Problem connecting wireless Brother MFC-8870DW

Question

Level 1

0 points

Problem connecting wireless Brother MFC-8870DW

After installing Mac OS X Mountain Lion I can no longer wirelessly connect to my Brother MFC-8870DW. I have installed the updated printer and scanner drivers from Brother, which allow me to print from a USB connection, but not wirelessly. The printer does not appear as a printer to be installed when I attempt to connect wirelessly. Is there some way to have Mountain Lion recognize the wireless printer? In addition, even when connected by USB the scanner does not work with Adobe Acrobat Pro.

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.4.10)

Posted on Jul 30, 2012 8:37 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Toby1MacBook Author

Level 1

0 points

Jul 31, 2012 7:28 AM in response to Toby1MacBook

By the way, the printer is connected to the network. Despite this, and occasionally it will show as a printer to be installed. However, when I try to install it the driver gives a connection error and it never connects.

Reply

Answer 2

Toby1MacBook Author

Level 1

0 points

Jul 31, 2012 3:21 PM in response to Toby1MacBook

After five days I have resolved the issue. For those interested, Brother uses WEP encryption. It will show that you have connected to the network and the status is good. However, the router may not recognize it if the router settings are WPA or WPA-2. It will give you an IP address of 169.--- instead of a 192.---. You have to change the router settings to comply with the Brother settings. This must have been a Brother printer driver issue since all other machines still connected to the network and, before upgrading the driver when the old one did not work with Mountain Lion, only the printer was not properly connecting to the network (although it said it was connected). Had to change all encryption to comply with the Brother requirements since Brother did not allow the option of WPA or WPA-2 on that model.

Reply