As we approach the crazy Christmas season, being able to print those postage labels becomes really important. Try holding up the line in a Post office while they sell you over three hundred pieces of postage!
So, all of a sudden, your trusty Zebra LP2844 label printer won't print anymore, or you just got it and followed all the steps and it still says "offline" Arhhh!
Don't panic. It happened to us with our backup printer (a good idea btw). We ordered another printer and
when it arrived, we plugged it in and guess what? "Offline" Rats, another bad printer. WRONG.
It seems that these printers "bind" themselves to one virtual USB port number and once they have picked it, THEY ARE FOREVER going to use ONLY that number. If you power all your stuff off and on, or change anything such that the Zebra gets appointed to a DIFFERENT virtual usb (and Win7 will happily do this BTW) IT WON"T WORK ANYMORE.
Now, knowing this, you would think that just going to Control Panel/system/hardware device manager and re-allocating them would work (and you have to guess which USB your printer is looking for.
Actually, come to think of it, while yours IS working, go out there in the device manage and WRITE IT DOWN. (Sorry for all the shouting, this has all made me a bit crazy.)
I found I had to re-install the "Nice Drivers" (lovely name) that came with the printers.
The upshot is - my printers ALL work, you just can't plug one in, then plug in another and expect them to automatically match with Win7's settings.
Glad I got this off my chest. I promised myself I would publish this, since no one else did for me.
Please don't call me for help with yours though, I am hardly an expert on these.
Props to www.zebraoutlet.com - the ONLY people who would help without asking for money.
Finger wag to "Hippodeals.com" (no I am NOT adding their link) - They have sold us hundreds and hundreds of dollars in labels, yet refused to even talk us through it with one of their printers after the "ninety days of free support" were up.... Sorry dudes, just lost ALL our business! Poor choice. We would never treat our customers this way!
What are all the labels for? Our unique 2-Way Key Finder System
www.FindOneFindAll.com
