imageCLASS MF656Cdw Computer can't communicate with scanner

[KPed24]

Cannot communicate with any of the scanners. The scanners may not be connected, or may be turned off

I'm normally not so negative, but GOSH I HATE CANON! I just bought a Canon MF656CDW and have had problems with it since day 1. Why did I ever switch to Canon?! If I hadn't spent all this money on this printer and a ton of money on toner cartridges, I'd throw this brand new printer in the garbage! I'd like to demand my money back and GO BACK TO HP PRINTERS! 

I spent almost two hours on the phone with a Canon tech getting everything going fine. That lasted for two days and now I'm having issues! 

Please help me! Don't tell me to reinstall the drivers, restart the computer/printer, yada yada yada! I've done all this with a specialist a few times during my two hour phone conversation last time I called! 

[KPed24]

Hello? Why can't a consumer just purchase a Canon printer and it work? 

[shadowsports]

I was traveling. I'm back. Sorry  🙂

Thanks for all the helpful information that you provided. I think you're fairly close.  

The printer's going to behave the same, whether it is connected to Wi-Fi or to your router.  However, there's one thing that you need to take into consideration.  You want to use your router instead of what the ISP is issued.  I understand, I have a similar setup,   The only difference is that my modem and my router were both supplied by me.  

This next question is very important.  Did the technician who installed the ISP's hardware put their device into bridge or pass-through mode?

This is important because two devices performing DHCP and NAT cannot exist on the same network.  To understand what it is, you can Google double NAT.

This can occur when the ISP's modem/router is installed and you connect your own router in front of that.  If one or the other is not properly configured, a situation where two devices are performing the same roles is created.  You can only have one device performing NAT and DHCP.  It can be your device or the ISP's device but not both.  This has nothing to do with your printer, but any device that you connect to this network will likely have issues communicating.  Not only with one another but with the outside world as well.  

Based on the information you supplied, I know that 192.168.1.6 is the IP your printer has.  This is a private ISP address.  

Are you comfortable opening terminal from spotlight and running a command?

The command is >traceroute www.google.com

Then press enter.  

I then need the first three lines of the results.  

The first one should be the gateway address of your router probably 192.168.1.1. 

The next one should be a public IP address.  

Then you will see various hops until the packet sent reaches Google.  If the first two lines are private IP addresses, you have a double NAT situation.  If only the first address is private, it's likely the technician put their device in bridge or pass-through.  

Let me know what you find out.

[KPed24]

Hello Rick! Thank you for your help! Here are the first three lines that you requested:

1  192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1)  8.237 ms  34.731 ms  3.385 ms

 2  150.195.180.1 (150.195.180.1)  5.332 ms  4.382 ms *

 3  e0-60.core1.stl1.he.net (184.105.11.82)  7.974 ms  4.622 ms  8.909 ms

It looks as if I have a double NAT situation according to what you described, correct?

[KPed24]

Hey There!

I contacted my ISP about putting the modem they gave me into bridge or pass-through mode. Here is their response:

"To answer your question, the equipment we setup in the home is an ONT or Optical Network Termination and therefore does not get programmed in the traditional sense like a router being in Bridge or Gateway mode like the technician is referring to.

This would be done at the router level which we can tell is your Netgear. It is currently setup in what we would call Router/Gateway mode and pulling its public IP address from our DHCP server allowing you to get out to the internet- not Bridge/AP/ or Pass-Through. Your router in turn then operates a private DHCP server for the rest of the devices in your home and the sole provider of the NAT allowing your home to get out to the internet on a secure private network. This being the case, you should simply be able to connect the printer to the Wi-Fi SSID of your Netgear or with an ethernet cable and achieve connectivity.

Fortunately, our ONT hardware doesn't do any data processing or broadcasting so the only connection point in your network for your printer would be your Netgear router, unless you have some sort of Wi-Fi extender, in which case the extender as opposed to the main router at the ONT would be what the technician is referring to and would need to be set up in bridge/pass-through mode if that's what the printer is trying to connect to.

I know it is kind of a long-winded response, but I hope this helps 🙂 !!"

[Stephen]

I'm not a tech, but I have a bit of experience, so I'd like to offer a couple of suggestions.

1. If you haven't already, assign your printer a static IP address from your router so it has the same address every time it wakes up. This will prevent it from getting confused by the router assigning a new IP address, thereby knocking it offline.

2. Our support folks have informed me that scanning takes a solid and stable WiFi signal, so if the printer is too far from your router or access point, you may need to physically move one of your pieces of equipment to establish the connection. 

I hope this helps!

[KPed24]

Hi Stephen!

Thank you for the suggestions. Currently, the printer is connected with an ethernet to the router, not using WIFI.

Regarding your first suggestion, I'm just a "plug it in here" type of guy when it comes to networking, so I'm not familiar with assigning a static IP address to my printer to the router; if that's the solution. 

To answer your second suggestion, the printer is about six inches from the router. 

Thank you for any further help!

[normadel]

If you have not done so already, give your printer a static IP address, and make sure your router's DHCP service is aware of it and reserving that address so it is not assigned to another device. How you do that varies with different routers, so best consult the manufacturer's tech support. 

I have a Pixma printer that started out on my network via WiFi, as it doesn't have wired network connectivity. After numerous occurrences of it losing its network connection and having to be rebooted (its static IP address had not changed), I redid the installation as a USB printer connected to my primary computer. No problems since.

[shadowsports]

Hi Kped24,

Once again, thank you very much for your helpful information.  

Results of your test.  

You are ok.  Note the first IP is private 192.168.1.1, that's the Netgear router.  The second address is not private...  It's public, so there is no double NAT.  🙂

I'm not inclined to tell you to switch your connection to USB. It really defeats the purpose and convenience of a network printer.  It's fine if you're only going to be printing from one device, but if you want other devices that join the network to be able to print, a single device connection doesn't work well since that device always has to be turned on for the printer to be shared. 

Assigning a static or reserved IP to a device on your network only has to be done once.  It becomes a persistent (permanent) destination.  This means it can be pinged and is reachable 100% of the time.  On Netgear devices address reservation is performed on the la LAN menu. It's down near the bottom of the page.  Once a device has been connected to the router, all you need to do is select the radio button and press add.  On the following page, you will see a list of devices that are attached to the router. You can give the printer a unique name and specify the IP address.  You'll notice that the device's MAC address will be pre-populated for you.  Once saved, I power cycle the printer to ensure it's getting the IP you have reserved for it. 

You can verify this by opening a browser and typing in that IP, you should see the printer's web server.  You can also use the ping command from the terminal menu and you will see a reply from the IP you've assigned.

Once the above is confirmed, you'll need to correct the printer installation on your MAC.  She's done from the Apple menu system preferences, printers and scanners.  Select the printer in the list, and press the (-) minus key to remove the device.  Now restart your MAC. 

Return to the same dialogue.  This time select the icon , one from the left at the top of the add printer dialog.  Should have a little picture of a globe.  Enter the IP address you have reserved for the printer.  The same IP will populate below in the printer's name, but you can change that to something unique and meaningful to you.  CANON MF65Oc (something like that)

You can select the Canon driver in the driver dropdown dialog.  It will be selectable if you've already installed the drivers.  You should be ready to print.  Moving forward the destination of the printer will never change. The computer will know to look for the printer at the IP address you've assigned. It will always be reachable as long as the printer is on.  Doesn't matter if the printer goes to sleep or gets turned off for an extended period of time when it is woken up or turned back on the router will give it the IP you've assigned.  If you have questions, we're more than happy to answer them for you.