Printer name is invalid

[Island_Boy_77]

There are days when I could happily work on a Mac... today is one of them!!!! I have a HP Color LaserJet 2550 that is attached to my computer by a USB cable. I can print to it fine. Everyone else in the office can SEE the printer, but they can't add it to their printer list! Windows keeps coming up with this lame and gay message about the name being invalid. I tried shortening the name to 8 characters, but that didn't help. Obviously, there is nothing actually wrong with the name but Windows, the wonderful out-dated piece of trash that it is, is throwing out this message 'cos it's too dumb to tell me what's really wrong. So, what the h**l is really wrong!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? I am ready to put the computer out the window (how appropriate) - it is SO frustrating. I hope one of you uber-geeks out there knows how to fix this. PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[bhxtyrant]

Hmm simple solution first if your using XP make sure you have the "printer sharing" option turned on.I assume your trying to use the printer over a network?Let me know what happens or if you already turned on printer sharing.Could also be your firewall program if you have one installed.

[Island_Boy_77]

Hi - yes, I have enabled sharing etc, hence the reason I can see the printer. However, I do have SyGate Firewall Pro loaded, which is causing some connection issues with the other computers in the building i.e. they can't see me or connect to me even though I have made special "rules" and other "allowances" to let me / them see each other. Having said that, the connection issues "go away" when I set SFP to "Allow All", so I am not convinced that SFP is the problem. More thoughts?

[Conan]

Hi - yes, I have enabled sharing etc, hence the reason I can see the printer. However, I do have SyGate Firewall Pro loaded, which is causing some connection issues with the other computers in the building i.e. they can't see me or connect to me even though I have made special "rules" and other "allowances" to let me / them see each other. Having said that, the connection issues "go away" when I set SFP to "Allow All", so I am not convinced that SFP is the problem. More thoughts?

If you're using the latest Sygate, it has a tab somewhere to "allow printer and file sharing". I'm not using Sygate now but it also gave me problems connecting to my other home PC until I saw that option.

[Island_Boy_77]

No, I've checked all that: all the necessary sharing thangs are sorted on SyGate. I have a separate issue on the SyGate Forum site about why SyGate won't allow comms between the computers on our network, as I've read screeds of pages on how to set it all up, and I have applied the information given "vigorously"! It may turn out that the 2 things are related, but at this stage I can't see the connection - if I can set SyGate to "Allow All" and that fixes the comms error (at least temporarily), surely the printer would work as a result - yes? Having said that, there is another computer on the network with a shared printer that has the same problem, and it also is running SyGate. The only other similarities I can see is that the 2 non-sharing printers are on Win XP Pro SP2 machines, where most of the other machines in the office are SP1 at best, some not even that. Any clues in that lot? I don't really want to uninstall SyGate if I can help it, but I may have to yet.

[phishhead]

theres an option in sygate to allow all within network neighborhood.

[rik]

If this is in an office, and all the systems have an internet connection thru a "shared" router then you should be able to remove the Firewall SW from the individual systems and possibly alleviate some of these issues.

[Island_Boy_77]

No, there are only 2 machines with internet access, and they are both on dial-up at the moment (so there is no router, just an unmanaged ethernet hub of some sort). Looking at ADSL connection later in the year. It would appear that SyGate could well be to "blame" for the problem, but I don't understand why that should be. How come the SFP machine can see and use shared printers on computers without SFP, yet those machines can only see but not print on the SFP machine? (due to the invalid name thing). I have checked all the "allow" thangs everywhere that I can find (including the "allow all within network neighborhood"), but the invalid name still comes up. This all seems needlessly hard, wouldn't you all agree? Almost enough to make me go buy a Mac...

[rik]

So if only 2 machines have NET access, they are the only ones needing a FW. Configure the others without one and see what happens.

[Island_Boy_77]

The other machines don't have a firewall - at least, not an "independent" one. I will have to double-check tomorrow, but my impression is that all the other computers are pre-SP1a: one is even Win 2000, and another Win98SE.

[Conan]

Are you using the latest version of Sygate? When I was using an older version I couldn't connect to the net when I got a Linksys router. I had to choose "allow all" in order to connect. With the latest version of Sygate I finally could connect in Normal mode. But I've since moved on to Zone Alarm. Less hassles.

[Curio]

Is windows firewall on?
Does the windows firewall (if on) have allow file+printer sharing enabled?
To avoid confusion you may want to try uninstalling the SPF temporarily from one machine and testing it again, this should prove the fault to be related or unrelated to SPF.

[Island_Boy_77]

Hi All
In one of life's little "coincidences", SyGate just "happened" to release an update to their Firewall Personal Pro that fixes the problem. What a nice little happen-chance...
So, all's well that ends well.