This is an old thread, but I’m still having the same issue with my Brother printer. I don’t have a permanent solution, but I have observed a few things that may help. Note that I did start off with your typical home wifi/router combo unit I’ve upgraded to professional level stand alone gear from Ubiquiti Networks to provide an advanced level of management and coverage across my house.
1) I don’t think this is an issue with the printer losing WiFi connectivity, but more of the printer not waking up.
From Unifi Controller I can see that the printer has an active radio connection to my access point.
2) The printer always wakes up and prints when I print from my Mac (which uses CUPS), but has always been an issue from Windows.
3) When I can’t print or access the printer’s web interface, I can issue a “reconnect” command from my Unifi Controller.
Windows will immediately communicate with the printer and print whatever is in my local queue after issuing the command.
My educated assumption what is happening is that after the printer goes into sleep mode, printing from the Mac does something that sends the correct signal to wake up the printer that Windows does not.
-
From Unifi Controller I can see the printer’s wifi radio is communicating to the access point, even when I can not reach the web interface (direct IP) of the printer. This would point towards a TCP/IP level “wake on lan” type function that does not work correctly on WiFi, as both Brother and others have pointed out that moving this to a wired ethernet connection seems to fix this issue.
+
From Unifi Controller I can see the printer’s wifi radio is communicating to the access point, even when I can not reach the web interface (direct IP) of the printer. This would point towards a TCP/IP level “wake on lan” type function that does not work correctly on WiFi, as both Brother’s support and other internet postings have pointed out that moving these printers to a wired ethernet connection seems to fix this issue.
The fact that the web interface doesn’t respond after it goes to sleep points to an issue with Brother’s implementation of its wireless/IP subsystem. It may be a chipset issue given that newer models with 5Ghz support (meaning they have different radio chipsets) are reported to NOT have this same problem. I also put some blame on Windows for not sending the same wake-up signal that printing from Mac’s do send.
The other lesson learned for me is that these older 2.4Ghz Wifi models should not be recommended for use with Windows unless you are printing directly via USB or Ethernet.
This is an old thread, but I’m still having the same issue with my Brother printer. I don’t have a permanent solution, but I have observed a few things that may help. Note that I did start off with your typical home wifi/router combo unit I’ve upgraded to professional level stand alone gear from Ubiquiti Networks to provide an advanced level of management and coverage across my house.
1) I don’t think this is an issue with the printer losing WiFi connectivity, but more of the printer not waking up.
From Unifi Controller I can see that the printer has an active radio connection to my access point.
2) The printer always wakes up and prints when I print from my Mac (which uses CUPS), but has always been an issue from Windows.
3) When I can’t print or access the printer’s web interface, I can issue a “reconnect” command from my Unifi Controller.
Windows will immediately communicate with the printer and print whatever is in my local queue after issuing the command.
My educated assumption what is happening is that after the printer goes into sleep mode, printing from the Mac does something that sends the correct signal to wake up the printer that Windows does not.
From Unifi Controller I can see the printer’s wifi radio is communicating to the access point, even when I can not reach the web interface (direct IP) of the printer. This would point towards a TCP/IP level “wake on lan” type function that does not work correctly on WiFi, as both Brother and others have pointed out that moving this to a wired ethernet connection seems to fix this issue.
The fact that the web interface doesn’t respond after it goes to sleep points to an issue with Brother’s implementation of its wireless/IP subsystem. It may be a chipset issue given that newer models with 5Ghz support (meaning they have different radio chipsets) are reported to NOT have this same problem. I also put some blame on Windows for not sending the same wake-up signal that printing from Mac’s do send.
The other lesson learned for me is that these older 2.4Ghz Wifi models should not be recommended for use with Windows unless you are printing directly via USB or Ethernet.