computer on the network?

3.  Have you successfully printed to this device before using the same computer, operating system, and device driver?

4.  If so, what if anything has changed in your configuration since the last successful print?

5.  Is the host computer running the "Vista" operating system?

[Allan]

McAfee has been known to cause more problems than it solves. Some of their products are borderline malware themselves. Go ahead and try to uninstall one of their products - it's almost impossible. And their security products do not detect some of the most common viruses or trojans - just scan some of these support forums for some of the horror stories. I truly suggest ANYTHING other than McAfee. I am not a major advocate of any one alternative. Personally I use Kaspersky on all of my systems and am very pleased with it. But you can't go wrong with pretty much any of the "big names" other than McAfee.

And you should have told us about the problem with the usb ports in your first post.

[mcdidd]

dahlarbear,  here are the answers to the 5 questions you asked.
1. I honestly have no idea what's going wrong with the USB ports. I first noticed this when my webcam software said that there was no camera connected to the computer, yet it still worked during a video call. The same thing is happening with the printer now. It actually works sometimes and not other times.

2.  I am trying to print from the host computer. For some reason, it prints fine from another computer on the network.

3. Yes, this printer has only been acting up for a short amount of time. Like I said earlier, it works sometimes and not others. I printed something yesterday an it worked. 

4.  Well, something went wrong with my computer so i had to restore factory settings (which wiped the whole computer). I reinstalled the printer after that.

5. My computer is a Dell Inspiron 530 running Vista Home Premium.