imageCLASS MF451dw Printer Goes to Sleep and Goes Offline

[heisenberg832]

Ever since I purchased this printer, no one in the house with iPhones and ipads are able to detect the Canon printer at all. That is, unless you physically walk to the printer and wake it up. As soon as the printer is off standby, all iOS devices can see the Canon and print to it, and then the problem happens again after the printer goes back to sleep. I called twice about this issue now and no one can knows how to fix it.

Troubleshooting Steps Taken:
- Set static IP for both the wifi and LAN device mac addresses for the printer and 

IPs and rebooted the the printer.
- Tried all default settings as well as 
- Tried adding the printer's IP to my router's DMZ.
- Initialized the printer multiple times and made sure the newest firmware is installed.
- I set up the printer for LAN ethernet and WiFi, but neither settings were successful.
-Tried adding the coordinates in the Airprint settings even though I never heard of such a thing.
- I reconnected my Brother printer which works with AirPrint even when asleep and this new Canon that I bought, and the key selling point was Airprint and this printer can't do that when it's asleep, then this printer us a paperweight to me.

Anyone else have this problem?

[heisenberg832 · Accepted solution]

I have an extensive 25-year IT background and this issue had me seriously stumped. I have 2 iPhone 13 Pros, 1 iPhone 13, 2 iPhone 11s (you can see we have a favorite child), 4 iPad Air 4s, an M1 Macbook Pro, an M2 Mac Mini, 5 PCs or so, 1 NAS, 1 Linux server, two POE APs, and 9 POE/WiFi surveillance cameras. Not bragging, just trying to save time with the PEBKAC-level suggestions. Now that that's out of the way, on to the good stuff.

I was able to print to this printer with everything except for Apple devices. After exhausting all troubleshooting steps with both the printer and my router, I started looking at Apple, but I didn't know how because I upgraded from a Brother printer that also had Airprint capabilities and we NEVER had a problem printing to it from our phones and tablets.

Turns out there are two settings you have to turn off in your Apple device's wifi settings. So you would go to your wifi list, tap the ! next to the one you're connected to, and make sure your device and the printer are on the same network. After you tap ! next to your wifi connection in Settings > wifi, disable "Private Wi-Fi Address"...yes you will get a warning, proceed anyway, then disable "Limit IP Address Tracking".

I was able to successfully reproduce this repeatedly. I tried disabling one at a time and neither worked, only disabling both of those options allowed my iPhone 13 Pro to detect my Canon MF451DW and print to it.

Two phone calls to Cannon tech support regarding this issue and they clearly weren't aware of this issue. If anyone at Cannon support is reading this, add this to your KB.

[smtips]

This doesn't work. I have a Mac on a wired connection. How would you go about following this when you have a wired connection? Sure I can still print. If I get up, go over, and tap the printer screen. Very annoying to have to do this.

[KPtexas]

This solution did not work for me. I have tried toggling the "Sleep Mode" on the printer, as Canon recommends. I have tried the solution above to no avail, also.

There has to be a fix for this. As everyone in my house prints from iPhones or iPads. The Canon goes to sleep whether it's on Sleep Mode or not. And, you have to physically wake it up for it to show on the network. And, worse, sometimes you have to power off/on to get it to show up.

My Brother printer has no problems. Always shows up and wakes up when printed to.

[pinthea]

There's another post here that recommends going into the printer's menu for wireless networking and turning off the setting for WiFi power management.  He said it will make accessing the printer more responsive, and it might help with this issue too.  I just set the setting as recommended and will try it out.  So sad that a several-hundred-dollar networked printer has to be physically touched and woken up each time you want to print to it.

UPDATE:

Yes, I made this setting.  After the printer went to sleep it didn't make any difference, it was still "offline".

SOLUTION:

What made the whole problem go away is that I did this:

1.  Setup the printer with a static IP address (don't use DHCP).  It doesn't matter if you're printing wirelessly or have it connected via ethernet.  This is critical because you'll need the static IP address later in these steps.  After you have done so, restart the printer and ensure that it's using the static IP address.

2.  Download the latest drivers from Canon's website.  Install them.  (YMMV whether or not this will all work when trying to connect via AirPrint from your Mac, I used Canon's drivers.)

3.  Remove the printer from MacOS.  Remove the Fax too if you have an entry for that.  Reboot if you want to, never hurts after doing something like this.

4.  Add the printer.  DO NOT use the first tab where it auto-detects and finds it via Bonjour.  Instead go to the 2nd tab (that looks like a globe) and add it using the IP address that you established in the previous step.  IPP is the default protocol, keep it.  Then you MUST select in the "Use" field the printer driver you installed in the previous step.

As far as I can tell, step 4 is important because it tells the driver "always find the printer at this IP address" and bam, even when it's asleep, I can print to it from my Mac, even via WiFi, when I couldn't before.
This raises the question "what about my iPhones and iPads?" where you don't actually install any print drivers and it relies on AirPrint?  I don't know, I haven't toyed around with that just yet.  But these steps got me printing even after the printer went to sleep and would otherwise have shown as offline.  I hope this works for you.

[smtips]

You said "4. Add the printer. DO NOT use the first tab where it auto-detects and finds it via Bonjour. Instead go to the 2nd tab (that looks like a globe) and add it using the IP address that you established in the previous step."

This is not an option at all. You get one choice to install as Bonjour on a wired connection. Under the "Use" dropdown when adding it, it says "Canon MF450 Series" or "Canon MF450 Series CARPS2." That's it. I just downloaded and installed the drivers from Canon's site, on a NEW install of Mac OS. There is nothing interfering here, nothing from before or anything. So I have no idea why you are saying "IPP is the default protocol" cuz that's just not a thing.