Why does my iMac think my printer is offline?

Question

Level 1

18 points

Why does my iMac think my printer is offline?

We have an iMac running OS 10.6.5. Our Brother MFC7840W printer is connected via an ethernet cable to a LinkSys WRT106N. This has worked very well for 2.5 years, but yesterday it started acting up. When we try to print, we get a message saying the printer is offline. Things we've tried and additional information:

We Installed the latest driver from the Brother website
We can print if we plug the printer directly into the iMac
We still have problems if we use a different ethernet cable and/or plug either cable into a different port on the router
The blue light on the router is on for the port with the printer ethernet cable
The back of the printer shows a green light that indicates the network is connected.
Other things connected to the router appear to be working normally.
In Settings > Print & Fax, the printer is listed. Sometimes and shows a green indicator when the printer is idle and a yellow indicator when there's something sitting in the queue. It makes no difference whether Sharing the printer is enabled or not. If I try to open the printer utility through the Utility tab it can't connect to the printer.

In the bizarre fwiw category, something I had tried to print yesterday suddenly emerged from the printer about 15 minutes after I booted up this morning. However, I tried to print another document immediately afterwards and got the printer offline message again.

How do I get the printer to come online? How do I tell if the problem is with the printer or the router?

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.5)

Posted on Sep 12, 2011 4:28 AM

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Answer 1

tom269

Level 1

0 points

Oct 13, 2011 11:26 PM in response to hdulc

I don't think it is the printer or the router. I think this is a common problem with lots of printers. I think the problem is APPLE. Apple is always the common denominator with this problem irregardless of the printer or router. I wish Apple monitored this forum and would give some input.

Tom

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Answer 2

Oct 14, 2011 9:02 AM in response to tom269

I've had the same issue with my iMac..sometimes it will print, sometimes it won't. I've logged in hours of time with printer support (Canon and HP), the router/internet provider support as well as AppleCare. No one knows why this is. We've got 3 iPhones, iPad and MacBook pro in our home, they can all be in the exact same location as the iMac and the only Apple product that says "printer is offline" is the iMac. I've got two iMac's, same issue with both. It seems the only way to get it to print is to restart.

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Answer 3

rkaufmann87

Level 10

148,488 points

Oct 14, 2011 9:14 AM in response to hdulc

Try resetting the system. How you do this is in Print & Fax preference, highlight the printer on the left pane then right click and choose Reset Printing System. It will look like:

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