I wanted to post about a problem I solved for the benefit of others. TLDR version at the bottom of this post.
I recently purchased a Brother HL-L2365DW printer. I had big problems with the printer going to sleep and I couldn’t wake it up for the life of me. As soon as it went into Sleep I couldn’t send a print job from my iMac, the printer was reported as not found. Neither could I rouse it from it’s slumber via AirPrint on my iDevices. It was very frustrating because AirPrint was a major feature why I purchased the printer.
The game was afoot.
Brother Support is about as much use as a chocolate teapot. As soon as I asked my question First Line said they had to look in the manual, no knowledge off the cuff. They quoted the manual verbatim about how to disable Auto Power Off, which is not the same thing and not what I was after. Second Line said the same thing.
First things first. I made sure I had the latest Brother drivers and updated the printer firmware. No change.
First of all I thought it was related to Deep Sleep. The Brother quickly moves from Sleep to Deep Sleep. So I ran around trying to find a way to disable Deep Sleep, all Brother documentation says you can’t. You can. If you need to disable Deep Sleep on the HL-L2365DW follow these instructions on the printer:-
So with Deep Sleep disabled I tried again. Still no dice.
With further research on the net I noticed some people had solved the problem by setting the printer as an IP printer from within OS X (it defaults to AirPrint), but still couldn’t print from their iDevice. This gave me a clue. I downloaded Brother’s own iOS app and it could discover the printer and print. The problem was AirPrint!
So off I went to figure out my next step. I discovered that AirPrint works hand in hand with Bonjour and Bonjour only operates across compatible routers. I have an Asus RT-AC66U with Merlins firmware, version 378.50. Bonjour uses a form of IGMP snooping to broadcast to devices on the network. My router had IGMP Snooping disabled. I enabled it (on both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz) and voila everything working as it should! My iMac wakes the printer, my iDevices can use AirPrint. I re-enabled Deep Sleep and that works too.
A beneficial side effect is that my Apple TV can now be turned on remotely when I want to mirror one of my displays (it couldn’t before).
So all this explains why Apple routers never have an issue and some third party routers don’t, they already have IGMP snooping enabled.
TLDR. If you’re having problems with your AirPrint or AirPlay devices make sure your router has IGMP snooping enabled, it should be buried somewhere in the settings.
I recently purchased a Brother HL-L2365DW printer. I had big problems with the printer going to sleep and I couldn’t wake it up for the life of me. As soon as it went into Sleep I couldn’t send a print job from my iMac, the printer was reported as not found. Neither could I rouse it from it’s slumber via AirPrint on my iDevices. It was very frustrating because AirPrint was a major feature why I purchased the printer.
The game was afoot.
Brother Support is about as much use as a chocolate teapot. As soon as I asked my question First Line said they had to look in the manual, no knowledge off the cuff. They quoted the manual verbatim about how to disable Auto Power Off, which is not the same thing and not what I was after. Second Line said the same thing.
First things first. I made sure I had the latest Brother drivers and updated the printer firmware. No change.
First of all I thought it was related to Deep Sleep. The Brother quickly moves from Sleep to Deep Sleep. So I ran around trying to find a way to disable Deep Sleep, all Brother documentation says you can’t. You can. If you need to disable Deep Sleep on the HL-L2365DW follow these instructions on the printer:-
- Select General Setup. Press OK.
- Select Ecology. Press OK.
- Select Sleep Time. Press OK.
- Whilst the sleep time is displayed (e.g. 1 min) push the down arrow and back at the same time.
- If you have done step for correctly you should see DEEP SLEEP on the display. Press OK.
- You can now toggle it on and off via the arrow keys. Press OK. The display will then switch back to the sleep time (e.g. 1 min).
So with Deep Sleep disabled I tried again. Still no dice.
With further research on the net I noticed some people had solved the problem by setting the printer as an IP printer from within OS X (it defaults to AirPrint), but still couldn’t print from their iDevice. This gave me a clue. I downloaded Brother’s own iOS app and it could discover the printer and print. The problem was AirPrint!
So off I went to figure out my next step. I discovered that AirPrint works hand in hand with Bonjour and Bonjour only operates across compatible routers. I have an Asus RT-AC66U with Merlins firmware, version 378.50. Bonjour uses a form of IGMP snooping to broadcast to devices on the network. My router had IGMP Snooping disabled. I enabled it (on both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz) and voila everything working as it should! My iMac wakes the printer, my iDevices can use AirPrint. I re-enabled Deep Sleep and that works too.
A beneficial side effect is that my Apple TV can now be turned on remotely when I want to mirror one of my displays (it couldn’t before).
So all this explains why Apple routers never have an issue and some third party routers don’t, they already have IGMP snooping enabled.
TLDR. If you’re having problems with your AirPrint or AirPlay devices make sure your router has IGMP snooping enabled, it should be buried somewhere in the settings.
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