I just purchased a Brother MFC-7860DW printer/copier/fax. I have a Macbook Air with OS X 10.6.8 and use a router....Wireless
The instructions tell me to download a driver (which one??) and insert the CD Rom......I do not have a CD Rom. Now what do I do?
Thanks for any help....I need simple step by step directions! Sorry!!
Pat
MacBook Air
Did you ever get your printer installed and was it via wireless connection? I'm so frustrated right now it isn't funny.
Every modern Brother Printer I have installed comes with 2 (sometimes 3) discs, 1 For Win7, 1 for other versions of Windows and 1 for OSX (Mac) what did you do with yours?
The cd that comes with the Brother MFC-7860DW is only good for a Mac OS 10.6 or earlier. I had to go out and manually download the drivers required to install this printer. Oh and the other gotcha that I learned...the network password can't be larger than 16 characters as you have to use the printer LCD screen to enter in the network key and it only goes up to 16 characters. These are all things that should be delivered with the user guide. Brother's materials for Mac users is crap as far as I'm concerned.
phhennessey wrote:
The cd that comes with the Brother MFC-7860DW is only good for a Mac OS 10.6 or earlier. I had to go out and manually download the drivers required to install this printer. Oh and the other gotcha that I learned...the network password can't be larger than 16 characters as you have to use the printer LCD screen to enter in the network key and it only goes up to 16 characters. These are all things that should be delivered with the user guide. Brother's materials for Mac users is crap as far as I'm concerned.
The current OSX driver may be downloaded from Brothers site, just like any other printer manufacturer offers.
Jerome Del Ray wrote:
Thank you but I don't have a Brother printer.
I am running 10.8.2 on a macbook pro and just got off the phone with the applecare people. This is apparently a problem on Brother's end as phennessey mentioned. Their driver is incompatible and needs updating. My mac had no problem communicating with my MFC-9840CDW, but hates the 7860. I have a co-worker with a macbook that has connected to it, but she isn't running Mountain Lion. Looks like higher than 10.6 will be tethered by USB until Brother gets an date out.
I just installed this printer with no problems with OSX 10.8.2. First, I used the LCD panel and menus on the printer to enable a Wireless connection. Then, I didn't use the included CD. Instead, I went to Apple > System Preferences > Print & Scan, and my iMac "saw" the printer on my network. It asked about installing and I said OK. Then the iMac downloaded the correct driver from Apple (?) and all was well. Works fine for printing and for scanning as pdf.
I also installed this printer wirelessly on my mac 10.8.5 with a little difficulty, but couldn't get it to scan. Thanks for your input radio50, as it worked perfectly the way you explained it and am now able to scan.
I had the same problem somehow there was way, it took me a few months on time that I could spare, I just kept plugging it it before I somehow miraculously got it working, but then I upgraded from Mountain Lion to Yosemite and it stopped working. I really do not know how I did it the first time but know that somehow without having to buy anything it is possible, but am again stumped.
I count the downloads I've downloaded to no avail.
i'm having the same problems. i've also noticed the printer seems to forget its IP address and settings from time to time! 😟
Douglasarchibald wrote:
I count the downloads I've downloaded to no avail.
Am I supposed to understand what that means.
Start your own thread, this one is 2 years old. Explain your problem in it.
Very poorly supported with 10.8.2. The Install package on the Brother site runs but no installer utility is installed from the package anywhere. Simply trying to add the printer to the Mac (even USB) fails when downloading drivers from Apple. I am going to take Radio50s advice, dig the manual out and try to install the printer on the network from the LCD panel then add it. Either that or install it from a PC laptop (that software probably works)) to get it on the network. Then add the printer to the Mac.
After HOURS upon HOURS of tech support (and even lugging the stupid thing to an Brother-authorized service center, it dawned on me to simply assign a static IP to the MFC on my network. I can't say why it worked, because it was previously using DHCP addresses for over a year on my 4th gen Time Capsule just fine...but with the 5th gen TC, this stupid MFC-7860DW does not know how to connect to the router (TC) once it falls asleep. I suppose it could also be an issue with the 5th gen TC, but I saw nothing I could change in the Airport utility to fix this.
So try to assign a static IP, and hopefully this will work.
How do I install Brother MFC-7860DW printer?
