I had this problem now at 2 sites and I know it is related to the Dell OptiPlex 3010 computer that is acting as the print server because it works on any other computer I put in there; I just can't figure out what is causing it. I had a Dell 1710dn printer hooked up to an older Acer printer. I shared the printer out and connected to it from the lab computers with no issues, it worked like this for years.
I replaced the lab computers recently with HP's running windows 8, reconnected them to the Acer where the printer was shared and it also worked fine for months.
Yesterday I replaced the Acer PC with a Dell OptiPlex 3010 and connected all the lab PC's and it seemed to work fine, but after an hour or so (and a reboot of the Dell as I was doing some other work there) the lab computers all show the printer as offline when it is definitely still online. It drops out regardless of reboot though.
The printer is still connected via USB. I had this exact same scenario present itself at another location when I swapped in a Dell OptiPlex 3010. I tried everything I could find online/think of but ultimately had to move the printer share to another PC and it worked instantly, never going offline.
Many people said to disable the SNMP in port settings but that also did not work on the OptiPlex. Tried different drivers, still goes offline on the clients.
I should also mention that I tried to connect this printer over the network with TCP/IP instead of via USB but the same thing happens when I share it out on the Dell OptiPlex; goes offline. Any ideas on what else I could check to make this not happen? We are switching over to Dell's moving forward so this is going to be a problem at many locations for me.
Thanks!