MFC731cdw wakes up and scans randomly

[sjlee0]

My Canon MCF731cdw printer started doing something weird. It periodically wakes up and does a scan by itself although no scan was initiated or there is no paper on the glass plate. It seems to be doing it every few minutes.

I tried canceling the spurious scan job, but it doesn't seem to stop it. Power cycling it doesn't help. I also reset the entire settings of the printer, but this continues. Does anyone know why this is happening and how I can stop it? This is getting really annoying.

Thanks.

[sjlee0]

I decided to turn off the printer for the most part and turn it on only when I need it. Not really what I want to do but we don't want to get annoyed all day...

[dexman335]

If the unit doesn't have any complex programming, try defaulting the printer and see if that resolves the issue. If that doesn't work, consider reaching out to Canon Customer Support. If they can't fix the problem, either turning it off when not in use or sending it out for repair would likely need to be next step.

[sjlee0]

Thanks. I've already tried resetting it to the factory default, but amazingly it still does it.

[dexman335 · Accepted solution]

1 more test. If the unit is connected via Ethernet, try disconnecting the cable and see if it still wakes itself up. If it is connected via WiFi, disable it and see if that changes anything. The idea is to isolate the printer from everything to see if it is receiving some sort of signal from a device. 🤔

[sjlee0]

Well, that did it. Interestingly when I disconnected from wireless connection and reconnected it, that seems to have fixed the problem. Thanks!

[dexman335]

Thank you for the update! Hopefully this resolved the issue. 🙂

[vbaliukynas]

To be honest, that's not a solution. I have the same issue at the office. Putting printer offline is not a solution because people are using it. 

[dexman335]

The solution from last year resolved the problem for the other user. What troubleshooting steps have been taken to attempt to resolve the problem for your printer?

[vbaliukynas]

• Updated firmware
• Reconnected device to the network

Also I did try to look for Scanning logs but such thing does not exist on this device. I could suspect a device on the network is attempting to scan every once in a while but without logs how the f*** I am supposed to know?