Apparent problem with Canon Pixma MG5250 printer

I've been trying to help an elderly friend who lives 30-40 minutes drive away with print problems with his Canon Pixma MG5250 printer.

It's connected via WiFi to his router and hence to his Windows 7 Home Premium desktop PC. He also has a Brother laser printer connected via USB to the PC.

The problems seem to start a little while ago when he emailed me saying he couldn't get it to print. I went over to have a look round, indeed I've been over 3 or 4 times in the past 10 days or so. I was there yesterday afternoon and, as usual, it printed fine both for him and for me. Late last night I got an email to say it wasn't printing.

Whenever I've tried to print to the Canon it's worked fine. Whenever I've been there and my friend has tried to print to it it's worked fine.

Typically within a day or so of being there I get an email to say it's not printing. There are no error messages, it just fails to print.

One thing I found was that he was switching off the printer using the wall switch rather than powering the printer down with its own power switch. Correcting this approach didn't make any difference.

I reinstalled the printer driver, though it was already at the latest version, no difference.

Going through the way he prints - when I'm there - has not revealed any problem. He typically uses Panasonic PHOTOfunSTUDIO to print his photographs.

The problem I have is that it always prints ok when I'm there so trying to work out what's going wrong is tricky. It's easy to say it must be cockpit trouble but that's not helpful when you can't say or see what the actual trouble is.

One thing I've not shown him how to do is to check via the printer status icon on the PC that the printer is actually on-line when it fails to print, certainly the blue WiFi light on the printer is lit but that, I presume, only means it's connected to the WiFi network, i.e. the router, no necessarily the PC itself.

I'm thinking that perhaps connect it via a USB cable, it's within a 5-metre cable run so that point is ok.

Any thoughts?

I'd certainly try 'hardwiring'. I have a wireless HP all-in-one that works faultlessy over wifi with my wifes' ipad but caused intermittent problems on my laptop until I stuck a USB cable in to connect the laptop. It's now happy both with the ipad over wi-fi and the laptop on USB.

I suspect that distance from my router had something to do with it but I haven't pursued it any further now it works

I've just had a Windows Remote Assistance session with him.

Once again the printer did nothing, but I saw a status message Printer not responding. I logged into the router and no sign of the printer. Got him to power the printer down and back up, still no joy.

Clearly there's a wireless issue (the router is about 6ft from the printer). One thing I forgot to check was whether the router wireless mode was actually on, so I'm hoping to get another Remote session before I go over on Friday evening to cable it up.

It's all worked fine until a month or two ago so something has changed or is beginning to fail.

One thing I've noticed about my wireless Epson printer is that though it works perfectly it rarely shows in the router's Attached Devices list.

I'm wondering whether the router only shows it when it's actually printing?

My router is a Netgear DG834GT. My friends router is also Netgear, though not the same as mine.

I remember that the Netgear DG834GT's Attached Devices list could be a bit unreliable.

Another Remote Assistance session this evening.

His wife's laptop connected wirelessly and showed in the router's Attached Devices list. No sign of the printer. The Canon printer utility also reported Printer not available.

I noticed the router (Netgear DGN1000) had been switched on for several days so I asked him to power it down and restart it. After doing this, and establishing a new Remote Assistance session, I looked at the Canon utility. It reported Printer Available, the router's device list also showed the printer. Tried printing, it worked fine .

So power cycling the router, without power cycling the printer, made it all work.

Power cycling the printer without power cycling the router made no difference to the printer's 'unavailable' state.

So clearly in some way the router is 'losing' the printer. I readily admit I don't know enough about the DHCP aspects, etc. In my ignorance I'm speculating (and this may be completely silly) something along the lines that the router's lease expires and doesn't get renewed. Perhaps if the printer is not on line at renewal time? But if that were the case shouldn't the router get a new lease when the printer is switched on. It seems to be some sort of DHCP problem nevertheless.

I've no idea what firmware version is in the router and whether there is a later version that (might) address this sort of problem.

I'm going over there Friday evening to check further. Given the printer is only about 6 ft physically from the PC, 3-5 metre cable run, I'll take a couple of USB cables and, if its acceptable to him and his wife, I'll reinstall the printer via USB. As far as I know his wife doesn't use the printer from either her desktop or laptop.

One quick question.

When, in effect, changing a PC from wireless connection to USB connection, is it necessary completely reinstall it or what?

In reply to a post by cheshire_man:

When, in effect, changing a PC from wireless connection to USB connection, is it necessary completely reinstall it or what?

I wouldn't worry about it - should be plug-n-play. Plug it in and make the USB one the default printer and then if you want remove the wireless one to avoid confusion.

Edited by longedge (Thu 01-Aug-13 22:29:03)

Why use a USB cable rather than a network cable? And, if your friend doesn't want long cables snaking over the living room, consider powerline adapters. You can get a pair for £25 or less nowadays and, in my experience, they provide a reliable, secure connection.

OK - scrap that suggestion! No wired network connection on that printer.

Edited by deleted (Fri 02-Aug-13 09:01:06)

Personally I would see if it is possible to change the print network config to give it a static IP address somewhere towards the top of the DHCP pool - that way the printer doesn't have to rely on picking up an address from the router.

It's also possible that perhaps the printer is for some reason not doing the security handshake with the router properly. My mum has an HP printer and most of the time it worked fine but just occasionally it would not connect to the wireless so I ended up just using it on USB.

The PC & printer is in his study - a generous term so cable run is not an issue. It's just that when he bought it and I set it up for him he felt he liked the idea of it being wireless, though no real reason, just seemed a good idea at the time.

It's still working today but I'll go over this evening and have another look around and, quite probably, USB it.