Re: TOT Packet trace - was: TOT Are BT Strangulating some email providers?

[Jeremy Nicoll - news posts]

If I was investigating this, I would capture a packet trace...

I've got a problem at the moment where when my new LAN router (an Asus RT-N66U) is rebooted a couple of minutes later a network printer starts to print off sheet after sheet of alphabet soup. Even if I reduce the devices on the LAN to just cable modem, router & printer, this still happens.

ASUS support have yet to provide any useful suggestions.

The router does have a built-in print server which I've disabled as it's meant to service a USB-attached printer, whereas mine is standalone elsewhere on the network.

I was wondering how I might try to intercept all network traffic between router and printer to try to find out what is causing this. I'm assuming that the router is doing some sort of device discovery on the network and - for some reason - the printer is printing whatever is being sent to it as if it were print data rather than Q&A.

Do you have any suggestions?

[Brian Gaff]

I think ffirst of all you need to try it on another network preferable where someone has already got one network printer. if it still happens, then the printer is at fault. if not then the problem has to be in your neetwork. Brian

[Jeremy Nicoll - news posts]

Well, the network ran for years using a Draytek router, with no problems except that that router was old & slow. As soon as I changed the router the problem started.

The printer itself prints fine, even with the new router in place. But for now I'm keeping the printer switched off (oh so convenient!) because otherwise a mains blip at any time I'm not in the room could waste lots of paper.

[Steve]

Jeremy Nicoll - news posts laid this down on his screen :

I've got the same router (excellent bit of kit IMHO) and had no problems whatsoever using an Epson Stylus Office BX525WD with it via wifi.

I think I'd try uninstalling and reinstalling printer drivers first.

[Jeremy Nicoll - news posts]

Just to clarify - how does print data reach your Epson? Is it travelling from a wifi adapter in your PC directly to the printer, or is it going (by wifi or cable) to the router and then by wifi to the printer? Is the router's print-server app (which I thought was just for USB-attached devices) involved?

I'm talking about a printer that's got a network card in it and sits on the LAN, independent of the router (except that obviously print data gets sent to the printer across the LAN).

Print drivers (installed under, say, Windows) should be irrelevant because the problem happens when there are ONLY a cable modem, the router and the printer connected to each other - that is with NO PCs on the LAN at all, if the router is then rebooted.

I'm not using WiFi at all at the moment.

[Andy Burns]

If UPnP is enabled on the router, try turning it off. If you have any unnecessary protocols (Appletalk, SNA, Netware etc) enabled on the printer turn those off.

Does the goobleygook start if the printer is off when the router is rebooted and then the printer turned on later?

[Stephen]

wireshark is supposed to be good for packet tracing.... google for wireshark

[Andy Burns]

It is, but on a "home" type network, you'll be unlikely to have the mirroring capability to let computer "A" see all the traffic that's going between router "B" and printer "C", the switch will only send that traffic between devices B and C, and not to device A.

[Jeremy Nicoll - news posts]

I have done, along with anything else that seemed irrelevant - though some parts of the router GUI don't work properly (my firefox console shows syntax errors in the Javascript on the config pages - something else I'm trying to get Asus to recognise). So I'm not certain they're all properly off.

I don't know if that's possible. The printer (a Kyocera) has an 'Ecolink' network interface that understands multiple protocols, but nothing in its manual suggested (to me) that it was possible to deactivate any of them.

That's a good question... I don't know, yet.

[Tim Watts]

It's very good because it has superb protocol decoding. The sort of thing that used to cost 1000s is now free :)

[Jeremy Nicoll - news posts]

I've tried this now. No gobbledygook ensues. I suppose it means that (if neither Asus nor Kyocera can find a solution - I've not even had a 'thanks for emailing us' from Kyocera yet though) that I can live with the problem by keeping the printer switched off except for when I'm about to use it.

I guess that's the 'green' approach anyway, but much less convenient than having a sleeping printer wake-up when needed.