Why Printers Still Fail (What Small Businesses Can Do About It)

Printers have been around for decades, yet they remain one of the most frustrating pieces of technology in the modern office. From mysterious offline errors and driver issues to network connectivity problems and expensive ink costs, printers continue to cause headaches for businesses of every size.

In this episode of Act on Tech, Alex explores why printers still seem to fail when you need them most, the common causes behind these issues, and what small businesses can do to reduce printer-related downtime. You'll learn why printing problems are often more about networks, software, and management than the printer itself.

Whether you're running a small office, managing a home business, or supporting employees across multiple locations, this episode will help you understand why the humble printer remains one of IT's most stubborn challenges.

Have a printer problem driving you crazy? Reach out to Alex Custom Tech and learn how proactive IT management can keep your business running smoothly.

🌐 Visit: AlexCustomTech.com
     Contact us to learn how proactive IT can help your business stay secure, stable, and productive.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Are you ready to make technology work for you? Tune in to Act On Tech, the podcast where we break down the latest tech trends and show you how to boost your productivity at home and in your business. So subscribe to Act On Tech today and visit alexcustomtech.com to see how we can take your business to the next level. That's Act on Tech, your guide to smarter tech for a smarter business. Alex Custom Tech, IT means integrity and trust.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Hello, hi. Welcome to Act on Tech, where we talk all things technology. I am Alex of Alex Custom Tech, and today we're going to talk about something kind of boring and interesting and complicated and not obvious all at once. So we're gonna talk about printers. Why printers still cause so many problems? And every IT person, if you're IT person, you hate printers. There are two things that I hate in IT and that I hate have having to do. The printer used to be the second, now it's the first because the thing that I hate is easier now than when I was doing IT in the beginning. So I used to hate setting up emails accounts for people because there's this thing called pop and all this other stuff you have to do, configuration, and you can be pinned, but by sometimes you receive the email, but you can't send the email, and it's a whole thing, anyway. So I used to hate doing that. Used to hate getting calls for that, just hate doing it. Now it's very easy. But the printer is still the printer, right? So we're gonna talk about that today, and we're gonna talk, I'm gonna tell you why it's a problem, and it's still a problem, and how to remedy some of these problems. And and I'm telling you this: I have a printer here, and there's a history behind the printer that I have here, and I would never let it go, and it's a problem, but I will still never let it go, but we're gonna go into that. So, okay, so now printers have been around for decades, and what's interesting is that we've done a lot of things in the last couple of decades. You know, my friends would be able to question to question, but we sent a man to the moon, we have carried supercomputers in our pockets, we have created AI, but yet somehow the printer still managed to create chaos in homes and business every single day. So if you work in IT, you already know what I'm talking about. The printer is always waiting for its moment to cause and create and mess up the entire week. Now, let's see. If you work okay, I'll see left them. Let me see. So today, today I want to talk about this topic and the headaches it caused and why it continues to cause problems and the modern environment, how we can uh deal with it now in this modern time, how we can reduce some of the pain it causes and take a little less you know time out of our our our life. So, first thing printers are more complicated than people really think, and this is the problem, right? I got my A plus, and um one of the things I have to be able to have to know how to do is to have to know about different different kinds of printers and how they work. And printers are very, very complicated. Most people don't think a printer is complicated because it's a printer, it's simple, right? But it's not if you hit print, the paper comes out, right? That's what you think. But modern printers are actually full computers, they have inside of them, believe it or not, operating system, network connection, firmware, drivers, web interface, security settings, cloud integration, wireless radios. Okay, and because printers sit between the physical realm, okay, and the digital digital realm, they are a lot of points where things can go wrong, where things can fail. It lives in two worlds, it lives in the physical world and it lives in the digital world. It's really struggling that line. People don't know about that, the drivers, the firmware, the application, or the printer itself gotta go in the garbage. Now, that's why printer troubleshooting often becomes frustrating very quickly because guess what? The printer is there, the client needs the printer to do what they hit the button to do, and it's not doing it. So, why? What are some of the huge problems that printers have? Well, let's start out with the with the obvious one that I've come across nine times out of ten drivers. Drivers are huge, still huge. One of the biggest causes of printer issues is this printer drivers act like translators between the computer and the printer, right? It's like a language, and the problem is Windows sometimes changes the language, macOS sometimes changes the language. So when I say change the language, so say you get an update, it might tweak that driver. Windows updates or macOS update might tweak the drivers, manufacturer might stop updating their drivers, which is a problem that might stop it from working, and generic drivers don't always work. So the thing about printers is that you buy a printer where it's a uh um HP printer, it has the when they design it, they design the driver for it, like that's the driver for it. But they give and that's the particular driver for that particular brand, and it they make all the bells and whistles work. But in that printer, there is the generic brand that that HP made for all HP printers, and that's a generic brand. So even when that they stop supporting the printer, you still should be able to use the generic drivers to get it to print, at least. That's the idea. Does that always work? No, okay. So, but sometimes it typically works, but it prints slowly, the formatting is kind of like off, scanning stop working, duplex printing disappears, uh, or more printer constantly goes offline, which is