Wi-Fi Pod and printer connection/disconnection, printer not detected problems

[Guy10]

Hello community. Since I have installed a pod to extend my home Wi-Fi network, my printer continually disconnects from the network, like if it did not know if it should connect to the main router or to the pod. The only way to get it to reconnect is to shut if off. Then it reconnects for a while, and disconnects again.

Thanks for any suggestion,

Guy10

[dks]

The Wireless Checkup app, which can be found on the Bell web page, might be a useful place to start. It will give you an ideas of where problems are in your network and propose fixes. I have used it and found it very useful. 

[BellPatricia · Accepted solution]

Hey there @Guy10, thanks for reaching out and welcome to the Bell Community.

Great suggestion from @dks.

Have you had a chance to check out the Bell Wi-Fi app? You can learn more about using the app, and troubleshooting your Wi-Fi network right on out website What is the Bell Wi-Fi app and how do I use it?

We also recommend checking out this helpful support page What are Whole Home Wi-Fi pods and how do I use them?where there are some tips for best performance of your pods.

Let the Community know how everything is going.

- Patricia

[Gal613]

I installed a Bell Wifi Pod on our home network and now our Canon wireless printer shows offline on my laptop.  I rebooted the laptop and my document in the print queue printed but then the printer went offline again.

I installed the Bell Wifi app on my phone and checked the status of the printer.  It indicates Excellent signal but in the diagram it appears to be connecting through the Pod to our Home Hub 2000. 

Is there a way to have it connect remotely to the Home Hub 2000 without going through the Pod?  The printer is on the same floor of the house as the Home Hub 2000 and the Pod is on another floor.

Do I need to setup the Wifi connection of the printer again (using the modem WPS button)?

This seems to be the same problem as @Guy10

[Gal613]

I ran the Wi-Fi checkup  from the MyBell app and the scan resulted in the message that the network is running well. Everything is installed and running well. I suspect that the Bell pod doesn't communicate well with the printer and it doesn't return info from the printer back to the laptop. 

[dks]

---

@Gal613 wrote:

I installed a Bell Wifi Pod on our home network and now our Canon wireless printer shows offline on my laptop.  I rebooted the laptop and my document in the print queue printed but then the printer went offline again.

I installed the Bell Wifi app on my phone and checked the status of the printer.  It indicates Excellent signal but in the diagram it appears to be connecting through the Pod to our Home Hub 2000. 

Is there a way to have it connect remotely to the Home Hub 2000 without going through the Pod?  The printer is on the same floor of the house as the Home Hub 2000 and the Pod is on another floor.

Do I need to setup the Wifi connection of the printer again (using the modem WPS button)?

This seems to be the same problem as @Guy10

---

Your printer should connect to the pod. That's is the way the pod system works. In fact the system itself is continually testing itself to find the best connection. At the same time it can take 24-48 hours of connection (and even disconnection) for it to find the best connection. I noticed this in my own system recently when I discovered one pod was being relayed through another pod, with a weak connection. I did two things. First, I moved a paper shredder which was sitting next to the pod and then I moved one pod to another room. It turns out the paper shredder, which has a powerful motor, was interfering with the radio connection of the pod. Moving the shredder allowed the post to connect directly with the modem. Moving another pod to another room gave a better connection to the modem. I used the Wi-Fi app to show all of this to myself. It also took 24 hours for the system to test itself and find the most efficient connection. 

In response to your idea about running WPS again to reconnect the printer, that's a good idea. I had one printer of the three in the house what was a bit reluctant to connect, but after tweaking the pods and running WPS again there have been no more issues. As I have said before, sometimes it is trial and error.  

[LearningToKnow]

This is a problem that started a few weeks ago. No changes to hardware. We have a Gigahub and two pods (wi-fi 6e). Our Brother wireless printer is not detected unless the device we're printing from is connected to the same pod as the printer, or if we unplug both pods so all devices are connected to the Gigahub. 

