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Hello everyone. The issue I had I resolved but I was curious as to why I had to fix it this way and wondered if anyone else has had this issue.

Home network, nothing but the ISP modem/router combo and a dumb switch to connect devices. Other than that wireless devices.

I have a Canon MX490 Series printer that I’ve used for years printing wirelessly. Only recently did it not print wirelessly, it had a recent firmware update but that was it (its had those in the past and it was never an issue once installed). After various troubleshooting attempts the only way I can get it to connect is through WPS on the printer/setting once logged into the ISP router.

Beforehand (a week ago) it printed fine wirelessly to the SSID. Then just yesteday/day before yesteday it wouldnt print wirelessly.

Tonight I did the troubleshooting. Reboot the printer, reboot the modem. Tried connecting the printer to my wireless hotspot it could connect and I could print from that hotspot. The router wouldn’t even see the printer on the network, neither would doing a network scan, even trying to scan on a different network.

On the printer print out settings, it would just say Wireless LAN enable, connection Inactive and it could see the SSID. I even tried the printers Access point mode, and it would connecto and see that but obviously it wouldn’t work.

The printer could see my home SSID but it wouldn’t allow me to connect to it and put in the password, it would always time out.

Then I tried the WPS option w/pin. It didn’t do anything with that. Then I tried the standard WPS and it accepted that and thats the only way I’ve been able to get this to print wirelessly. I did confirm it would still print even after I turned off the printer for 10-15 min or so and turned it ack on to print again and it did.

It does print via usb cable but I wanted to get it to print wirelessly.

My assumption on why it will only print this way is 1. an update on the router caused it to only function this way since the router can’t see the printer at all (unless its in this WPS Mode) 2. Printer firmware update that recently occured messed it up.

All that aside, has anyone else ever ran into an issue like this?

If so, was your resolution the same thing as mine?

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What do you have for wireless gear? Any chance it supports WPA3 and it’s in transition mode? If so, set it to WPA2 instead and test again.

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So Pfsense is no more?

Welcome to IT, sometimes things happen with no rhyme or reason and finding the reason, cause and why is often more trouble than it;s worth.

One reason it may not work is updates to your router, specifically in SSID security, if your printer is old or getting old, they can sometimes have issues connecting to modern Wi-Fi, especially if the Wi-Fi chip they use has known issues.

If your router has USB (and most do), use the USB port on the router to share the printer. You’ll need to update the clients to point to the new location, but even wireless devices can still use it.

FWIW, other people have reported WPS and WPA2 issues with this device, especially with newer routers.

It is a 10 year old printer.

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Can you login to the printer? Look for anything out of what we might “ordinary.”

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I have a mf634c dw and have had some issues connecting it to the network. I ended up resetting the printer and then I could input the password for the network. I’m wondering if you could connect a usb and get to the printer interface that way or look at the canon website for some troubleshooting. They do have some tools that can help.

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does the printer have an ethernet (LAN) port? hook it up to your router via ethernet if it does and you can still print wirelessly to it from wifi connected devices like a laptop.

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I did this with the printer in my house last weekend. Xfinity set us a router “upgrade” and the printer stopped working wirelessly.

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I have a Hitron modem. It is old but it works it was originally the ISPs modem. I dont believe it supports WPA3 (idk how new that is tbh). I know it has WPA2 and I believe that was already set if I recall correctly.

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That is what I figured the “sometimes things happen with no rhyme or reason and finding the reason, cause and why is often more trouble than it;s worth.” I just wanted to ask because in all my years of IT i’ve never used WPS or seen this issue happen. My bet is router updates from the ISP forced it to connect this way.

I didn’t think about that, the router does have a USB port I believe, I don’t know if I have a free LAN port but I have a switch with an open port I could connect it to. If it fails again, I could always do the USB option and or the open port on a switch.
The printer is a Canon Pixma MX492. I would bet its around 10 yrs old.

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The router wouldn’t even see the printer online. No matter what I did or how many times I rebooted everything. The only time it saw it online was when it accepted the WPS push (and it wouldn’t take the WPS w/ a pin even though I tried).

If it fails again, i could try looking at it or even now if i wanted to i could take a peek and see if i could see anything on the printer since its online.

@henrylangston2539 I got it to connect through WPS but if i have issues again i’ll try the usb or connect it to the dumb switch.

