Yesterday, as she was headed out to the gym, the wife tossed over her shoulder that her printer wasn’t working. A simple request for her IT person (a.k.a. me).
Simple, right? Ha ha hahahahahaha.
Log into her computer, and sure enough, the printer is offline. Poke and peek around and it looked like it just couldn’t see it.
Then I tried with my laptop. Same problem. Crap.
I should pause here and say that we have a Brother HL–2270DW monochrome laser with both an ethernet and WiFi connection. I set it up originally when we lived in Tucson, and apart from toner cartridges, and a new printing drum, it has been rock solid. A great performer.
But it appears that it lost its mind. So off to the internet, and the troubleshooting procedures. It was simple to reset the printer to its as-shipped state. Downloaded the setup wizard. Fuck, it need Java. So I had to install Java.
A second aside. I hate Oracle. Long, Apple had maintained a clean version of Java installed by default on OS X, and it almost always just worked. But some petty bullshit arguments, and Apple just stopped supplying Java. So, now I have to fucking install it, and be sure that I don’t let it install the goddamn Yahoo menubar in my fucking browser(s). Fuck you Sun for signing that deal and fuck you Oracle for being assholes.
With Java installed, I began the wizard to stup the printer. I tried the with WPS. Several times. It failed.
I tried the direct connection, with a USB cable. Several times. They all failed.
I moved the printer next to the Cable modem/router, as it recommended it. They both failed.
I logged into the router, and checked the connected devices. No surprise, the printer wasn’t connected.
I went round, and round, and ROUND and ROUND. No luck. I even dug out an ethernet cable, and plugged it in. Suddenly I could connect.
In the interim, I must have reset the printer 10 times, activated and deactivated the WiFi interface repeatedly.
Then I had an epiphany. My router has two bands, two SSID’s, one for 5GHz, and one for 2.4GHz. I thought I would try to connect with the slower radio, the 2.4GHz, with my laptop. (SSID = “cartman”)
Crap, it was dead. I reboot the router, and son of a bitch, all the spooled documents in the queue started spitting out of the printer.
Total time: 3.5 hours.
Not what I wanted to do on a Saturday.
