Q: My printers won't stay connected
Greetings and thanks in advance for help with this extremely frustrating issue. Here is my setup:
MacBook Air connected via wifi to Epson printer
iMac connected via wifi to Canon printer
Both Macs running OSX 10.9.4
Airport Extreme network with latest firmware installed
Everything worked great until a couple of months ago, when my printers mysteriously couldn't be found anywhere on the network. If I turned them off, then back on, I could successfully print one time, but when I tried to print again, the printers could not be found on the network. Both printers would say they successfully connected to the network and were online, but the computers could never find them. At that time, I had an Airport Extreme base station and two Airport Express modules set to extend the wireless network. After speaking to a networking expert, he advised me to remove the Airport Express units because he suspected the printers were connecting to a separate wireless channel being created by those units and the main computers couldn't see them properly. I did that, and things SEEMED to work pretty well for a time. I then went on vacation for a couple of weeks and came back, and voila, we're back to the original problem. Printers can print once without an issue, then they disappear from the network. Interestingly (these are both multi-function printers), they cannot scan successfully at all - the computer will never connect to them. The networking person I spoke to recommended I get rid of the Airport and replace it with a Cisco router, which he claims allows much more user control and visibility into what is actually happening with the network. I'd love to avoid spending more money, but I can't continue with these kinds of issues. Help!
iMac 2.66Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, Mac OS X (10.6.1)
Posted on Aug 4, 2014 9:27 AM