Wireless printer disconnect from WiFi

[tan_tran81]

Hi Guys,

This is my first post topic.

We have a strange problem with wireless network dropping out on printers.

Our network has couples of  AIR-CAP3502I (around 60 of them) and WLC4404 . Most of those AIR CAP are located at our retail stores and running in HREAP mode. SSID is configured as local switching / central authen with WPA2 / AES.

It works perfectly fine on laptop / and other mobile device but just not printers. We tried Brother and HP wireless printer and they're both having same issue.

Every now and then, printer disconnected from wireless network. It is shown as associated on controller, but we can't ping it at all from local network to the printer

The funny thing is, when this happened, we could ping the printer from Head office. (I forgot to mention, we have MPLS network between stores and HO, router is also Cisco gear).

Only way to fix this is reboot the printer.

Has anyone bump into this situation before?

Many thank,

Tandy

[Rasika Nayanajith]

See whether enabling "passive client" feature  on the WLAN makes any difference.  Below post may help to understand what it will do (even it is not directly relate to your H-REAP scenario, it may help)

http://mrncciew.com/2013/03/13/passive-clients/

HTH

Rasika

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[tan_tran81]

Hi all,

Anyone please help?

Sent from Cisco Technical Support iPhone App

[jones0170]

I would work on trying to isolate the problem first. Create a new WLAN, just for the printers. My guess is these printers go into power saving mode and that actually requires a higher DTIM setting, than your other devices that can listen more often.

If you create a new WLAN for the printers, try to test them in just WPA. If they work, this may be a firemware issue with the printers and updating them could get WPA2 to work.

Firmare... make sure that both your printers and your APs have the latest firmware updates (you would be surprised). I have run into HP issues frequently and they are solved frequently with updating firmware. Also check your WLC firmware for updates.

Only other thing I can see that may be an issue was the number of clients. Is there a specific reason why it lists exactly 25? 25 seems like some sort of set number (IMO). Make sure you are not limiting the max amount of clients on the AP to 25 somewhere. If a printer goes to sleep and your DTIM wants responses, its going to let on the 25 clients that are responding and will drop anything that is not responding.

Good luck and happy hunting!

[singewingy]

If this happens, go to Settings > Devices > Printers & Scanners, select your printer, and remove it. Then click Add a Wireless Printer or Scanner to re-add it to the device list. Incredibly (and frustratingly), this often gets things up and running again.