Why did my printer stop working after we changed the router?

Because the printer was almost certainly holding an IP address the old router assigned, and the new one hands out different ones — or the network name and password changed and the printer still has the old credentials. Nothing is broken. The printer needs reconnecting to the new network and the computers need pointing at wherever it now lives.

Should I connect the printer by cable instead?

If it can reach a network point, yes. A wired connection removes an entire category of problem — signal strength, band selection, roaming between access points — and for a shared office machine that sits in one place permanently, Wi-Fi is convenience nobody actually uses.

What is a static IP and should my printer have one?

It means the printer always has the same network address instead of being assigned one that can change. For a shared office printer it is worth doing, because most "the printer disappeared" incidents are the address changing underneath computers that were told the old one.

The printer is on the network but nothing prints. What now?

That points at the queue or the driver rather than the connection. Clear the print queue on the computer, cancel any stuck job, and try printing from a different machine. If the second computer prints and the first does not, the fault is on that computer.

Printer Not Connecting Over Wi-Fi: A Diagnostic

A network printer not working is one of the most common calls we get, and a large share of them turn out to be nothing wrong with the printer at all. It is usually the network, the address, or the queue.

This is the sequence worth running before anyone opens a machine or spends money. It starts with the checks that cost nothing and narrows quickly.

Step 1: Does the printer itself work?

Before touching the network, prove the printer prints.

Print its configuration or test page from the machine's own control panel. This bypasses the network, the driver and the computer entirely.

Test page prints — the printer is fine. Everything from here is a network, driver or queue problem, and no repair is needed.
Test page does not print — the fault is in the printer. Stop reading this and look at why printers produce blank pages or the error code on the display.

That single step correctly sorts most cases and takes under a minute.

Step 2: Find its address

The configuration page you just printed lists the printer's IP address and whether it is connected to a network at all.

Two useful things appear here. Whether it has an address, and what that address is. If it shows something beginning 169.254, it failed to get an address from the router and assigned itself one — which means it is on the network electrically but nothing can reach it.

Type the address into a browser on the same network. If the printer's own web interface loads, the machine is reachable and the problem is on the computer side. If it does not, the problem is between the printer and the network.

Network printer not working: six usual causes

The address changed

The most common cause by a wide margin. Routers hand out addresses that expire, and after a reboot, a power cut or a router change, the printer gets a different one. The computers were configured with the old address and are now sending jobs into nothing.

Fix: give the printer a fixed address. Either set a static IP on the printer itself, or reserve its address on the router so it always receives the same one. For a shared office printer this is worth doing once and never thinking about again.

The Wi-Fi credentials changed

A new router, a changed password, or a renamed network. The printer still holds the old settings and cannot join.

Fix: reconnect the printer to the network through its panel or setup utility. Nothing is broken.

The 2.4 versus 5 GHz problem

Many printers only support 2.4 GHz. Plenty of modern routers present both bands, and if both use the same network name the printer may fail to connect while every phone in the office works fine — which makes it look like a printer fault.

Fix: ensure 2.4 GHz is enabled and, if necessary, give it a distinct network name so the printer can be pointed at it specifically.

Signal, distance and walls

Printers live in corners, store rooms and behind furniture — locations chosen for the printer's convenience, not the signal's. Wi-Fi that is adequate on a phone at desk height may be marginal at floor level behind a metal cabinet.

Fix: check the signal strength reported on the printer's own network page. If it is weak, move it, add an access point, or use a cable.

The queue is stuck

The printer is reachable and healthy, and one failed job at the front of the queue is blocking everything behind it. Every subsequent job appears to vanish.

Fix: open the print queue on the computer, cancel everything, and try a single fresh page.

The driver broke

Windows updates replace drivers, and a printer that worked yesterday can stop after one. The classic sign is that one computer cannot print while another can.

Fix: remove and reinstall the printer on the affected computer, using the manufacturer's current driver rather than whatever the operating system chose.

Step 4: Narrow it with two tests

If you are still stuck, these two comparisons locate the fault almost every time.

Try a second computer. If it prints and the first does not, the fault is on that first computer — driver or queue. The printer and the network are fine.

Try a cable. Connect the printer to the network with an Ethernet cable, or to a computer with USB. If it prints, the machine and its printing are healthy and the problem is specifically wireless.

Printing from phones and tablets

A category of "printer not working" that is not on the list above, because nothing is broken — the device simply cannot see the printer.

Phone printing generally relies on the printer advertising itself on the local network, and it requires the phone and the printer to be on the same network segment. Offices with a separate guest Wi-Fi network hit this constantly: staff connect to guest by habit, and the printer is on the main network where guest devices cannot reach it.

The fix is usually to put people on the right network rather than to change anything about the printer.

The second common cause is a printer connected by cable while phone printing expects wireless discovery — the discovery traffic does not always cross between them depending on how the network is configured.

If phone printing matters in your office, test it deliberately after any network change, because it breaks in ways ordinary printing does not.

When printing works but scanning does not

Worth separating, because it is a different fault with a different fix.

Scan-to-email and scan-to-folder depend on credentials stored in the printer, not on the print path. When those break, printing continues perfectly and scanning stops — which is confusing enough that people report the printer as broken.

The usual causes: the email account password changed, the file server the printer scans to was renamed or its permissions changed, or a security setting on the mail system started rejecting the printer's older authentication method.

None of that is a printer fault, and none of it is fixed by anything in the sequence above. It is a credentials problem in the printer's configuration — the same configuration that is worth reviewing for security reasons anyway.

The recommendation for a shared office printer

For a machine that sits in one place permanently and serves several people: use a cable and give it a fixed address.

Wi-Fi on a shared office printer is convenience nobody uses. The machine does not move. In exchange for a network cable you remove signal strength, band selection, roaming and credential changes as possible causes — which is most of this article.

A fixed address removes the largest remaining one.

When it genuinely is the printer

Rarer, but real. The network hardware inside a printer can fail: the machine prints its test page perfectly, has good settings, and simply will not appear on the network, or drops off repeatedly under load.

The signature is a printer that works over USB and not over the network, with correct settings and adequate signal. At that point it is a repair rather than a configuration problem.

One thing worth doing while you are in the printer's web interface anyway: check whether the admin password is still the factory default, and whether the machine is exposed beyond your own network. It is a networked computer, and most offices have never looked. Offices with an annual contract usually fold both the fixed address and that check into a scheduled visit, because the person already at the machine is the right person to do it.