No response from Brother MFC 6490

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Level 1

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No response from Brother MFC 6490

Odd, new problem. After setting up my Brother MFC 6490 to scan for me via Brother Mac software, I can no longer print to the printer. It's connected wirelessly. Shows up on my network just fine, and when I send a print job to the printer it shows up as being "in use," but no output. No problem pinging the printer's IP address.

Any ideas? I must say that the Mac does a much poorer job of connecting to printers and faxes than do Windows machines (by the way, I have no problems printing or scanning from my Parallels Vista virtual machine).

MacBook Pro, Windows Vista, Also OSX Leopard

Posted on Feb 17, 2010 9:09 AM

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Answer 1

LilyLC

Level 4

2,834 points

Feb 18, 2010 3:05 PM in response to MaxBuck

MaxBuck wrote:
...when I send a print job to the printer it shows up as being "in use," but no output.

Where does it say "in use?" That may be the warning window. In System Preferences > Print & Fax, click Open Print Queue for Brother MFC 6490. Are there any jobs listed? If yes, does the Status column show any jobs that are "stopped?" If yes, try deleting that job. Does the printer show itself as "Paused?" If yes, click the Resume button.

HTH

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Answer 2

MaxBuck Author

Level 1

0 points

Feb 25, 2010 12:08 PM in response to LilyLC

I can't get the printer to be recognized by the MacBook Pro. When I send a print job to this wireless networked printer, and open the print queue, I get the message "Looking for Brother MFC-6490CW." It would just sit there all day with this same message if I didn't cancel the print job.

Also, ever since I loaded the Brother software package, my wireless network access has been touch-and-go. My network access shuts down at random times (having nothing to do with attempts to print to this printer, which I've pretty much given up on). If I try to get information, I get the error "failed to connect to device."

Very disappointing. Plug-and-play sure doesn't seem to work for the Mac.

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Answer 3

LilyLC

Level 4

2,834 points

Feb 25, 2010 2:05 PM in response to MaxBuck

MaxBuck wrote:
I get the message "Looking for Brother MFC-6490CW." It would just sit there all day with this same message if I didn't cancel the print job.

Also, ever since I loaded the Brother software package, my wireless network access has been touch-and-go. My network access shuts down at random times (having nothing to do with attempts to print to this printer, which I've pretty much given up on). If I try to get information, I get the error "failed to connect to device."

If your network is down, then it would not be able to find the networked printer. Exactly what version of OS 10.5 are you using? (OS 10.5.8 is the latest for Leopard.)

Your original post said,

After setting up my Brother MFC 6490 to scan for me via Brother Mac software,

Was that a recent new installation? Was that with the latest software, i.e., CUPS Printer Driver 1.17?

I can no longer print to the printer.

Does that mean you used to be able to print to this printer with the MB Pro?

If you have not already done so, try re-booting the computer with the Leopard Install Disk holding down the "c" key. Choose a language and then go to the menu Utilities and select Disk Utility.
On the left pane, click your hard disk. On the right pane, click the First Aid tab and near the bottom click Repair Disk. If it reports any errors, re-run repair disk until it reports zero errors. Reboot the computer and run Repair Disk Permissions with Disk Utility in the Utilities folder.

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