Interesting Printer Problem

[Djinni]

Ok... This is a "Printer issue" however....

Printer: Brother MFC-6940CW
Connection: WiFi (WPA, TKIP)
Wireless Router: BT HomeHub 2.0A Wireless N (Black "edition")

(I know the version 1 white editions were Thompson or something... don't know about the version 2's.)

The FIRST problem:
Very sporadically the printer will "disconnect" from the wireless network. Requiring a manual re-entry of wireless settings.
There have been no power outages or any other apparent explanation for needing to re-enter the wireless details. After re-entry quite often a software re-installation is required on all machines with the Brother Software Suite in-order to "re-pair / sync" the software with the printer..

The SECOND problem:
Day before yesterday everything was running fine.
Yesterday the printer "unpaired" with the software on the computer and could not be found by any machine on the network even after re-connecting it to the network (it usually shows up, because you only need the software to use anything other than standard print.)
I used all the regular things I do to solve problem 1. To no avail. Eventually it twiged that the printer was on the network... but no devices other than the wireless router recognised it even existed. So I reset the router back to factory defaults (not a huge issue... since none of the settings had been changed anyway) and suddenly everything worked.

The only possible reason I can think of for a router software reset having any effect is that the "connection" cache was full...
Is that even possible? I thought they were supposed to support up to 32 devices at a time or something.

Wondering if anyone else has any other thoughts (I'm not home all that often anymore so not around to "fix" it. Can't really expect dad to do it.) Or even better has a more permanent fix other than getting rid of it.

(Indecently I've noticed this happens with alot of printers(+/ router configs).... Kodak, HP, Epsom they all seem just as bad.)

[kellydouglas]

I think there is some problem in your router. First shutdown your PC. Insert the printer CD in the computer and re-install the settings of it.

[Karteli]

You are using both a printer and a router I'm not familiar with, but I'll take a stab at this.

It is possible, for whatever reason, that the hardware is fine, but your OS is closing the ports for you, rejecting incoming access to the ports, then making the connection appear to be lost. The printer detects the loss of connection and cleans the slate, waiting for new authentication. This could also not be a OS issue, but a printer software problem, on how they handle their IO.

That's what I first thought of, but really there are many many other "slight" possibilities for everything .. hard to say, unless you can get down and dirty and study packet exchange, and the printers response (oh maybe, just something like the printer thinks the token changed, thus rejected)...

To be just simplistic with this, make sure you have the latest drivers and the latest user software for the printer. Also could just be your computer drivers as a whole.. or your computer needs a general software update .. you didn't mention anything much else, so the possibilities are vast.

[Djinni]

You are using both a printer and a router I'm not familiar with, but I'll take a stab at this.

It is possible, for whatever reason, that the hardware is fine, but your OS is closing the ports for you, rejecting incoming access to the ports, then making the connection appear to be lost. The printer detects the loss of connection and cleans the slate, waiting for new authentication. This could also not be a OS issue, but a printer software problem, on how they handle their IO.

That's what I first thought of, but really there are many many other "slight" possibilities for everything .. hard to say, unless you can get down and dirty and study packet exchange, and the printers response (oh maybe, just something like the printer thinks the token changed, thus rejected)...

To be just simplistic with this, make sure you have the latest drivers and the latest user software for the printer. Also could just be your computer drivers as a whole.. or your computer needs a general software update .. you didn't mention anything much else, so the possibilities are vast.

All Drivers, Software, Firmware etc... are up-to-date, I have even tried using several previous versions of the firmware on both the router and the printer.