The Quick Answer
HP Smart app stuck searching for your printer forever? A repair tech covers the fixes plus the Bonjour service dependency almost nobody checks.
A spinning search icon that never resolves is one of the more maddening things a piece of software can do to you — it's not failing loudly enough to give you an error to work with, it's just quietly searching, forever, going nowhere. If the HP Smart app is stuck searching for your printer, your printer is very likely on and ready, and the actual breakdown is happening in the discovery process between your device and the printer — a handshake that depends on more pieces working together than people realize.
Quick-Fix Summary
Fast version:
- Confirm the exact same network, paying attention to Wi-Fi bands.
- Restart both devices properly — full power cycles, not sleep.
- Check location/nearby-devices permissions on mobile.
- Reinstall the app as a clean reset.
- On Windows specifically, check for Bonjour Print Services — my uncommon tip, and a surprisingly common missing piece.
Fix 1: Confirm You're Genuinely on the Same Network
Check the exact Wi-Fi network name on your printer's own display or control panel, and compare it letter-for-letter against what your phone or computer is connected to — especially if your router broadcasts separate-named 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks.
Why this works: device discovery only functions within the same network segment. A printer and a phone sitting a few feet apart but connected to different bands of the same router are, as far as discovery is concerned, on entirely separate networks, and the app will search indefinitely without ever finding it.
Fix 2: The Real Restart
Power the printer fully off and back on. On your phone or computer, do a genuine restart rather than putting it to sleep or simply closing the app.
Why this works: both the printer's network stack and your device's own discovery services can accumulate a stale internal state over time, holding onto outdated information that never refreshes on its own. A full restart on both ends forces each device to rebroadcast its presence and search fresh, clearing a meaningful share of stuck-searching cases before you touch a single setting.
Fix 3: Check Mobile Permissions
On Android specifically, go to your phone's app settings, find HP Smart, and confirm Location or Nearby devices permission is granted. On iPhone, check Settings → Privacy & Security → Local Network and ensure HP Smart is allowed.
Why this works: both Android and iOS gate device discovery behind these specific permissions for privacy reasons — an app can't scan for nearby devices, printers included, without them. A denied permission produces exactly this symptom: an app that searches endlessly and finds nothing, with no error message explaining why, because from the operating system's perspective, the app was never allowed to look in the first place.
Fix 4: The Clean Reinstall
Uninstall the HP Smart app completely, restart your device, then reinstall it fresh from the App Store, Google Play, or Microsoft Store.
Why this works: app data and cached device lists can quietly corrupt over time, particularly across major operating system updates, leaving behind broken local information that no amount of searching will ever resolve. A clean reinstall starts that cache from zero and forces every permission prompt to appear again — which matters, since a permission denied months ago is easy to forget about entirely.
Fix 5: Check for Bonjour Print Services on Windows (My Uncommon Tip)
Here's the fix specific to Windows computers, and it's the one almost nobody checks because it sounds like it belongs to a completely different company's ecosystem.
HP Smart's printer discovery on Windows relies on a network protocol called mDNS (multicast DNS) to find printers on your local network — and on many Windows systems, the software component that handles this protocol is Bonjour, a service originally built by Apple and commonly installed alongside iTunes or other Apple software. If you've ever uninstalled iTunes, done a major Windows cleanup, or simply never had Apple software installed on this particular computer, Bonjour Print Services may not be present on your system at all — and without it, mDNS-based printer discovery can fail silently, with the HP Smart app searching endlessly and no error ever explaining that a required background service is simply missing.
To check: press the Windows key, type services, open the Services app, and scroll to look for Bonjour Service. If it's not listed at all, it's not installed. You can download Bonjour Print Services directly and separately from Apple's support site (search "Bonjour Print Services download") without needing iTunes or any other Apple software alongside it — it's a small, standalone installer. Install it, restart your computer, and try HP Smart's printer search again.
Why this works: it sounds strange for a Windows printer app to depend on Apple-authored networking software, but mDNS discovery has become something of a shared, cross-platform standard for exactly this kind of local device discovery, and Bonjour is simply the most common Windows implementation of it, regardless of which company originally wrote it. Many Windows users had Bonjour installed for years as a quiet side effect of installing iTunes, never knowing it was doing anything at all — until a computer cleanup, iTunes uninstall, or a fresh Windows install removes it, and printer discovery breaks with zero indication of why. This is precisely the kind of dependency that never shows up in a printer-branded troubleshooting guide, because it lives entirely outside HP's own software.
When to Call a Professional
If the network match is confirmed, both devices have been properly restarted, permissions are granted, the app has been freshly reinstalled, and (on Windows) Bonjour Print Services is confirmed installed and running — and the app still can't find a printer that's demonstrably on and connected — try searching from a completely different device on the same network as a split test. Found there? The issue is specific to your original device's configuration, worth deeper investigation into its particular network or security software setup. Not found anywhere? Contact HP support with your printer's model and serial number, since a failing Wi-Fi radio inside the printer itself becomes the more likely explanation at that point.
FAQ
Why does the HP Smart app search forever without finding my printer?
Most often it's a network mismatch (different Wi-Fi bands), a denied discovery permission on mobile, or on Windows specifically, a missing background service called Bonjour Print Services that handles the discovery protocol the app relies on.
What is Bonjour Print Services and why would I need it for an HP printer?
It's Apple-authored networking software that implements mDNS, a device discovery protocol that HP Smart also relies on for Windows-based printer discovery. It's commonly installed alongside iTunes, so removing Apple software from your PC can accidentally remove it too.
Is it safe to install Bonjour Print Services without installing iTunes?
Yes — it's available as a small, standalone installer directly from Apple's support site, with no other Apple software required alongside it.
Do I need to grant location permission to a printer app? That seems unrelated.
It feels unrelated, but both Android and iOS require this kind of permission for any app that scans for nearby devices over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, printers included — it's a platform-wide privacy rule, not something specific to HP.
An HP Smart app stuck searching for your printer is almost always a discovery problem, not a printer problem — network mismatch, a denied permission, or on Windows, a missing Bonjour Print Services component that most people have never heard of and didn't know they needed. Work through the basics, and if you're on Windows and everything else checks out, that last one is genuinely worth checking before you assume anything's wrong with the printer itself.