XP Firewall Blocking Officejet Pro K850 Printer, Printing Very Slow

Got an HP Officejet Pro K850 here on a small network that is printing extremely
slow (sometimes around 20 minutes to spool) on two different computers running
XP Pro SP2. Print jobs spool almost immediately when the firewall is off. HP's
support documentation states that the printer software is fully compatible with
the Windows firewall, and is supposed to set itself up automatically, but it's
not happening. Only the toolbox sets up a firewall exception, the rest of the
printing system does not. The same computer(s) work fine through the firewall
with conventional JetDirect ports (LaserJet 4100 series and Xerox Docucolor
emulating HP) without special treatment, yet enabling port 9100 (tcp and udp)
has no effect on this problem.

HP "total support" has been extremely uncooperative to resolve it. The HP Indian
support reps have been playing a "badger" game, ignoring the case history and
giving me instructions to uninstall and reinstall the driver over and over
again. One Indian support rep gave up and said one of their "geniuses" (HIS
words, not mine) would look into it and call me back (no one did). Another
Indian support rep gave up when he thought my computer was taking too long to
reboot into and out of Windows safe mode. Another Indian support rep gave me
instructions to uninstall the driver and then reinstall with the firewall both
on and off during the install procedure (he apparently forgot which one he said
first). The last support rep (in North America this time) left me with the
printing system software completely uninstalled and told me I had to disable the
firewall to use the printer, and her snotty supervisor simply blew me off and
told me to call Microsoft. Guess they're fresh out of "geniuses."

Has anyone found a solution to the poorly functioning HP network printer, and
has anyone received any different instructions from HP support when calling for
assistance?

Alan Boritz <> wrote:
> Got an HP Officejet Pro K850 here on a small network that is printing extremely
> slow (sometimes around 20 minutes to spool) on two different computers running
> XP Pro SP2. Print jobs spool almost immediately when the firewall is off. HP's
> support documentation states that the printer software is fully compatible with
> the Windows firewall, and is supposed to set itself up automatically, but it's
> not happening. Only the toolbox sets up a firewall exception, the rest of the
> printing system does not. The same computer(s) work fine through the firewall
> with conventional JetDirect ports (LaserJet 4100 series and Xerox Docucolor
> emulating HP) without special treatment, yet enabling port 9100 (tcp and udp)
> has no effect on this problem.

That it's printing at all suggests it's not an oddball port being
blocked. You might try enabling ICMP, which the XP "firewall" blocks by
default.

--
Warren Block * Rapid City, South Dakota * USA

On Mon, 19 Feb 2007 18:50:06 -0000, Warren Block <> wrote:

>Alan Boritz <> wrote:
>> Got an HP Officejet Pro K850 here on a small network that is printing extremely
>> slow (sometimes around 20 minutes to spool) on two different computers running
>> XP Pro SP2. Print jobs spool almost immediately when the firewall is off. HP's
>> support documentation states that the printer software is fully compatible with
>> the Windows firewall, and is supposed to set itself up automatically, but it's
>> not happening. Only the toolbox sets up a firewall exception, the rest of the
>> printing system does not. The same computer(s) work fine through the firewall
>> with conventional JetDirect ports (LaserJet 4100 series and Xerox Docucolor
>> emulating HP) without special treatment, yet enabling port 9100 (tcp and udp)
>> has no effect on this problem.
>
>That it's printing at all suggests it's not an oddball port being
>blocked. You might try enabling ICMP, which the XP "firewall" blocks by
>default.

The XP firewall had incoming echo request enabled, so I enabled all ICMP
functions manually, also within the connection exceptions dialog, and there was
no change. Also enabled port 9100 TCP and UDP and there was no change.

Here is HP's latest recommendation (via email):

"To resolve the issue add the printers IP address to the fire wall and this
should resolve the issue."

Obviously, it didn't, since there's no way to add an IP address "to the
firewall."