TR8520 offline after long idle time

[rgalverson]

We have a TR8520 printer which works great.  However, after a period of idle time, it shows up in Windows as offline.  The printer is set to never power off in the eco settings.  When windows reports it as offline, it still responds to pings of its IP address, but not to attempts to visit its web page (by entering the IP address for the URL in chrome).  The printer is connected to the internet by wired cabling.  Is there some way to keep it from going offline?

[shadowsports]

Greetings,

The printer is connected via ethernet to your network.

Is it using a reserved or static IP?

If not, try assigning it a static IP on your router or the device performing DHCP on your network.  Then retest.

[rgalverson]

Yes, I have reserved a static IP for the printer in my router.

[shadowsports]

Greetings,

Good.  So tap the printer control panel and ensure the printer is awake.

Now open a browser and enter its IP.  Can you see the printer's webserver?

If not, log into the router and view the list of attached devices.  Ensure the IP you believe is assigned to the printer is in fact what the router shows it as its connected with. 

Start with the above and verify those results.

If the IP is verified and the printer continues to go offline after a period of inactivity, I would try the following.

Open Control Panel > Device and Printers

Right-click on the printer and select remove device.

Now use the Add Printer Dialog Above.  Choose the printer I want to add is not list at the bottom of the next dialog.

Then add printer using TCP/IP radio button.  Press Next.  Now enter the Printer's IP for the Hostname or IP.  Press Next.

It should find drivers you installed previously.  If it doesn't, point it at the Canon installation directory.  Test printing.

Wait and observe if the printer goes offline again.  

[rgalverson]

When it is stuck offline, I have tried to visit the printer web page.  I get no response.  (When it is not offline, I see ink levels and login options).  In the offline state, the printer does respond to the control panel, but nothing I have tried seems to fix it besides power cycling.

Printer and router are consistent on the IP address that is being used.  It does normally work, after all.

I am waiting for it to go offline again, now.  That is, I had to print something so I power cycled it and it hasn't flaked out again yet.  I did start up a http-ping hourly on it to see if that catches it going south.

Thanks for the responses.

[rgalverson]

I caught it dying last night at 10:30pm.  Front panel completely operational, printed LAN settings list.  I was surprised at the large amount of information printed (3 pages).  It claimed no network problems.  I noticed there was a "wired LAN DRX" setting that was enabled.  I disabled it and the printer came back online (without power cycle or anything else).  I am monitoring again with http-ping to see if that was just a kick in the pants or a permanent fix.

[rgalverson]

Fail.  Unfortunately, the printer went offline again, after being idle for about 60 hours.  I toggled wired LAN DRX back to enabled and the printer came back online.  Just toggling that setting seems to reset something in the printer.

[rgalverson]

Update for anyone else suffering this.  Canon was very nice and replaced my TR8520 with a new TR8620 printer.  Unfortunately, the problem remains.  As best as I can tell, something on the computer selected as the scan target is polling the printer incessantly.  At some point the printer falls over and stop responding.  Toggling LAN DRX is the quickest way to bring it back.

[rgalverson]

Woohoo!  Canon somehow fixed this.  There was a printer firmware update that came through in December that might have done it, or maybe the driver was updated around then.  In any case, the printer has not gone offline since Dec 5, nearly a month ago.

[normadel]

There seems to be a misunderstanding here. For a printer (or, say, a NAS server on your network), you have to do TWO things:

1. On the router, you have to configure a range of IP addresses to be reserved for static IP use. It can be just one for the printer, or you can have a range of several in case you want any other static devices in the future.

2. THEN, you set the printer or whatever to have a static IP address (from the range you set aside in the router) rather than using DHCP.

Both things have to be done, or things can get confused.

On my home network, I have six devices with static IP addresses...four printers and two NAS file servers.