another big one. Now, this gets even worse in a mixed environment. A lot of businesses, a lot of a lot of small businesses do this, right? So you have some people using Windows, some people using Mac, some people using cell phones, some people using tablets, some people do cloud printing, all this other stuff is happening, and the printer now has to speak four, five, six different languages, right? You don't think of it like that, but that's what it has to do because it has to be able to talk to the Windows computing, have to be talking to the Mac computers, and I talk to the Apple phone and the Android phone, they gotta talk to the tablet, and they gotta talk to the the cloud computing that's coming from somewhere else, and all these different things have to happen, right? And that's why it it kind of like you know sit down and don't want to move. Now you're dealing with multiple multiple communication devices. How about this one? Network printing is a big deal now, which also creates new problems, right? Years ago, printers would connect to the computer directly via USB. Now, now now because of convenience, today printers are now network devices, so now they connect to a to the network, and it needs IP address, you need DHCP, you need DNS, you need Wi-Fi stability, it need firewall rules, you need VLANs, you need printer servers, right? And sometimes the printer itself is fine on the network, and the network is a problem. So that's also happens, and wireless printing sounds really cool until it's not cool, right? So wireless printing is convenience, of course, but it introduces a whole bunch of other problems, right? And for as far as you know, access behind walls, because sometimes people were a wireless printer, and then they put it in a room by itself with like four walls around it, and nobody knows, so it's the the Wi-Fi gotta go through the wall to get to the printer. It's just it's yeah, and the office, you know, it's just it's a mess, okay. But it doesn't interface with the office well, or as a weak Wi-Fi, because again, networking issues, right? And the printer themselves usually don't have amazing Wi-Fi to begin with because it's not again, it's just a whole bunch of stuff crammed into one thing, and so it disconnects from the Wi-Fi all the time. So you kind of want to hardwire this thing if you're gonna really use the networking aspect of it, right? This is a few you know, business environment. A home, you can get away with it, but in a business environment, I would I would I would plug it in, right? So, because it disconnects, it disappears. If it disappears, of course, reboot it. Sometimes simple rebooting fixes that problem, and um, yeah, Wi-Fi. So, wire it faster, more stable, easier to troubleshoot. Printers are also security risk, right? A lot of printer, a lot of people don't realize that printer can actually become cyber security risk. Many printers have default passwords, you know, change them, open web interface, outdated firmware, right, or unpatch vulnerabilities. And because printers are often ignored after installation, they can become forgotten devices sitting on your network, just wide wide door for them to come in and and read havoc. So, in in some cases, attackers can access stored documents that you didn't delete out to the queue. Users, you know, you can um user printer can be an entry point into the business, exploit vulnerabilities remotely. Right? This is why professional environments should update print your soft printer firmware, of course, change password from the default, separate printers onto its own network. Yeah, definitely you can do that. Um, monitor, you want to be able to monitor that this way and the IT guy again. All the time come back to the same thing, beating that dead horse. You need the IT guy there to help you with the printer and all your devices, and everything because they'll see any anomalies that's happening with that IP address or with that device, right? Why IT people fear printers. Why do we fear printers? Why do we fear them? Well, again, I told you before it travels that two worlds, and because it's travel the two worlds, it has to be physical, it has to be digital, and then they throw a whole bunch of stuff on the digital side for convenience, and then the physical side is where the problem sometimes happens too. And to me personally, when it happens on the physical side, I think it's time for it to go. Digital side you probably can play around with a little bit, but the physical side that's and that's the part that goes after a period of time because that's the physical, the spinning thing, the moving parts that get weird out. Now, um, the only thing I've never actually accomplished fixing was a printer. I had a client, home client once that called me and he had a uh I don't think it was like a Rico printer, it's a big one. And um, I go in there and it was uh uh inkjet, and I went in there, ripped it apart, um to see because it wasn't it wasn't printing at all. I had a code and I checked the code and I for the life of me I couldn't figure it out. I took this big whole thing, put it in my car, took it home, ripped it apart. When I said a hundred million pieces, a million pieces, and I tried to put it back together, couldn't put it back together because there's so much stuff there. So I went out and I bought a used one, and I replaced the one that he that he I physically had with the used one. I put it used one in there, went to his house, put it in, it printed, but it wasn't clear, and it was a pain in the you know what. So I had to take that printer that I bought, bring that back home. So now I got two printers, right? And I just went and bought him a new HP printer, I give him a there's your printer, you're good to go, and now I have the Rico printer here in my office. That's my printer, right? And up till this day, it's not printing color perfectly, but I refuse to get rid of it because of what I had to go through to get it. Now, again, when I get some time, and this is like two, three, four years ago now. I'll I'll look into it again and I'll I'll try to get it. But it's sitting here, it's it's a it's a it's a business printer, and it's in my office, and that's what I use. So it prints black and white no problem, but and it scans, I got that to work, but and that's a printer, and that's a nightmare. So you you it when it comes to printers, you you don't know what you're walking into, and sometimes to me, I made a new rule because of that experience. If it's a physical thing on the physical side, and I can't I can't replace the part real easy, I'm not it you buy a new printer, right? If it's a software side on the digital side, and I can tweak it or whatever, that's fine, but I'm not messing with any physical problems unless I can just take this thing out and put this thing in. If that's what it is, fine, but if not, it's gotta go in garbage, and and