[dks · Accepted solution]

Thank you for your question. I have three Brother computers and five Bell pods myself. One solution I have found when the printer is not properly detected and will not print (yes, it happens occasionally) is to reconnect the printer to the network by shutting off the printer wireless and re-entering the wireless network connection credentials. This reestablishes the wireless connection between your printer and computer. Another solution is to use a Cat5e network cable to plug the printer directly into the pod, so the printer detects the connection as a wired connection. You can also see the status in real time of all your pods and connected devices and by using the Bell Wi-Fi app on a smartphone. The app is available from the App Store or Google Play. 

[LearningToKnow]

Thank you. I should have mentioned that I do use the Wi-Fi app. It was the way I determined that the printer was only being detected by the devices connected to the same pod. I did try re-establishing the credentials on the printer. A cable connection is not impossible but not practical either. What is curious (to me at least) is that the printer was working fine on the 4 mini-pod network we set up in mid-2019, and was also working fine with the 6E pods we replaced the mini-pods with in mid-2023. Given the robust connection history, why it stopped working a few weeks ago has me puzzled.

[WAYNE905]

Was anyone able to get this resolved? It is very frustrating trying to print from a Mac via air print. I have to keep turning off the machine to print. However, on my work laptop, which is a PC it has no problems printing, including waking up the printer. This doesn't make sense.

[dks]

Thank you for the clarification. If the printer works on the PC and pods, the issue may be with your Mac or Air Print and how it relates to the pods. I just checked my own iPhone and iPad on my pods and they can print without difficulty. All Brother printers show up and print. Is the OS up to date on your Mac? And are there firmware updates to be applied on your printers? 

[WAYNE905]

My computer is up to date. It's running Sequoia 15.3.1.  and my iPad is up to date as well.  I've updated the firmware on the printer, and Bell tech support even pushed through a firmware update on my modem....still with no luck

[BellPatricia]

Hey there @WAYNE905 

Thank you for reaching out to the Bell community and for the troubleshooting you have tried so far 🙂

Can you share what type of printer you have?

A few suggestions that you can try are:

• Check your Firewall: Temporarily disable your Mac's firewall to see if that resolves the issue. If it does, you will need need to configure your firewall to allow AirPrint traffic.
• Check Compatibility: Verify that your printer model is fully compatible with AirPrint and the version of macOS you're using. 
• Reinstall Printer on your device: In your Mac's System Preferences, remove the printer and then add it again. This can sometimes help resolve driver-related problems.
• Sleep/Wake Settings (Printer): The printer itself might have sleep/wake settings that need to be configured correctly for each device.

Let the Community know how everything is going,

@BellPatricia 

[LearningToKnow · Accepted solution]

We have a Brother printer. Similarly, it was printing fine wirelessly from our wintel PCs, but wasn't visible from our iPads. All firmware/operating systems up-to-date, and the Bell wi-fi app showed excellent connection. On the printer touchscreen, I found a setting "enable/allow internet access". It wasn't until that was turned on that the printer became visible to our iPads. I'm not knowledgeable enough to know why that would be.

[JDHodge]

Has anyone determined root cause on this?  I have four Pods, and two HP Laserjet pro printers.  Our computers are Macs.  All software/firmware is current.  Printers lose connection every 2-3 weeks, and it takes me forever to get them back online, and I never really determine what I 'changed' or 'fixed'.  I usually unplug both printers and all pods, reboot our Gigahub, reboot our computers and then plug the Pods and printers back in.  I then spend another hour or so on each computer thinking with various settings trying to figure it out, when seemingly like magic they connect.  The issue doesn't seem to be the printers connecting to wifi - I can see them in the Bell WIFI app, but I think it is an issue with AirPrint not broadcasting across either the Pods, or frequencies.   One of the printers shows an error in its status report that there are multiple SSID's broadcasting with the same name - which is what I would expect in a network that has 2.4, 5 and 6 GHz broadcasting at the same time.  Is it that the printers can't manage that?  I also have a Synology NAS that is hardwired to the Gigahub that sometimes disappears to the Macs.  Same symptoms - I can see it in the Bell WIFI app, I can connect to it via a browser, but it won't show up as a server in finder.

Could it be that they are impacted when the Pods periodically optimize the network?

Very frustrating.