Brother MFC-J480DW wireless scanner missing with Verizon router

gordonvp wrote:

I have a Brother MFC-J480DW printer which has been in service for about 10 years. Also I have a MacBook Pro Retina from early 2013 and I'm locked into MacOS Catalina 10.15.8 due to its age, however it still operates very well.

This printer was originally installed on my Mac using Xfinity Internet and the Xfinity router. Wireless printing (Air Print) and scanning worked perfectly. In the laptop Preferences -> Printer & Scanning setup it was listed as the proper printer model number plus it was also listed as a scanner.

Last year I dumped the Xfinity Intenet and opted for Verizon Internet when I upgraded our iPhones. The router at that time didn't pose any problems with the printer until Verizon gave me a newer router this year due to some issues with my account and activation address.

With the newer Verizon router I began having printing issues where I could only perform 1 print job but when the next print job was initiated the print queue showed "Looking For Printer". I went round and round with Verizon and the end result, based on their suggestion, was to reset the Brother printer then delete the printers from Printers & Scanners, then perform "Reset Printing System and then add a new printer. In the "Use:" line at the bottom of the ADD window I was to select the Brother CUPS Driver and click on the ADD button. This procedure only added the printer but not the scanner. Many on-line forums suggested complicated Terminal commands or other Linux apps, etc., which I'm not comfortable doing.

Brother Support suggested using iPrint & Scan from the App Store but with my MacOS being old I cant install that app. My cheap solution was to buy a $10 USB-A to USB-B cable and plug it into the printer, however I now have to drag my laptop to the bedroom, plug it into USB and scan what ever I need to do.

Has anyone dealt with these kinds of problems with Brother printer drivers or the CUPS driver? I don't care about faxing but I would like to be able to scan wirelessly.

Does that Verizon router support bridged mode, and can you replace it with something that isn’t… that router?

Which Verizon router is this?

The router is at 192.168.1.1, and printer address should be (is?) 192.168.1.153 not 192.168.0.153

I’ve not needed to enable sleep mode on even the local ancient Brother printer, though Imdid switch to static because the networking on one of the host computers accessing that printer is all too reminiscent of Y2K.

Check for new firmware using the embedded web server or the control panel, too. Page 506:

https://download.brother.com/welcome/doc100417/cv_mfc880dw_use_oug.pdf

Page 410 has the network reset sequence, so you can set up the Wi-Fi again:

https://download.brother.com/welcome/doc100417/cv_mfc880dw_use_oug.pdf

Page 391 has the manual Wi-Fi setup sequence, which’ll work for a visible or hidden SSID:

https://download.brother.com/welcome/doc100417/cv_mfc880dw_use_oug.pdf

Using a proxy should not be (is not) necessary, and is not the path to set a static, fixed, manual IP address.

Page 505 sure looks like a static, fixed, manual IP address can be set:

https://download.brother.com/welcome/doc100417/cv_mfc880dw_use_oug.pdf

I suspect this means the IP address can be configured via the front panel.

My suspicion, however, is that the new Wi-Fi router has issues. Not the printer. I’d look for bridged mode on the Verizon router, and install my own Wi-Fi gear, but that gets more expensive, and requires some added skills.

In the "Use:" line at the bottom of the ADD window I was to select the Brother CUPS Driver and click on the ADD button.

I think they're sending you in the wrong direction.

Choose AirPrint.

I don't have that exact model printer but AirPrint works for scanning, printing (faxing... etc) with a similar Brother MFC-JxxxxDW multifunction device.

You may want to start over by resetting the printing system again, just beware doing that removes all installed printers. Don't do that if you already have other printers that are working.

Also, consider assigning that printer a static IP address. That tends to help when changing network configurations.

Thanks, that's good information.

The second screenshot seems to indicate that printer's IP address is still being assigned via DHCP, in other words it's not a static IP address. It is not possible to be certain because part of it is covered by the print job window:

In a perfect world it shouldn't be necessary to do that, however, the printer appears to have become "lost" subsequent to replacing its router. That is one reason assigning a static IP address can be beneficial for devices that do not routinely disappear from — and subsequently reconnect to — the same network.

How to do that: You can either "show printer web page" in Printer Settings (click the "gear" icon) or type in its IP address manually in Safari's "unified search field". That IP address is shown in that screenshot above — it's probably 192.168.0.153

• When doing that in Safari or any other browser you will typically get "this web page is not secure" or some such nonsense, but you may have already encountered that and know how to bypass it.

Brother printers incorporate a very capable "embedded web server" feature that allows access to features not easily located. One of them, probably under "Network", should allow you to specify the static IP address you seek. I suggest using something that is not likely to be overwritten or conflict with other devices on your network. Assuming the same naming convention, try 192.168.0.200

After doing that, you will need to add that printer to Printers & Scanners again, hopefully for the last time.

See if that gets you anywhere.

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The Brother's helpful "sleep mode" has been a source of irritation for some people, who often fall back to the unattractive workaround of setting the printers to "never sleep". Other workarounds typically involve rebooting the router whenever necessary. However, I have not had to do that with any of mine, all of which use static IP addresses and AirPrint. It probably helps that all my networking equipment is Apple's too. Sadly they exited that business years ago, probably never to return.

I'm frustrated because I'm not finding what I'm looking for in those settings.

I do not believe the proxy server settings are related to your difficulties.

Try this. Using the printer's front panel's Settings button or equivalent, navigate as described here:

https://support.brother.com/g/s/id/htmldoc/mfc/cv_mfc880dw/use/manual/index.html#GUID-73CD4154-AA57-4D37-AB69-6FCCC107422D_389

Scroll down to Settings > [Network] where it describes selecting WLAN > TCP/IP > IP Address.

That should bring up a four octet field, something like 000.000.000.000, that you can change to whatever you like, such as 192.168.1.200 (which corrects a minor typo in my last post that I think you caught.)

Then, make a similar change to Gateway which should be the IP address of your router: 192.168.1.1

Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0

Using similar Brother printers, that's how I specify the static IP addresses I wish to designate.

You might also consider turning IPv6 "on" since it was shown as disabled in your previous screenshot. It couldn't hurt to simply enable it.

• Remember after making those changes the printer will disappear from your network altogether, so you will need to reestablish communication to it using its new IP address.
• If you find yourself reaching for the panic button you can always reset the printer to its default settings: https://support.brother.com/g/s/id/htmldoc/mfc/cv_mfc880dw/use/manual/index.html#GUID-93C1500F-FCE9-481C-9499-A8720AC668E4_280

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I had been looking through the Online User's Guide for that information:

https://support.brother.com/g/s/id/htmldoc/mfc/cv_mfc880dw/use/manual/index.html#index_body

It includes the MFC‑J480DW model.

See if that gets you anywhere.

You might also consider using its "WLAN Setup Wizard" which should lead you step-by-step toward getting it to join your (new) wireless network.

Had to cycle power on the printer after unblocking the printer in the device list of the router.

Interesting. It should not have been blocked. Verizon should have foreseen that, but who knows. I don't expect much of any so-called "professionals" these days.

... however the printer network report now shows that the IP address is manually entered instead of DHCP.

Great. That's what you want.

👍

Different router manufacturers use different terminology. Its "blocked" feature may in fact be useful, to prevent the router from attempting to assign an IP address to a device with a static IP address (and even that shouldn't prevent things from working), but if things are working now I'd tend to leave it alone.