My Canon drops off the wifi every once in a while. Like Mike, I am able to cycle the power and it re-connects. Good luck Lainey

 

OMG, us, or at least me, people at our age should not have to deal with this . . . . but we are not alone . . . no matter what age. At times it seems we all need a Tech Support Dept. I can't get Zoom to install, I can't figure out how to get message notifications when I need them, I can't believe how much online research is BS, ...

Lainey, I still have my notes on $200 cable modem that will save me $. But, only if it works with the other stuff too.

 

As good as wifi is today, if I can wire something, I do.

 

For some reason, printers seem to have bug-a-boo with WiFi and Bluetooth. Maybe their handshake protocols are a bit old for the more modern wireless communication? When it comes to printers and scanners, cables always works for me.

 

USB from PC to printer likely provides the most solid connection. Hard-wire connection with no switching, routing, or protocol translation involved. Ethernet from router to printer is probably more reliable than wifi although I've never tried it. My setup is PC---Ethernet Cable---Router*---WiFi---Printer. But of course the choice often comes down to the location of the devices themselves.
*Router integrated into the cable modem.

Dave, I feel your pain. I often run into tech issues I struggle to solve or just learn to live with. My IT background is some help but there are many things I could do with WindowsNT or Windows 2000 Server that I just can't accomplish in Windows 10 and up. If it wasn't so expensive to switch my entire personal tech ecosystem to Apple, I would consider going to a Mac/iPhone/MacBook. But those propretary Apple cables alone would cost more than my car.

 

why it's obvious to the most casual observer, the implementation is left to the interested student.

Does the printer have a power saving mode in the set up menu?
There is a power setting called wake on request or something similar. It basically like waking up when your phone rings.
Then there is DHCP. When your computer or a printer join the network, they get an IP address to use.
So a couple things can happen,
The problem can be the printer goes to sleep with one address. the router releases the address because it hasn't talked to the printer in a while.
When you go looking for the printer the router doesn't have a printer in it's IP lookup cache anymore.
When the router then does a does anyone know who printer is broadcast, the printer is asleep and does wake up because they aren't asking for "his IP".

Manually waking the printer put him back on the network and he will work. Sometimes....
sometimes it will wake up, reenter the network via DHCP and get a new address.
Your device remembers ( caches) it at the old address and, of course the device isn't at that address anymore.


I would suggest hard assigning the IP address as a fixed value in the router, like 192.168.0.8, Or as suggested plug a RJ45 style hardwire cord from the router for some reason this seems to work better.
Or do both. ( it's how my setup works)
In this way your PC will always ask for the same value and the router will find it easily.

my 2 cents.

 

Mike it appears we have the same setup, as mine is coax cable ---cable modem/router --- ethernet cable ---Mac --- WiFi --- Printer. All are within a few feet of each other.

I had 20 years with Windows at work/home before making the home switch to Apple. I never looked back. It was worth the extra $'s.

 

Jerry I almost understand what you posted. Almost. Not sure I could implement it. Maybe I should look to make the printer wired. Defeats the purpose of a wi-fi printer when using my laptop though.

 

the router to printer gets wired. your laptop stays on wifi.
i think we know a network guy...

 

Oh I got that....just meant if printer only works when wired printing from laptop would still be a PIA....? .it worked pretty well this afternoon though.