that's my printer story, and printers are a pain, and yeah, so that being said, right? There's only joke, you know, when it comes to printers in in our industry, because printer problems are often inconsistent. You fix one issue, and a couple of days after that, there's another issue, and it's completely different. And the client thinks that you didn't fix the first issue, and he thinks you broke his printer, and he thinks all the kind of things, and it's not the case, it's just something that's not it doesn't follow the laws of IT at all. It's just it's this rogue thing that we have to deal with, but really, really true don't want to deal with. So, unlike many technology issues, printer directly affects day-to-day workflow, right? And people need printers for shipping labels, contracts, invoices, reports, and farms. So, this isn't you can't get away from it, it's just that you have to know when to let that printer go and get a new one, and this is the problem I'm having with clients. You know, listen, and I I tell them like I'm not spending five hours, six hours messing with this thing, right? It's it's no good, and I'm I and the thing is I'm quicker to say it's no good than another IT guy with, and that's where my failure is. But I'm just so again, like I said, I'll fix the I'll fix the the the the digital side of it, but the physical side, if it's coming up as a physical error, I'm not wasting my time with that thing. If I can't pop apart in it and it's fine. I'm not doing I'll do that initial step, if that doesn't work, it's it's garbage. So so many people many printers fail because of the infrastructure, um, and people get frustrated very quickly when it happens, especially a small business where they need, and you know, and they don't have a dedicated IT guy that's where I had a guy call me because again, he was working from home, nobody needed that printer, and again, I've I've had good issues with printers, I have good experiences with printers, but that's that one stuck with me. So, yeah, so okay, how many businesses can reduce printer problems? How business can reduce printer problems? How okay? Here's my two cents. Here's what I think you should do. If you're not with me, or if you're with me, here's what I think you should do. How you cannot make this as a pain in the butt as I've experienced over the years. So the good news is that printer problems can be reduced with better planning, planning, planning. Okay, some people practice now, some best practices include use wire connection when possible, assign a static IP to the printer. It's the reason why because what happens is that if the printer is connected to the DHCP, every time it turns on, it's gonna get a different IP address. Your computer thinks it's on 192.168.1.5, but then it gets rebooted and it gets 192.168.1.95, it doesn't know where the printer is. Okay, you can't print anything to it. Keep firmway updated. Hopefully, you connect to it via the web application or the app that you have for your computer, and you can update it that way. Uh standardized printing printer model. So if you have multiple printers in your office, make a pool, make a printer pool, and then have them all be the same printers, have a print server, and then it'll send the print to each one. So, what the print server does, you have five printers, they're all the same brands, and you don't have to be off to be the same brand, but it would be each, so I would make it the same brand. We have one software for them, and then you send the printer to the print server, and then it'll check the printers to see if any of them is busy, and then you start from one, two, three, four, five, and it just prints to the one that you need. That's one you can do. Avoid extremely cheap printers. Yeah, I think you should do that. Um, use centralized print management, like I said, the print server, when appropriate, and replace aging printers before failure becomes a concept. So, also again, because of the whole security risk, and again, your prints don't have to be on the internet, you know, cloud stuff. You can set it up where it doesn't have any access to that stuff. You can do that. Um, I recommend do that if you're gonna keep an old printer in there that you really like and you really love, keep it. Just don't give it internet access, just make sure you only can print locally, and uh that's one way to keep an old printer if you're gonna keep a low printer. When you keep anything, anything actually, little cheat is take it off the internet, right? And then you can keep it because then nobody has access to it, nobody can get into it from outside. That's how you do it. Okay, so that being said, um, little fun podcast right there about printers. Um, like I said, in closing, printers continue to cause problems because they are they sit between physical and hardware and software networking. And unfortunately, that's the perfect recipe for technical chaos, and that's the problem. But with proper setup management and realistic expectations, printers can become much more reliable than many businesses are used to. I have two printers here. I have that printer that I'm attached to because of by the experience. And I have a printer in the house that we had for years that works just fine. And I use that one most of the more than the one that I use that I had the history with. But I'm keeping it because again it's definitely a business printer. And it's the inject printers are very good and they last a long time. So I just have to get the the color palettes to work a little bit better. And I use it for scanning. So I'm not out of printer, I'm not hurting. It's just that that was the worst experience I've had to not deliver on a deliverable. And I got that guy a brand new brand new printer, and I'm pretty sure he still has it right now. Um I don't do residential anymore, but that was a really bad experience. Um and I felt bad about that too. So I have I have the printer that he has initially downstairs with the part still in my in my workshop, and I have the printer that I bought, the replacement printer that I bought that didn't work. But that's life. You learn from your mistakes and you keep it moving, right? You keep your head up. So if this has been any help for you, alexcustomtech.com. That's the hub. Go there, check out the podcast, check out the the vlogs, and reach out to me. I'm still working on my office here. And uh you can reach out to me, email me, I'll I'll get back to you. That's the fastest way to get to me right now. Um phones are gonna ring. You can leave a message, I'll get to the message, but the fastest way to get to me is the email. Right? Alex at Alex Custom Tech or info at Alex Custom Tech, either one. Alright, and um looking to hear from you or keep listening to the podcast, keep helping out, helping me out here. I appreciate you guys. Keep acting on tech and stay productive.

