Canon MX340 wireless printer no longer connecting over wireless and coming up with "a communications error has occured"

You really should take this to Canon. Given the number of printers out there, the probability that one person around here knows anything about the printer with the MBP is fairly small.

OrangeMarlin-

It appears you only have an interest in directing, or should I write, re-directing, posters to this resource service to anything other than Apple consumers. Please let other concerned Apple consumers to post problems and/or solutions without the implied insults and innuendos. It truly doesn't lend to an open dialogue. You've, in essence, shut down any responses to this concern by a loyal consumer. I hope that others will provide some guidance to this individual's question.

I was JUST looking up to see whether anyone had this problem too with a macbook pro and this printer (the joys of google). I have this exact printer and the same thing just happened. It's actually been happening a lot and turning off the printer has sometimes worked, but not tonight. My blood pressure was going up, when I decided to turn off the printer, but this time also quit the printer application (go to top left tabs and quit the MX340). Then I turned on the printer on again, and simply pressed 'print' from my pdf document which automatically opened up the pinter application again. This time it printed.

I hope it works for you. These things can be infuriating!

Ocleaver

Thanks for the info. I use the mx870 and I get a communication error each time I take my laptop on business trips and then come home only to get a "communication error has occurred." instead of uninstalling the drivers and then reinstalling them, I will try your suggestion. I hope JimboJoey finds value in your post.

I have the 340 and the same problem. I am not happy with this; I did not buy this printer to have to keep fiddling around every few weeks to get wifi printing working again. Sometimes, turning the printer off and on works; sometimes it does not. Sometimes, deleting the print job, pausing the printer and restarting and printing again works. Sometimes, setting up again works. Nothing works consistently. Waste of my money.

I had no problems with my MX870 with Snow Leopard for a year. Only when I installed Lion. To get the printer to work again, I'm needing to delete the printer drivers, reinstall them from the Canon site, follow all the directions and then it works again. If I didn't have the issues when I was using Snow Leopard, I suspect maybe it's the Lion OS?

I have an iMac, a MBP and MP980 Canon wireless printer. The MBP has Snow Leopard and has never had a communications problem that I can remember. The iMac is on Lion now but Before upgrading I may have had communications problems on a few occasions. With Lion I get them regularly along with a number of other system quirks that were not there with SL. I have the latest drivers installed.

The problem occurs maybe nine out of ten attempts at printing.

I find that if I bring up the printer window, click pause and then resume, it will work (print). Sometimes it takes two or three cycles. Annoying, but it works. I would prefer to go back to the SL level of reliability.

Ditto!

MacAir/Lion - problematic printing on mx340 wireless - pause->resume does the trick.

MBP/SnowLeopard - no problems printing.

I think the Lion developres have to look into the isuue.

I also have a macbook pro with Snow Lion. Same printing problem with Canon MP560. This is a new problem in the last few weeks. Sometimes it works and sometimes it comes up with Communication Error. I feel like it is related to my mac allowing the printer wireless access but don't know why it is intermittent. I can't say that any one thing works every time.

At least I'm not the only one going crazy. I have Canon MX340 and two new Macbook Air's (Refurbed mid-2011). They are both updated to OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion). By searching within the Mac's driver files, I was able to create both a connects/USB printer profile and a wirless profile on of Macbook Air. Somehow I got it print, both connected and wirelessly. Then I tried to replicate the same process on the 2nd Air and can not for the life of me, repeat what I had done. So in going back to the first Air to see how I did it, I was not able to print either way. So , I down loaded the drivers direct from Canon site. I was able to get the connected profile to print, but now the Air can't even find the new wireless driver when "adding" printer.

I'm sooo frustrated with this.

I was fine with my macbookpro until this August when I took my printer elsewhere to scan some photos using a printer cord. Upon my return, it had lost it's ability to 'see' my MX340 canon. It says that the printer is offline. I can still print with a cord but cannot get it to work wireless. I have turned on and off, pause and resume, restart printer, restart computer. I have OS 10.6.8 (I have lost track of which cat is which). No other computer in the house can print to it either. Do you figure I have to uninstall all the printer stuff and reinstall on all the computers?

I realize it's been six months, but my Canon MX340 started acting odd only the last couple of days. Seems to be the same problem some here have experienced: the computer (Windows ... which I loathe ... I'm saving up for a Mac Mini, but ...) can't locate the printer wirelessly. Using it with a cord isn't really practical given the layout of the desk, so the only thing that's working is unplugging it, waiting 10 seconds, and plugging it in again. Really annoying to have to do that every single time I want to print. Anyone figured out a work-around yet? I downloaded the two drivers that are listed on the Canon site, which seems to have had the bizarre effect of messing up the router information. Maybe there's no connection, but the minute I restarted the PC after downloading the drivers, I lost the network on both iPads and the iPhone. Restored the PC to a couple of days back and everything's working again -- well, except the printer. WTH???

I had the same MX340 problem. My printer was working fine over WiFi connection to my Airport Extreme for years and then suddenly, about a month ago, it stopped printing after the first print job. I can print once and then I have to power-cycle the printer to get it to print another time and then I have to repeat the power-cycle.

The printer seems to be "forgotten" by the network or lose its connection after the first print job.

On my MacBookPro 10.6.8 I get the error code 300...yadayadayad... On my iMac 10.5.8 it just says :communications error".

HERE IS THE FIX - I got it off this link - http://www.techsurvivors.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=24681

You have to connect to the MX340 using the printer cable that came with the printer (or any USB printer cable) and set up a hardwired USB printer queue. Then print a couple of print jobs - I use TextEdit and type in "1234". Then try the same thing but select your WiFi print queue - I just type another line on the same sheet of paper with TextEdit.

The WiFi connection should work again. I did this a few more times and then disconnected the USB cable and now it continues to work without the USB print queue being used. I can also print to the WiFi queue with my iMac.

If you still have problems I suggest you set up the printer again on the WiFi router using the "print cable connection" method. Here's a link to a webpage someone kindly provided instructions for the process:

http://machinesaredigging.com/2011/04/08/how-to-install-the-printer-canon-mx340- wi-fi-without-the-cd-on-mac/

Good luck!