Windows 10: Printer fails to connect and shows "Driver unavailable"

I'm doing tech support for a friend, I'm trying to help them fix their printer which suddenly went offline. They can still print from their iPhone, so I know the printer and network are in good shape.


Also, I am far away from them, so I was assisting over screen sharing. I don't think that should matter, but just want to be clear.


So here's the problem:





The printer appears to be connected. I can ping it from a terminal on the computer, so it seems like it's visible on the network just fine. But you can see there in the status that it says "Driver is unavailable". If I try to print something with Microsoft Word, it says that it can't connect to the printer. I have uninstalled and re-installed the drivers several times, through Windows and through HP, and I updated to the most recent version of Windows, but it still has the same problem every time.


The last time I fixed this problem for them, I had to manually add the printer, the network discovery feature wasn't working. However, this manual adding seems to have been removed.





The "Not finding what you're looking for?" button just takes me to a Microsoft support page for connecting Bluetooth devices, which is completely irrelevant.


This support page says there should be a "The printer that I want isn't listed" button, and that matches with my recollection from last time, but it's gone.


I'm concerned that these problems may be related.


Is there any additional steps I can take to try and restore connectivity to the printer?

:)

 

printer driver is unavailable

Hi Robert,

Thank you for posting your query on Microsoft Community.

I regret the inconvenience caused to you. We will be glad to assist you with this issue.

It would be grateful if you can reply to this question in order to assist you further:

• How exactly did you try to download the drivers?
• Did you try to check if the printer driver's are shown in the device manager?

Let's try the following steps and check if it helps:

Step 1: Run Hardware and device Troubleshooter.

• Type troubleshooting in the search bar and select it.
• Select View all on the top left corner.
• Click Hardware and device
  troubleshooter.
• Follow the on-screen instructions to run the troubleshooter.
• Check if issue persists.

Step 2: I suggest you to visit the manufacturer website of the printer and download and install the latest drivers and check if it helps.

Let us know the status of the issue. We will be glad to assist you further.

Thank you.

 

Printer Driver Unavailable

My HP Notebook, running Win10, won't print to my HP DJ3630 printer anymore. Following the instructions from the Get Help tech support, after several other unsuccessful steps, I uninstalled my printer and all drivers & support files. When I went through
Settings-Devices-Add A Printer, the computer was able to locate and connect to my printer, but then said the Driver is Unavailable. I am so frustrated and tired of the issues with Win10!!! I'd use my HP Pavilion Laptop running Vista, if I could still get ink
for the printer connected to it!!!

 

printer driver unavailable

Hello Chris,

The error that you received might be due to the incompatibility of the driver or the driver has been corrupted. To help you out with your concern, we suggest that you install the driver in compatibility mode and check if the issue persists. You may refer
to the steps provided by Vinodh_Kumar V on January 16, 2016 which can be found on this
thread.

Let us know the outcome and if you need further assistance.