SPEAKER_00 24:01

And now it's time for the Abby Minute. I'm Abby from Polyvinyl97 FM and co-host of the Act on Tech Podcast. From time to time, I'll take a few minutes to share technology insights, cybersecurity tips, and practical advice for small businesses and everyday users. So grab a cup of coffee, sit back, and let's dive into today's topic. Today, I'd like to talk about something that Alex doesn't always like talking about, and that's why small businesses need a managed service provider or MSP. Now, if you've listened to Act on Tech for any length of time, you've probably noticed something about Alex. He's not the kind of person who spends a lot of time promoting himself. In fact, if we're being honest, he's probably one of the worst salespeople when it comes to talking about his own business. Alex would rather spend an hour fixing a network problem than five minutes telling someone why they should hire him. He believes that if the work is good, the results should speak for themselves. But today, I'm going to do something Alex probably wouldn't do himself. I'm going to tell you why having an MSP is important. Whether that MSP is Alex Custom Tech or someone else entirely. Many small businesses operate under the assumption that they're too small to need professional IT support. Maybe they have 10 employees, maybe 20. They have a few computers, a printer, Wi-Fi, and everything seems to work most of the time. The problem is that most of the time isn't good enough when technology is what keeps your business running. When the internet goes down, employees can't work. When a computer fails, productivity stops. When ransomware strikes, businesses can lose years of data in a matter of minutes. When backups haven't been tested, recovery can become impossible. And unfortunately, many small businesses don't discover these weaknesses until something breaks. That's where an MSP comes in. A good MSP isn't there just to fix problems after they happen. They're there to prevent problems from happening in the first place. They monitor systems, they apply updates, they verify backups, they improve security, they document your network, they help you plan for growth, and perhaps most importantly, they become your technology partner. Think about it this way: most small businesses have an accountant. Not because taxes are always broken, but because they want someone keeping an eye on things before problems occur. Most businesses have insurance, not because they expect disaster every day, but because they want protection when something unexpected happens. An MSP serves a similar role for technology. They help reduce risk, they improve reliability, and they provide guidance when technology decisions need to be made. Now, does that mean every small business should hire Alex Custom Tech? Not necessarily. The truth is, the right MSP is the one that understands your business, communicates well, and helps you achieve your goals. Of course, if you're in eastern Pennsylvania or New Jersey, Alex would probably appreciate the opportunity to earn your business. But the larger point is this: don't try to do it alone. Technology has become too important to leave entirely to chance. Whether it's Alex Custom Tech, another local MSP, or an IT provider you've worked with for years, having a trusted technology partner is no longer a luxury for most businesses. It's becoming a necessity. So if you've been putting off that conversation, consider this your reminder. Take a look at your backups, review your security, evaluate your technology risks. And if you don't have an IT partner today, start looking for one. Your future self may thank you. I'm Abby from Polyvinyl 97FM and co-host of the Act on Tech Podcast. Thanks for listening, and as Alex always says, stay productive. You've been listening to Act on Tech, powered by Alex Custom Tech. We help small businesses take control of their technology with secure networks, reliable backups, and systems designed to run without interruption. No guesswork, no quick fixes, just IT that works the way it should. For business services and professional camera installations, visit AlexCustomTech.com. Stay connected, stay secure, and stay in control. This is Abby from Polyvinyl 97FM saying thank you for listening to Act on Tech. And we'll see you next Wednesday, same time, same place.