Scan to email functionality on HP printers not working

Question

At my work, we have several networked HP printers that employees use to scan documents to email via a document feeder. This morning when I arrived to work, a co-worker told me that he couldn't get the scan to email function to work on his printer.

I assumed it was going to be some one-off issue that would take 30 seconds for me to resolve, but it didn't turn out that way. We are using Google G Suite for our email provider. I setup an email account not attached to any particular end user across all printers, and that is the account I am using on the printer in question. In order to make everything work, I had to enable the "Allow less secure apps to use GMail" for this account.

When I try to scan a document from the document feeder to email, I get an error that just says "Server Error". When I log into the web interface for the printer in question, here are my email server settings

The printer has the ability to send a test job to an email address. Here is the result when I try to send a test via the web interface:

On my computer, I can send and receive email from the account that we use to authenticate each printer on my work email as well as on my personal Gmail account, so I know we have internet connectivity (also, the entire office would be stopping by to let me know the internet was down if that were the case).

I scanned the hostname for Gmail's SMTP server (smtp.gmail.com) and all of the correct ports are coming back as a result of my scan as expected

 #nmap smtp.gmail.com -Pn
Starting Nmap 7.80 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2020-08-13 18:04 UTC
Nmap scan report for smtp.gmail.com (74.125.142.109)
Host is up (0.032s latency).
Other addresses for smtp.gmail.com (not scanned): 2607:f8b0:400e:c08::6c
rDNS record for 74.125.142.109: ie-in-f109.1e100.net
Not shown: 995 filtered ports
PORT    STATE SERVICE
25/tcp  open  smtp
465/tcp open  smtps
587/tcp open  submission
993/tcp open  imaps
995/tcp open  pop3s

Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 6.18 seconds
[email protected] | /var/log/cisco
#

The printer is an HP LaserJet Pro MFP M428fdn (we have several of these) across the entire company and they are all exhibiting the same exact behavior. Any ideas? Do I have something misconfigured? Anyone else having issues with scan to email this morning?

Answer 1

Issue resolved!

What I did to get the scan to email functionality working again was I ended up changing the password for the service account we were using to authenticate to G Suite. I then had to log in to each scan to email printer and update the password and test each printer. All printers with scan to email functionality are working as expected again.

Here are the basic settings I used

smtp.gmail.com
Port 465
Login: full email account and domain
Require SSL

Answer 2

At this point it's not possible to say the cause without further testing. Your printer says it can not reach the server. Assuming the error message is correct I think it couldn't reach the Server IP at all (the message is a little vague, maybe you can find further info what the message means exactly).

Since all your printer devices (same model??) have the problem and it worked before, I would rather bet on a problem with the configuration. Seems Google has changed s.th. that your printers don't like.

I would:

• try to reach the server via the same network via an open SSL session (see if there is some general connection issue e.g. with your firewall)
• see if there can be any more trouble shooting done on the printer itself (try other network functions or basic tests like etc. - if available)
• if the printer has no more troubleshooting possibilities set up an SMTP server and see if and how the printer connects to it. This way at least you have the server's log to see what's going on.

Oh and try 587 and and a max size limit (just in case)...

Good luck!

Answer 3

I realize this is a bit old but I had a similar issue with my PageWide Pro 477dw, i.e. Scan to Email stopped working.

I tried everything, including setting up 2 app passwords on Google (we use Google Workspace). Weirdly setting up an Outgoing Email Profile with the same details worked, as did the Settings > Email notifications.

In the end, out of desperation, I tried clearing all of the details from the Outgoing Email Settings to see if it would force the printer to use the Profile. This failed because the form fields are required, despite HP saying you can do one or the other [face-palm]. However, putting all the settings back did the trick!

Quick solution (possible) remove server authentication settings, save, then re-add server authentication settings and send a test message.

Hope this helps someone.

Answer 4

Its a security setting w google. Ive had this printer for five years. In the past i was able to bypasss this issue by downgrading security on my google account temporarily which somehow worked. This setting is no longer possible. =t

Answer 5

For the life of me I could not scan from my printer to email. After an hour of looking online I realized that in order for this function to happen in order of the printer to connect to the network it has to be connected wirelessly. Once I unplugged the Ethernet Connection and refreshed the setting everything was connected. I wish I still had the page up but once I unplugged it easy peasy.