The One (most likely) Reason Your Wireless Printer Isn't Working

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 This week I've helped three people who told me they couldn't print and needed new printers.

Now it's no coincidence our area also lost power for a while. Whenever we lose power I know the printer questions are coming.

For you to be able to send something to your wireless printer both the printer and the device you're trying to print from need to be on the same wireless network.*

What tends to happen after a power outage of any length or if you've unplugged your printer or router to clean or move things around is that when the power comes back on for whatever reason the printer either refuses to connect to your network or it connects to another, possible stronger, network that is in range.

When you go to print something from your phone, tablet or computer that is not on the same network as the printer nothing happens because your phone, tablet or computer can't see the printer. It moved to another neighborhood.

The fix for this is to get your printer back on the right network. How this is done varies from printer to printer. If you're lucky you'll have a nice big screen on the printer to work with. If you don't have a nice big screen the next easiest way to get your printer back on the right network is to pretend it's brand new and go through the original setup steps for it.

If you need help with this now would be a good time to revisit my post about finding manuals here: Where did all the Manuals Go?



*There are exceptions to this of course but that discussion goes beyond the scope and target audience of this blog.

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