Solved: Lost connection to printer, (error 0x0000005) windows 8

[Omar99]

I have a Brother HL-2040 printer and a newish ASUS desktop computer with Windows 8. Printer worked fine for a while, but suddenly has gone "offline". I tried a replacement cable but no luck. The only significant change just before this happened was the installation of a new webcam.
I have tried going though Control Panel, and find that the printer is suddenly "offline."

I go to "See What's Priinting and try to uncheck "Use Printer Offline" but it is greyed out. Then I think click "Open As Administrator" and am able to unclick it, but still can't print anything. Windows says "Printer in an error state." At one point (can't remember exactly when) I got (erro 0x0000005).

I am not particularly computer savvy, and Windows 8 in particular often baffles me. I would really appreciate some help with this. Thanks1

 

[etaf]

i would remove the programs for the printer and do a re-install again of the full software
this often happens on HP printers and a re-install usually resolves the issue - I have seen this once before on a brother printer

 

[Omar99]

Thanks. This did not work. Although I was able to find the old installation disk for the printer, there was really no software to uninstall and reinstall -- just the printer drivers, which are already included in Windows 8.1. However, I did find an answer that seems to have worked, and I wanted to share it here. In Control Panel I went to Device Manager. There, under Universal Serial Bus Controllers, I clicked on USB Printing Support, and got a window saying it had been disabled. So I clicked on "enable" and followed a couple of steps, and bingo! I got a message that the function had been successfully enabled, and the queued print jobs started printing. No idea what caused the function to be disabled -- the window said it usually happens because a device is not functioning properly, but it seems the printer is working fine. Anyhow, fingers crossed that it keeps working after I reboot...

 

[etaf]

Thanks for taking the time and posting the solution, that may be useful for others searching here or google
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