@molan I don’t think i have any free ports on the router but i do have a dumb switch nearby that is in use that I could plug it into an open port and try that way. For whatever reason I was thinking if i plugged it into the switch then I wouldn’t be able to printe wirelessly from other devices.

@GeorgeSVFC ince! sounds like i am not alone, i had a feeling it was a router upgrade or something because i’ve seen it disconnect afew times and reconnect and I don’t have any fancy stuff on my network anymore. Just the ISP modem/router and a dumb switch and managed switch, nothing like pf sense box anymore.

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Where I was going with that is I’ve seen WPA2 devices that fail if the router itself is in WPA3 transition mode. That mode is supposed to support WPA2 and WPA3 but some WPA2 devices do not like it. If WPA3 Transition mode is enabled in the router, try setting it back to WPA2.

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WPS is weak and is there for simplicity, I’ve never seen it be enforced, blocking access to manual configuration, especially since not everything supports WPS and anything worth the effort shouldn’t support it.

Why do you need a LAN port? If you plug the printer in to the routers USB, it’s automatically on the network for all to use, the printer doesn’t even have to have a LAN or Wi-Fi.

No ports need opening, plug it in. Done!

Disappointing after how long we spent getting this up and running for you, but hopefully you are happy with less to troubleshoot.

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A lot of printers use crappy ancient wireless chips and often I tell users to just lock the printer on 2.4 Ghz mode as 5Ghz communication seems to elude these printers, even if the router should step down automatically, most do not reliably.

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That printer supports 2.4GHz. Is your router set up with separate SSIDs for 2.4GHz and another for 5GHz?
Another thing that I’ve seen recently with one ISP, after a router firmware update, 2.4GHz can’t see Wi-Fi devices on 5GHz. I had to call them to remove this.

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I’ve got a Canon Pixma printer for home use that’s about 5 years old. In my previous house I had a variety of Powerline Adaptors and AP’s all using the same SSID. After experiencing problems with intermittent printer connected / printer offline issues I found that the device sending the print needed to be connected to the same AP as the printer. The fact is was connected to the same network & SSID wasn’t sufficient!
Since moving to where I now have a mesh setup the printer works just fine. Even if its switched ‘off’ (standby mode?) the printer will wake up and print.

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Figured I’d give an udpate. Today the printer wouldn’t print again. I grabbed a USB cable and plugged it in from the printer to the back of the router. It seemed to take a while but it finally printed. I’ll do more testing later but figured i’d give an update. TBH I think it has something to do w/an update from the ISP pushing to the router. I heard recently the provider was mandating some type of update to the routers.

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Sorry, I don’t think I ever saw this. Answers below.

Why do you need a LAN port? If you plug the printer in to the routers USB, it’s automatically on the network for all to use, the printer doesn’t even have to have a LAN or Wi-Fi. ← I was just stating if I didn’t have a LAN port open on the router I could use the switch (if for some reason the USB option didn’t work)…and to reply to the other statement: I meant an open port on the switch to physically plug into, not open/close a port on the switch.

No, no PF Sense box. I took it down because it just randomly kept kicking stuff offline and I kept having these ‘issues’ I couldn’t find the reason they were happening but I looked back and it literally was the same type or very similar issue/problem once a quarter.
I didn’t like dealing with my roomates consistenly complaining about issues they had w/games on there phone (ads blocked by pfblocker but they wanted the ads). I do miss it but leaving for a few hours to enjoy my night and hoping that there wasnt an issue I had to go fix when I got back is nice knowing now there is no issue and if there was it would be the ISP. I have contemplated putting it back up again because I did enjoy it especially the ad blocker. And now that my job is less IT I really valued it because it kept me consistent in the troubleshooting at least a little bit.

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Its the same SSID for both 2.4 & 5G. Interesting that you say “Another thing that I’ve seen recently with one ISP, after a router firmware update, 2.4GHz can’t see Wi-Fi devices on 5GHz. I had to call them to remove this.” I wonder if that is what is happening here.

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There was no mention of your setup including other people, therefore it was assumed this was at home where you lived and maybe other family.

It doesn’t matter now, but it would have been nice to know you was controlling everyone’s internet and this may have had impact on other people you live with.

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Apologies, i thought i had said that in a few posts previously. When/if i set it up again, i’ll make sure to bring that to the forfront but i do think that hinders alot of what i wanted to do/how i wanted to set stuff up.

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