Fix: Canon Printer Offline

Canon Inc. is a Japanese company who specializes in the manufacture of imaging and optical devices. Canon printers are famous for being top-notch and produce astonishing results. Like all hardware, even this printer has problems and bugs when interacting with another system.

One of these problems is that the printer shows an offline status even when it is connected properly. Before we start, make sure that your printer is connected properly with all the power outlets as well as you are connected to the network.

Solution 1: Reconnect Printer to Wi-Fi

Before we refer to other workarounds, first we will reconnect your printer your Wireless router. You can forget wireless router from your Canon printer by accessing its settings. Then you can reconnect it from scratch. We have demonstrated how to connect a wireless network to a specific canon printer. Your model might be different but the steps are more or less the same.

1. Press and hold the Wi-Fi button on your printer until the notification for Wi-Fi on your printer starts blinking.

2. Once you are sure that the light is blinking blue constantly, head over to your router and press the [WPS] button.

The light will keep blinking while searching for available networks. It will also keep blinking when it is connecting to the access points. When the printer successfully connects to the access point, the light will remain lit.

WPS button on your router is present somewhat to its side.

If you don’t want to use the WPS method to connect to your network, you can use the settings on your printer LCD and connect accordingly.

1. Open Wireless LAN setup from the settings.

2. Now the printer will start searching for various networks available.

3. Once you have located your network, press “OK” and the printer will require you to enter the password. After entering all the details, it should connect to the network properly. If these instructions won’t work, please refer to your Printer’s Manual or Search for the User Guide/Manual on Google to get the instructions.

Solution 2: Restarting the Spooler service

The spooler service is a software program that is responsible for managing all print jobs being sent to the computer printer. The print spooler service is usually visible to users and they can also cancel a print job that is being processed. It also allows them to manage jobs that are currently on the waitlist.

We can try restarting this service and check if this solves the problem.

1. Press Windows + R to launch the Run application. Type “services.msc” in the dialogue box and press Enter.
2. Locate the service “Print Spooler” present in the list of services. Double-click it to open its properties. Click the “Stop” button present underneath system status and press “Ok” to save changes.

3. Since we have disabled the service, we can now focus on deleting printer files. Press Windows + E to launch the quick access and click on “This PC” present in the left navigation pane.
4. Navigate to the following path:

C:\Windows\System32\spool\PRINTERS

Permission might be needed to access the following folder. If prompted, press Continue.

5. Once in the folder, delete all the files in the PRINTERS folder and close the window.
6. Now navigate back to the Services tab and Start the “Printer Spooler” service. Also, remember to keep the startup type as “Automatic”.

7. Restart your computer and check if the printer connects correctly.

Solution 3: Disabling “Use Printer Offline” using Settings application

Another workaround for this problem is taking away the capability of your computer to work with this printer when it is offline. This will ensure that your printer only works when it is properly connected to your computer. You can always revert the changes back if this doesn’t solve anything for you.

1. Press Windows + S to launch the search bar. Type “control panel” in the dialogue box and open the application.
2. Select “Hardware and Sound” from the list of sub-categories available.

3. Click on “Devices and Printers” on the window which comes up.

4. Right-click on your Canon printer and click “See what’s printing”.

5. Click on “Printer” present at the top-left side of the screen for the drop-down menu. Make sure that the option “Use printer offline” option is unchecked. In this case, the option is unchecked. Once you have made the changes, click “Cancel all documents” and try connecting your Canon printer again.

Solution 4: Updating Printer Drivers

If both the above solutions don’t work, it means there is a problem with the driver of your printer. We can try uninstalling them first and then reinstall them manually. You can download the official Canon drivers from their official website.

1. Press Windows + R to launch the Run Type “devmgmt.msc” in the dialogue box and hit Enter. This will launch your computer’s device manager.
2. Navigate through all the hardware, open the sub-menu “Print queues”, right-click on your printer hardware and select “Update driver”.

3. Now Windows will pop a dialogue box asking you which way do you want to update your driver. Select the second option (Browse my computer for driver software) and proceed.

Select the driver file you downloaded using the browse button when it appears and update it accordingly.

4. Restart your computer and check if the problem gets resolved.

Note: If you can’t update the drivers manually, you can also select the first option “Search automatically for updated driver software”. This option will make Windows search the web automatically and select the best driver out there.

Solution 5: Unchecking option “SNMP Status Enabled”

Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is a popular protocol used for network management. It is used to collect information from printers and managing them accordingly. We can try disabling this protocol and check if this makes any difference in our case.

1. Navigate to hardware and devices as explained in solution 2.
2. Once you have located your printer, right-click it and select “Printer Properties”.

3. Navigate to the tab of “Ports” present at the top of the window.

4. Click “Configure Port”.
5. Click to clear the “SMP Status Enabled” checkbox. Press Ok to apply changes and exit. Now check if the problem got fixed.

Solution 6: Allotting Printer a Static IP Address

If you are using your printer over Wi-Fi, it is possible that you are having IP address problems. Whenever your printer connects to your router, it says hi and asks the router to assign an IP address to the printer. Suppose the router assigned “…20” to the printer.

After you successfully print all your documents, you turn the printer off. Now someone from your house connects his iPad to the router. Since the IP “…20” isn’t in use with the printer anymore, the router assigns this IP to the iPad. Whereas on the other hand, your computer remembers the printer by “…20”. When you open your printer, it will be assigned a new IP “suppose …21”. Now even though it will be connected to the network perfectly, your computer will not recognize it.

The solution to this problem is to allot a static IP address to the printer. Take a look at the steps listed below:

1. Press Windows + S to launch the search bar. Type “cmd” in the dialogue box and press Enter.
2. Once in the command prompt, type “ipconfig” and press Enter. This will provide all the details of your network connection on your computer.

3. You can note your IPv4 address in the description. Now before we chose any static IP for your printer, we need to make sure it isn’t taken by any other devices.

Type the following command with a new IP address following it:

ping 192.168.8.101

As you can see, the IP address is already taken. We are pinging the target location which is giving us a valid response. Try other IP addresses until you find the one which isn’t taken by any other device.

In this case, the IP wasn’t taken so we can use it.

4. Now go to your printer’s LCD to set the required IP address. Navigate to the menus listed and change the settings as follows:

• Menu -> Interface Setup -> TCP/IP -> IP Mode and make sure it is set to “Manual“
• Menu -> Interface Setup -> TCP/IP -> IP Setting -> IP Address and set it to address determined above (192.168.8.102 in our example.

Set each field in the address using the OK button to activate a field (large cursor box appears), then right and left arrow keys to adjust, then OK

Move to next field in the address with the right arrow, then repeat above

When done setting address, press the Up arrow until you see “Save TCP/IP setting?”, then press OK.