How do I keep the network alive between the WiFi router and a given IP address?
My printer is brand new. What happened to my previous one? It went out the window. Why? Because every time I tried to print from my computer, it wouldn't print. I thought it was just old hardware with an old outdated NIC that couldn't maintain the connection anymore, so eventually it went out the window.
Today is the 2nd day with my brand new printer, released from Canon in 2023. I needed to print something, and the same story. The print job errored out. I tried to navigate to the Remote UI for the printer, but the website would never load. When I review the device status in "My Spectrum" app, it says the device is connected. When I looked on the printer, it said it was connected. However, when I browse the available SSID's to reset the connection on the printer, my SSID does not show.
I powered off the printer and powered it back on. All of my printouts started shooting out.
I am not going to reboot my printer every time I need to print something. So I called Canon, and they quickly responded that this is an issue with the WiFi router that I am using and I need to contact the hardware provider and tell them they need to keep alive the connection between the router and the printer IP address, and to not switch bands.
Now I feel silly for tossing my old printer out the window as it worked just fine, but I am guessing the same story - the Spectrum WiFi Router is either closing the connection or switching it to a different band.
I reviewed the similar thread here, but they blamed it on old printer hardware and an outdated NIC. https://community.spectrum.net/discussion/171525/wifi-printer-drops-offline-about-once-a-day
Has anyone come up with a solution?
Willing to invest in my own personal WiFi Router and throw this Spectrum "Advanced-Wifi" router out the window. But I'm not sure which WiFi Router will give me the flexibility to assign a specific band to an IP address. Suggestions?
Answers
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Hello @WehoCoder
Welcome to our community! I took a look into things using your community registration info. It looks like there are a couple issues that may be causing the issue. The printer isn't showing that it's been flipping between the 2G and 5G bands, it's been staying on the 2G. It does look like there is quite a bit of wireless interference, which can be common in apartments/condos since there are such a high concentration of wireless devices and networks in such a small area. The printer is also showing that the signal from the printer to the router is poor. About how far away from the router is the printer?
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The printer is 2 feet away from the Wi-Fi router. They are separated by an interior wall.
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Just curious which model of a Canon printer this is. Forget about the old hulk that went kaput, by the way. It's not terribly unusual for the TCP/IP stacking siliconics to be the first thing to crap out on some of those old things for some reason.
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Sure, the model to this printer is MF753Cdw.
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The specs for that model indicate that it only does the 2.4-GHz Wi-Fi band (802.11b/g/n). To be clear, as it doesn’t also do at least 802.11a means that it doesn’t do 5 GHz at all. So it’s only going to discover 2.4 GHZ SSID’s and note that SSID discovery display typically excludes the one a device is already connected to.
It also has its own stand-alone ad hoc wireless access point that can be set up for what the user guide refers to as mobile device Direct Connection which may be a better option in some situations.
It also has the energy saving Sleep Mode with no wake on LAN/WLAN capability to speak of as in no way for your wireless router to wake it from sleep mode. Turning it off and on will obviously wake it but so should hitting any control panel button as well as touching the display.
Look at the network settings (print them out if you have to) and find out what its LAN/WLAN IP address is and ping it trial-and-error style in order to figure out if and when it is literally idling out network-wise.
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Turning off the eco power savings mode was the first thing I did. Still, the router shuts off connection and I cannot access the remote gui (or ping) the hardware from my desktop until I physically power off the device and power it back on. Pressing a button on the physical printer itself does not make the printer regain the connection.
I should also note, I'm new to spectrum. And my old printer worked fine when I was on the previous ISP. I switched ISP's, the old printer started this behavior, I threw it out the window and went and purchased a brand new 2023 top of the line model and the issue persists. I should switch back to my prior ISP and do testing that way - but that sounds like a lot of effort for such a silly little issue hah! Additionally, Canon support pointed fingers back at the router.
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I would like to send some signals to the router to optimize the network which should help with the connectivity issues. This will cause a momentary loss of connection so I will wait for your okay to send that. Please reach back out to let us know if we can proceed.
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@Jaleesa_F YES! That would be just fine. Go for it at your leisure. I'm willing to sacrifice momentary loss of connectivity.
HOWEVER -- interestingly enough, I tried logging into the printer portal on my desktop a couple times yesterday, and both times my browser was able to connect and get me in to the management portal. I also just tried again right now, and again I was able to ping the management portal without issue. I didn't change anything, so this is peculiar to me. Could just be timing.
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The equipment should be rebooting now. As far as reaching the website, I would advise clearing the cookies and cache of the browser. Or trying in a different browser to see if that works. This will rule out a browser issue.
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Hi @Jaleesa_F - thank you for your attention to this issue! I will monitor connectivity from here on out.
Re: the webpage, that is how I am testing connectivity to the printer. If I can't get to the web server of the printer, I know connectivity has gone down. I am using this test in place of a ping test, but I will also use ping to test the connectivity.
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It worked for quite awhile. However, the last 2 days I've needed to print and the network doesn't recognize my printer, even though it is powered on.
@Jaleesa_F can you take another look for me to see if the changes that you made to my router were inadvertently reversed?
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