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User profile for user: Sungroupie
Sungroupie Author
User level: Level 1
25 points

Unable to communicate with the printer

My wife’s 2021 16” MacBook Pro (macOS Monterey) suddenly is “Unable to communicate with the printer at this time”. The printer is located on our local network. It’s not shared and it’s Air-Print enabled (No problem printing from our iPhones). She has a strong Wi-Fi connection. I’m able to print wirelessly from my MacBook with no issues. Since I can print from my laptop I don't think printer software is the issue.


I’ve tried:

Resetting the print system

Adding the printer- “Unable to communicate” so I couldn’t add it

Rebooting the router

Restarting both the printer and her laptop

Pinging the printer - no luck (Oddly I tried pinging it from my laptop and it didn’t bounce back either, even though I can print).


I reviewed the other comments and references and found nothing I haven’t already tried.


Any suggestions? Thanks.

MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 12.3

Posted on Apr 13, 2022 12:28 PM

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User profile for user: Grant Bennet-Alder
Grant Bennet-Alder
User level: Level 10
132,481 points

Posted on Apr 13, 2022 12:46 PM

On each and every computer:


IPv6:

System Preferences > Network > Wi-Fi > (advanced) >TCP/IP > IPv6 ... to Link-local only


ON may cause routing activity that interferes with your networking.

OFF will make it hard to find printers and other services on your network.


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User profile for user: Grant Bennet-Alder
Grant Bennet-Alder
User level: Level 10
132,481 points

Apr 13, 2022 4:41 PM in response to Sungroupie

MacOS has a great feature called Discovery protocol. It uses IPv6 set to "link-local only" to snoop around you local network and discover Printers, File sharing , and similar resources.


to be "found" over your network, , the Printer needs to know three things:


1) what network-name is it supposed to join

2) what is the password to get on that network

3) how is it supposed to get an IP address (DHCP or manual at a specified address)


There are basically two ways to get these into the Printer:

a) fat-finger it in through the printer's "front panel"

b) connect using a USB cable first, tell it the stuff, then disconnect the cable


without all three of these, it can't join your home network, so it can't be 'discovered'.



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User profile for user: Al Hatch
Al Hatch
User level: Level 2
222 points

May 16, 2022 12:04 PM in response to Sungroupie

I had this same problem with a pair of Macs (Studio and M1 mini). Same network, same printers, same version of macOS.

The solution for me was to re-install macOS Monterey on the problem computer.

To do this, you need to start in Recovery Mode.

You don't say whether this is an M1 MacBook Pro. If it is, turn off the computer. Then restart it while holding power button for 6 seconds. On the screen that appears, choose Options. Then Reinstall Monterey.

Let us know whether this works for you.

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Unable to communicate with the printer

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