Brother 2270DW Offline Error and Solution

I have had several printers through the years.  For the last decade I have been in the monochrome laser camp, due to the high quality of laser printing, and the affordability compared to inkjets.  My previous printer was a Brother 2140, which I still have, but as it was very low on ink, I decided it was time for an upgrade.

The new printer is a Brother 2270DW.  The significant advancement is that network printers have come way down in price.  This allows one to put the printer anywhere there is space and it can be hooked up to the network, while having a number of users and devices be able to send print jobs to the printer.  This is how most business environments do their printing these days, and most households can get by with one printer if it is networked.

The Brother 2270DW can be connected by three methods:

1. USB port like a non-networked printer
2. Wired Ethernet (LAN)
3. Wireless (WiFi)

When I hooked it up, I obviously wanted it on the network, but as I change my routers sometimes, for simplicity I went with a wired connection.  I plug the printer with my length of CAT 5 cable, and it is physically connected to my router.  Not super exciting, but at least I can see it is connected.  There is also a rule that the printer can be connected via a wire, or wireless, but not both simultaneously.

One criticism of this printer is that one of the areas they cut costs on were the LED's.  It does not have any display, and rather just has a few LED's for power, toner and error.  These a basically "Idiot lights" and unfortunately, there is no LED for "Network connection," or WiFi on.

If you hold down the Power button for 10 seconds, it prints out a test page.  It also converts the printer from wired to wireless connection, or vice versa.

So the other day, my printer lost the network connection.  It was most frustrating as the printer was still connected via the wired LAN.  I decided to go to the Brother website, and it had information specific to this problem.  In fact, it even directed me to a special software tool that would reestablish the connection, or in my case not so much after running it no less than three times.  I also uninstalled and resintalled drivers as recommended, but the printer was still not connected.

I was reading the manual after nothing seemed to be working, and realized that the printer was probably in WiFi mode.  I held down the power button, out printed the page, and it was now reconnected.  I still find it silly that the 2270DW does not have a light to tell me whether it is connected or not, and whether the WiFi is on or off.  Perhaps when I upgrade again in several years I can get these essential "features."

--Jonas