Epson P800 Slow/Briefly Pausing during Printing

[BradSmith]

My P800 has started acting strangely.  On some printhead passes,  pauses randomly for ½ to 2 seconds between passes across the paper.  Wifi connection.  Image download from computer to printer before printing commences  seems to be normal.  Any idea what could be causing this?
thanks
Brad

[MichaelKoerner]

I switched from WIFI to Ethernet years ago because of such behaviour - never occured again.

[arobinson7547]

When a Printer pauses,
it's waiting for Data.

It 'should' be fed a steady stream.

That keeps it happy.

(remember PACMAN?)

[BradSmith]

arobinson,
Thanks for the comment.  It caused me to learn something.  I had always thought that after hitting Print in LR, that it processed the edits onto the file (preparing print job)  then sent it in a lump to the printer.  Then the printer would come to life, store the file then feed the paper and print it.  I thought the computer (and/or) LR had done its job.  Seemed to fit with my experience of observing the time lag between Print command and paper feed......small file = short delay, big file = long delay.  So I ran a test.  I sent the small file I've been printing to the printer and upon it feeding the paper and starting to print, I turned off the computer.  About a quarter of the image printed, then it stopped.  Obviously, there was some ongoing communication that the printer needed in order to print.

Soooo.....as Michael said, it looks like WiFi is the prime suspect.
Brad

[Chris Kern]

. . . it looks like WiFi is the prime suspect.

If switching to a wired connection isn't feasible, some of the current generation of Mesh WiFi "extenders" do a remarkably good job of increasing WiFi throughput.  I've been quite impressed with the performance of the Netgear Nighthawk EX7700 device, but there are other, less-expensive products that provide similar functionality.

[BradSmith]

Tonight, I'll rearrange my printer location so I can change to an Ethernet wired connection and see if that solves the problem.  But......... I'm on a Mac.  Checking WiFi speed by option clicking on the WiFi icon at top right of screen, it shows 405 Mbps.   Shouldn't this be more than fast enough?  And through my router (Airport Extreme) and WiFi to iPad and iPhone,  I've checked my internet speed on those devices in the house and they are normal..., so doesn't that seem to indicate that WiFi is also normal???

Brad

[Balafre]

Hard wired every time! Faster flow of information, less susceptible to holdups. The anaconda is our friend

[picman]

Not sure if it's an Epson option, but my Canon driver has a buried option to "print after reception is complete".
Might be worth exploring.

[degrub]

if you have enough memory in the printer.

That 405 Mbits/s is the link rate, not the throughput/bandwidth. correct ?
Actual transfer can be much slower if  there is interference or inadequate buffering.
Ethernet cable will address most of the above.

[BradSmith]

I've re-arranged my desk, slid my computer to the side and moved the printer next to my computer.  As a test, I've connected it by a 2 ft USB cable  to my computer and it is back to printing normally.  So as you've all said, WiFi is the prime suspect.  The troubling thing is that I've used WiFi for years with this printer with no problems and nothing else has changed in the WiFi setup.  This is evidenced by normal WiFi around my house on iphone and iPad while the printer is super slow and stuttering.  So I'm guessing that something in the WiFi receiving end in the printer is the fault, yet when I ran the WiFi diagnostic report in the printer during the period it was printing slowly, it said everything was OK.   Soooo, I guess I'll have to go with an ethernet connection and a 15ft long ethernet cable will stretch from one corner of the room to the other.

thanks everyone for your input
Brad

[Ray Harrison]

I hesitated to reply because I don't recall the exact steps I took to solve the problem. But I had this exact same issue about a year ago with my P800 and it was incredibly frustrating. And similar to you, I did a lot of WiFi testing (looked great) and messed about with cables (which worked) but I ultimately did a complete reset of my household WiFi ecosystem and re-added the printer to it. That wasn't fun, but it did work. Because I was trying a LOT of things at the time, including reinstalling drivers and other things, it's possible that it was some other mixture of things that played a role too. But I did want to throw this into the mix.

Cheers,
Ray