Canon MF632Cdw shows as Offline after a few hours - MacOS High Sierra 10.13.2

[cinergi]

Hello,

When I install my Canon MF632Cdw printer driver (v10.9.0) using Bonjour under macOS High Sierra 10.13.2, the printer works fine initially.  However, after a few hours it shows as Offline and I can no longer print to it.  If I look at the list of Bonjour printers in macOS Preferences (as if I'm adding a new printer), the MF632Cdw shows up only as a "Scanner".  If I reboot either my Mac or the printer, it is fine again (Online) and shows up as "Bonjour Multifunction", as it should.  A few hours later, it goes offline again.

Any idea how to fix this?  I'm not sure if it's a Canon or macOS issue, but my other Canon Bonjour printer on the same LAN (an older MF4150) doesn't have this problem and is always stable.

Thanks,

cinergi

[MichaelBender]

I have been having the same issues with my Canon MF733C and my Canon 6230. There is an ongoing thread in the Apple discussion forums: macOS High Sierra drops printer connection and the workaround is to configure your printer/scanner with a fixed IP address and use that fixed IP address with the LPD protocol for printing and configure the Canon scan utility with that fixed IP address for scanning. This works, but requires a lot of things to get correct (such as making sure your router doesn't hand out a duplicate DHCP address to something other than your printer).

I've done some mDNS tracking (described in the Apple discussions thread) which seems to point to High Sierra dropping Bonjour devices much more quickly than Sierra or previous OS X releases did. This could also be a Canon printer firmware bug in that the printer might need to broadcast it's existance more frequently than it does, and so High Sierra might have tightened up the amount of time it is willing to wait for a device heartbeat before deciding the device is gone.

[cinergi]

Thanks, in my case the problem turned out to be completely unrelated to Bonjour as I initially suspected.  The MF632Cdw's built-in Wi-Fi hardware seems to have a very bad (low-gain) antenna, resulting in poor signal quality and consequently, dropped packets.  I discovered this when I noticed a high % of lost pings to the printer.  I fixed the issue by using an external Wi-Fi to Ethernet bridge connected to the printer's Ethernet port.  No more lost pings and no more issues with Bonjour.

Since then, I've found a few other Internet forum posts discussing the MF632Cdw's Wi-Fi issues.  Great printer, except for the Wi-Fi.

-cinergi

[James_C]

Hi cinergi,                 

Please delete and add the printer to the queue.

Please open [System Preferences] > [Printers & Scanners].  Next, click the [-] sign under the printer list to delete the printer.  Once the printer has been removed, please follow the instructions below to add the printer back to the window:

1. Click the [+] icon.
If another dialog box does not appear, click [Add Other Printer or Scanner] or [Add Printer or Scanner] after clicking the [+] icon.

2. Register the printer and fax.

2-B. TCP/IP Connection.

2-B-1. Click [IP], and select a print protocol from [Protocol].

If you want to use the machine in an IPv6 environment, select LPD or Socket for [Protocol].

2-B-2. Enter the IP address of the machine to [Address], and select either one of the following options from [Print Using] or [Use]: [Select Printer Software], or [Select Software].

2-B-3. Select a driver that is capable for this machine from the driver list, and click [OK].

2-B-4. Click [Add].

3. Check that this machine is added to the [Print & Fax], [Print & Scan], or [Printers & Scanners] dialog box.

4. Close the dialog box.

If you continue to have difficulties, please contact our support group using the following link:

http://Canon.us/ContactLI