Epson R2400 problem

I'm usually pretty good at sussuing out the cause of a technical problem, but this one has me stumped.

For the last few days, my Epson R2400 printer will 'go offline' and then reconnect by itself within a couple of seconds. You get the little audible connect and disconnect signal from the computer. Thi swill happen when the printer is sitting idle or when it i sprinting, in which case it ejects the partially printed photograph. This is wasting paper and ink and is really aggravating. It seems completely random.

I di dthe usual steps, reboot, restat the printe, check the connections, updated drivers, etc. I managed about 24 hours with no repeats until just now, when it spit out a half printed large print.

AAARRRGGGHHH!!!!

Has anyone ever run across something like this? There atre no error messages of any kind and the printer dialog box shows the document as active even after the printer ejects it.

HELP!!!

Jim, I'm sure more technical types might ask for all the settings you presently have on the unit, and of course was there any chance ANY of those might have changed at all. My thoughts might be along the line of, does the printer seem to lose power at all during printing? or does the USB / Firewire port have any issues possibly?
I recently had a friend who fought an issue on his PC and printer only to find out the power strip had gone bad that the units were plugged into. It was not totally out, just not enough poop to keep things humming along. You might try another power input and also try moving to a different USB / Firewire outlet, maybe even change that connection cord.
Just some thoughts. I have an R2400 and have never had one issue to date, knock on wood.
Good luck.....

Jim, if you're losing the usb connection but the power light stays on then there are 3 possibilities. First suspect is a bad cable, the second is bad or dirty connection ports on the printer or computer and the third is an intermittant usp port on your computer caused by internal problems. You could plug another usb device into the same computer port and see if it functions intermittantly. That would either identify or rule out the computer port as a problem. The next choice would be to borrow another printer's usb cable and try it on the 2400 (they're pretty cheap at Radio Shack or any computer store if you don't have another). If that still doesn't fix it then it's probably a bad or corroded usb port on the printer.

It sounds very frustrating! I sure hope you find the problem.

I just realized that there is another possibility, Jim. If you are plugged into a usb hub rather than directly into a computer port, the hub could be your problem. I have had a couple usb hubs go bad on me and cause the same type of intermittant failures that you are experiencing. In both cases it only affected one or two ports on the hub and I was able to identify them by going into the computer's device manager and looking for device alarms.

That's about all I can think of. Good luck!

Thanks, guys.

I found a recommendation on the Epson site to:

1) disable Advanced Printer Functions' and turn on 'Direct to Printer'. This seems to have worked for the moment as I've run 6 prints without issues since resetting.

2) clear out the Windows temp folder. The printer runs its spool files thru this directory and it can fill up. My disc was nearly full , so this was one of the first things I checked. Cleared out all the temp files, and defragged the drive, opening up nearly 200 gigs of drive space. Apparently the defrag was waaaay overdue. Unfortunately, while my disc is cleaner and faster, it did not cure the printer issue.

If the problem pops up again, I'll go thru the cable and port tests. It's definitely a communication issue, not a power issue.

Thanks again!

Gary,

No hubs - my printer is wired direct. The Epson site mentioned the same point.

Thanks again.

Jim, the temp file thing might be a valid item as you mentioned and you've cleared it out. We had old voicemail systems that once they got past 70% full, they would become erratic as heck. Relieving storage items immediately resolved the issues too. In this case the printer spooling area could have been the issue.

I had the same problem with an Epson using LPT1 port. Their fix is to go print direct and not spool, which seems to work, but of course ties up your PC, particularly for a large print, so I gave up..Could not find a solution.
Hope you do better.
Frank O'Donnell

I had the exact problem with every Epson printer I have owned (1200, 1270 and R1800), did everything everybody listed above and nothing solved the problem permanently, even Epson technical support could not offer any solutions, other than send it in to get serviced for $300 minimum - when I payed $400 for the original printer. I think it is an issue with the printer, versus the computer, as it happened to all my printers and while having the problem with the R1800 I tried printing from 4 different computers and the problem occurred with every one (with the 1200 and 1270 I used 2 different computers on each to try to print).