Q: AirPrint and Bt Home Hub

I have recently set up an iPad and printer for a Pre-school who needed AirPrint as a core feature and much to my dismay I came across this same problem and after some research I managed to untangle the problem and I thought I would share my finding as I am sure there are an awful lot of people who will be having the same problem.

These are my finding from other forums.

1.  I note that some forums suggested updating the firmware of printers and whilst in some instances this was the problem in the early days of AirPrint (canon Mg6100/6200 for example need Ver. 2.0 or later) that's no so much the case with new printers.

2.  Some other forums suggest changing to WPA or worse WEP, whilst this might work for some this isn't the problem, more a work round which exposes your data.

3.  Buy an new airport/time capsule, daa!! Very nice but not necessary in this instance!

Solution.

BT Home Hub 3 uses "smart wireless" which is supposed to switch channels when interference is detected, microwaves etc but this means that automatic Chanel swapping happens on the fly.  This system seems to interfere with bonjour and hence AirPrint/AirPlay.

To undo this go to the home hub home page http://bthomehub.home/ You may need to enter the admin password on the removable plastic tab for access.

Select the "settings" tab.

Select "advanced settings" in the sub tab.

Select "wireless" in the suc-sub tab if you like.

In the "channel selection" you will see "Smart Wireless" selected by default.

Set this to channel 11 and select "apply" at the bottom.

9 times out of 10 this will work as everything seems to like channel 11 but if this doesn't work the other favourites are channel 1 and 7.

I hope this helps as I can't imagine how many iPhone/ipod/ipad sporting homes who have Home Hub 3's can't print for this very simple.

Thanks Ascent21. I have been having inconsistant AirPrint connection since I bought my Epson XP-600 a week ago. I kind of knew what the problem was but didn't know why it was happening or how to cure it. Then last night I came across your solution. Straight away I knew that it would cure my problem.

Thanks very much.

Thank you for this, worked for me too after messing about for ages.  I can now print wirelessly from laptop, Ipad, Iphone etc through HH3!

Thanks again

Brilliant! Thank you for saving my evening! I wonder if this is a HP bug or a BT Home Hub 3 bug... surprised this hasn't been offically picked up :-/ thank again!

Thanks Ascent21. After what seemed long, doomed exchanges with BT manual setting to Channel11 seems to be a simple answer.

You are BRILLIANT!  We had struggled to get Bt Home Hub 3 to connect via AirPrint between our Epson printer, the iPad and the Compaq laptop.  This solved it instantly and as a great side effect put the Sky+ box on the same network so On Demand finally works.  Genius.  Thanks so much.

Great fix.. worked for me!

I also had this problem. I have an HP Photosmart 5520. AirPrint worked great with my original Rogers modem. Then upgraded to a newer faster, longer range modem and boom... No more AirPrint. I tried everything. When I contacted the cable provider Rogers they tried to guide me through a fix without success, stating that the issue must be the printer. Then I read this on the forum.

And guess what... It worked. My modem was set to Channel 6, I switched to Channel 11 and AirPrint works flawlessly again.

Thank you Ascent

Well done techy dude. Cannon printers couldnt even solve that one.

Thank you

I know I'm a bit late coming to the party and the thread has been really informative but my problem is that my Brother Printer is not using wireless - its hardwired to the BT router. I can see the printer intermittantly on my iPhone but not at all on my iPad - any ideas?

Brother MFC4510 DW 1 month old and all firmware up to date

iPhone 5 IOS 7

iPad2 IOS7

BT HH3