Have been having problems with my MacBook Air printing stuff for several months. In my view, it could be one of three things - either the printer, the computer or the wi-fi, so I started with a process of elimination.
This also happened in our previous home, so I’m leaning toward not blaming it on our wireless router here. I thought it might be the printer, and we were in need of three new ink cartridges for the old printer, so I could buy a new printer for less than three color cartridges, so we did. It’s all hooked up. Still having the problem.
So this is what happens: I send a job to print, and it takes up to 45 minutes sometimes to communicate with the printer… I usually get a message that says ‘Printer not responding’, but sometime in the next hour, after the printer has been completely quiet for all that time, the job will just start to print. It doesn’t matter if I’m printing a document from my laptop, or something from the web. This is not good when I need something right away.
Anyone have any ideas where to start with diagnosing this? AT&T (internet provider)? Apple? If I take it to the Genius Bar, how will they be able to test it there when my printer is here?
Not a Mac person, and people who are knowledgeable about Macs would probably need to know what the printer is. But I would suggest you google the error, possibly including information about what printer you have. You are almost certainly not the only person with this issue, and someone has probably solved it.
have a mac; and my brother printer was taking FOREVER to print wirelessly when i got it a year ago. I called brother tech support. they had me download something - maybe it was a particular driver??? sorry i cant remember what! But it made a HUGE difference on the time it took to print every page. i really like the printer now and think the wireless printing is great. ymmv!
i guess just going bluetooth or wireless wasnt enough; whatever i downloaded from their site really helped.
First step is to make sure that your printer is not losing wi-fi connection.
What parameters did you configure on your printer to connect it to the network?
Do your computer see any other wi-fi networks in your home?
How far is your printer from your router?
Do you know how to do continuous ping from your laptop to the printer IP address?
Does you printer have an Ethernet port and can you connect it to the router with a cable to eliminate Wi-fi?
Do you have other computers in your home and can they print?
1 - not sure; H set it up and he's already asleep.
2 - Yes, it sees other wi-fi networks, as we are in a condo building now (but were previously in a single-family home)
3 - LOL... about 15'; they're both in our bedroom; and when I sent it a job tonight, I was in the bedroom.
4 - Nope
5 - Yes, printer has an Ethernet port and we could, but it's much more convenient if I'm not in the bedroom (which is most of the time) when I need to print; sometimes I'm up in the office (in the loft). However, I only use a laptop, so it would be easy to just keep the cable attached to the back of the printer and plug it into my laptop when I need to print.
6 - Yes, we have a PC desktop in the loft and H has his PC laptop; neither one has problems printing as soon as a job is sent to the printer; it's immediate.
I’m starting to suspect it’s my laptop as @bgbg4us is suggesting, and that maybe I need a different driver. Maybe I’ll start with Brother and see what they say.
I suggested to connect printer with a cable to the router to do a test to exclude wifi from equation but given that other computers can print you should probably upgrade drivers.
You do not need to talk to Brother - they probably have mac driver on their web site.
By the way to connect your laptop directly to the printer with a cable and make this setup work requires some technical skills.
OK… just asking here - since I don’t have a CD drive on my MacBook Air, I had to go to their website to download, what I thought was the necessary program/driver to operate the printer wirelessly. So if I accessed it from their website tonight, shouldn’t it be the most recent version? As opposed to a CD that has been sitting in a box on a store shelf for who knows how many months? Or are you guys saying I might still need a different driver? I am using OS El Capitan (which was recently updated less than a month ago), so I’m pretty sure everything is current.
Thanks for all the collective wisdom here. In surfing through Brothers website, I did see an option that allowed me to chat with someone online, but they have closed for the evening. Busy day tomorrow (and I need to print something) so will reach out to them Monday.
Funny thing is, as soon as we got it all hooked up tonight, the very first job I attempted to print, it worked immediately. That’s the confusing thing here… it’s sporadic and I can’t predict which jobs it will print immediately, and which jobs it will take an hour to respond.
I believe the problem is the PC. PC’s grab printers and do not share well with MACs.
I used to run into a similar problem (back when we HAD evil PC’s alive in the house). I would do what I called the “rain dance”. Make sure the PC was awake, make sure it had a good connection to the printer, Check that my MAC could SEE the printer, sometimes restart the printer if the MAC couldn’t see it. The more the PC was gone, the better the MAC and printer played together.
