Wireless printer not being seen by macOS installs after some time

[exi]

Hi all,

Having a little wireless printer loss of connection issue on which I'm hoping someone could shed some light.

Equipment: Older Brother multifunction. Firmware up-to-date. Home Big Sur 11.2.3 machines set up with that printer via AirPrint.

Networking: Running UniFi Dream Machine as router at home, firmware up-to-date. DHCP snooping on. DHCP reservations are in use for the printer, but not for all macOS machines. IPv6 is not in use.

Issue: after a variable period of time, home macOS machines can no longer "see" that the printer is connected. The printer, however, is still on the network. All I have to do is renew the macOS machine's DHCP lease (or cycle off/on its WiFi connection, doing the same) -- then it's right back.

Attempted fixes:
- Manually removing/readding printer in macOS, doesn't help;
- "Reset printing system" in macOS and readding printer, doesn't help.

Not seeing in settings what might be causing this. Appreciate any input.

 

[fiod3s]

I am having the same issue... it seems to me a bug of macOS 11.2.3

However I was able to figure out a workaround. It is straightforward just add your printer by IP address! of course you need static IP addresses or DHCP reservations on your router.

 

[exi]

I am having the same issue... it seems to me a bug of macOS 11.2.3

However I was able to figure out a workaround. It is straightforward just add your printer by IP address! of course you need static IP addresses or DHCP reservations on your router.

View attachment 1744131

Gotcha. I failed to add that I did try that. No luck for me.

 

[BlueWater1673]

Hi all,

Having a little wireless printer loss of connection issue on which I'm hoping someone could shed some light.

Equipment: Older Brother multifunction. Firmware up-to-date. Home Big Sur 11.2.3 machines set up with that printer via AirPrint.

Networking: Running UniFi Dream Machine as router at home, firmware up-to-date. DHCP snooping on. DHCP reservations are in use for the printer, but not for all macOS machines. IPv6 is not in use.

Issue: after a variable period of time, home macOS machines can no longer "see" that the printer is connected. The printer, however, is still on the network. All I have to do is renew the macOS machine's DHCP lease (or cycle off/on its WiFi connection, doing the same) -- then it's right back.

Attempted fixes:
- Manually removing/readding printer in macOS, doesn't help;
- "Reset printing system" in macOS and readding printer, doesn't help.

Not seeing in settings what might be causing this. Appreciate any input.

try setting up the static IP with internet printing protocol (IPP) instead of AirPrint. that worked for me.

 

[exi]

Troubleshooting today, reset printing system, added back device by DHCP-reserved IP via AirPrint (as opposed to IPP), noticed that there was no scan tab on the device under "Printers & Scanners" when added back. Fax functionality appeared appropriately.

Scanning via Preview wasn't supported.

Added back as Bonjour multifunction device - print, scan, and fax appeared normally.

Again, cycling on/off the iMac's WiFi fixes the issue where the device can't be found by the iMac.

Any other thoughts? Odd issue. Seems like a networking setting issue somewhere re: the machine(s) or router.

 

[fiod3s]

I agree it seems a networking issue... waiting for 11.3 maybe there is a fix

 

[exi]

Only thing is that I'm not sure this was an issue introduced in 11.2, as various home network changes were made around the same time. I don't think this is a macOS thing -- seems like a networking thing for me.

Unifi Dream Machine --
Multicast enhancement/IGMPv3 is on;
Multicast/broadcast filtering is off;
No VLANs;
IPv6 is off;
mDNS is on.

Those smarter than me, what am I missing?

 

[fiod3s]

no issues for me until 11.2.2 then 11.2.3 broke something

 

[exi]

For reasons unclear to me, enabling DHCP snooping seems to have resolved the issue.

 

[fiod3s]

I eventually found out that it wasn't, at least in my case, a macOS 11.2.3 bug but a compatibility issue with privateinternetaccess 2.7 VPN client fixed with version 2.8.1