But yes, update your drivers, I’d have thought you would have done it as part of the install of the new printer…
I have a problem at work and I am on a patch 5 cable , sometimes documents fail to print and wind up printing randomly a day or two later. so any confidential documents relating to salary, healthcare, pension etc that are printed I print from a computer with it’s own attached printer off network.
maybe have geek squad or some such company come out to your house. it will probably cost some $$$ but maybe needed.
Actually, now that you have 2 printers you can dedicate one to MAC and another one to “evil” PCs.
To do that you would need to de-configure one printer from PCs and configure this printer on the MAC.
Are you using the most up-to-date drivers for the printer concerned?
Are there a lot of metal(i.e. pipes, framing, etc) between the mac and printer? This was an issue with a client who lived in a large apartment in a building built in the 1920’s.
Was there a microwave, 2.4 Ghz portable landline phone device, any electronic device operating on the 2.4 or 5 GHZ frequencies, etc nearby? (They could cause substantial electronic interference with wireless signals).
Did you live in areas in close proximity of a large number of neighbors’ wi-fi networks on the same channel? Not talking one or two…more like 5+.
What model is the macbook/macbook air? Some macbooks I’ve worked with had a pattern of issues with the wifi card/wi-fi cable connecting card to logic board fail necessitating replacement.
I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND GEEK SQUAD under any circumstances. Very hit-or-miss on tech support help which isn’t a surprise considering Best Buy doesn’t pay them much more than minimum wage and I’ve known of folks who were hired off the street without any tech/computer experience/competence.
One common type of client I’ve had over the years was that of someone who initially brought their machines to Geek Squad only to have them not fix the issue and sometimes create further issues. I end up getting hired to fix their screwups.
OK… had a call with Brother today, and hopefully we have solved the problem. When the printer was initially set up on Saturday, it defaulted to AirPrint (which I’d never heard of). The tech support at Brother helped me configure my computer to a different (CUPS) print, so now it seems to be working (with an emphasis on now).
@teriwtt, hopefully you’ve solved your problem. Just in case it comes up again, I was having the same problem with a Canon printer but then that printer died and, before figuring out what the problem was, we needed a new printer. We bought an HP (from Costco so I could return it if it was problematic) and dh set it up and everything appeared to be working. Then the delays started occurring. I got an error messages saying the printer wasn’t connected although it was clear that it was.
Long story short, I called HP and, after a pretty long time with their patient tech person, they told me the following. (I’m not a tech person so, hopefully, I’m repeating this correctly.) Our cable co ‘upgraded’ us to a dual band (?) modem. The printer can only communicate/print when the wifi speed is 2.4. However, the dual band operates at 5. The tech person had me reconfigure things so that, instead of one wi-fi option, I now have two, one at 2.4 and one at 5. When I print, I need to make sure that I’m on 2.4. As I say, hopefully I’ve written this in a way that is meaning and relatively understandable and accurate!
As an aside, the tech told me about HP’s ink program. I have always resented how much ink costs…for a set amount per month, you can print up to a certain number of pages/month and also receive your ink cartridges in the mail. As we’re empty nesters and have low need, I was able to the lowest option-- $3/month for 50 pages/month. Unused pages roll over and, if you go over, the next level is not much more. This covers all colors of ink cartridges. I am more than happy to pay $36/year for all the ink I’m likely to need and never would have known about the program if I hadn’t called in. She also gave me a code for the first 4 months free. Just mentioning this in case anyone else has an HP printer and might benefit from this program.
Actually, since there are some knowledgable people on this thread, I’d like to ask a question. As mentioned above, our printer is new and I’ve noticed that the last 3 times I’ve printed, I’ve just needed a ‘selection’ of a document (just a page or two of a larger one). I’ve entered the pages ranges but the entire document has printed all 3 times. (THAT will make me run through my 50 pages/month!)
Does anyone have any idea why my ‘selection’ entry isn’t being recognized?
I had issues with our MacBook Airs connecting to our printer. Turns out it was our wireless base station. We had to go in (using a long-forgotten password) and reset it up. It no longer has issues connecting.
In the interim, we pulled out the connection cord from a 25? year old HP laser jet printer. Good to know the cord would still bridge between our newer (brother) printer and MacBook Airs.
Oh, well. It almost lasted 24 hours. Que’d up a job about 30 minutes ago. Still waiting. Message is ‘Printer not responding.’ It will finally print after I leave in about 30 minutes and be waiting for me when I get home.