A printer going offline every often is one of the most annoying errors that you will face. As you won’t be allowed to print till you get your device online, you will be left worried about how to get it online and resume printing.
Brother printers are known to be versatile; however, they can also go offline sometimes for several reasons. If your Brother printer is going offline on Mac or Windows, you will face a slowdown in its performance. To bring it back online, firstly, you need to know why the Brother printer does say offline.
Let’s look at the causes:
- Issues with Wi-Fi, connectivity or power supply
- Issues with the printer driver
- Incorrect printer has been set as default
- Printer has been set offline in the settings
- The printer is not rightly connected.
How to Get Brother Printer Back Online?
After knowing the causes, follow the given troubleshooting steps one-by-one to fix the offline error with your Brother printer.
Step- 1 Verify the Brother Printer is On
First things first, you need to be sure that your printer is powered on and it is not facing any errors; if it is off or there are errors, you cannot bring it online.
To fix ‘Brother Printer is offline’ error Windows 10, 8 and 7, consider applying the given steps:
- Ensure that the Brother printer’s LCD screen is blank, if it shows blank, the machine is not awake; try to wake it up from sleep mode.
- The next important thing to do is to ensure that the printer’s cable is plugged into a fine socket and also the power is on.
- Now, inspect the LCD for error messages such as ‘Paper Jam’ or ‘Ink/Toner Empty’. If it is showing any error message, you need to fix that first before proceeding further.
Step-2 Verify the Printer is Connected to the Computer
You may be using a USB printer or a wireless one and the process to connect them to the computer is quite different. Hence, depending on your device, be sure that the printer is properly connected to the computer.
- For a USB one, make sure the USB cable is connecting both the printer and computer directly and not via a hub.
- If you are using an Ethernet cable, it should be attached to both the printer & router. To check the IP address, you can print the network configuration page.
- For a wireless connection as well, print a network configuration page to check the IP address.
Step-3 Verify Brother Printer is Set As Default
Your Brother will not show online if it has not been set as default. To check if your Brother printer is set as default, you need to verify if there is a checkmark on your Brother device as follows:
For Windows 8 and 10
Here are the steps you need to follow if your Brother printer is offline on Windows 10 or 8:
- Go to the Control Panel of your device.
- Then head towards the Devices and Printers section by navigating through the Hardware and Sound window.
- Now check if the Brother printer you are trying to print with is set as default. The Brother printer will show a green checkmark as shown in the image here.
For Windows 7
- Go to ‘Devices and Printers’ and check if your brother printer has that green checkmark. If it doesn’t, you can set it as default by right-clicking on the printer and click on ‘Set as default printer’.
By setting as default, you can bring your brother printer online immediately.
Step-4 Delete All Print Jobs
To get back your Brother printer online, the next step is to go to the ‘Devices and Printers’ section and delete all the print jobs.
For Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 10
- Right-click on your Brother printer’s icon
- Click on ‘See what’s printing’
- Then click on the ‘Printer’ tab and click on ‘Cancel all Documents’ to delete all the print jobs.
- If the option ‘Cancel all Document’ is not highlighted, click on ‘Open as Administrator’, enter the password and click on ‘Yes’. This way you will be able to delete all the print jobs.
Step-5 Check the Printer’s Status
Once you are done with all the above steps, check whether your Brother printer’s status, if it is still showing offline or is paused.
For Windows 7, 8 and 10
- If Printer is Offline- Right-click on Brother printer’s icon, click on ‘See what’s printing’, then head towards the ‘Printer’ tab and remove the checkmark from the option ‘Use Printer Offline’ to get the printer online again.
- If Printer is Paused- Right-click on Brother Printer’s icon, click on ‘See what’s printing’, then click on the ‘Printer’ tab and finally remove the checkmark from the option ‘Pause Printing’.
Step-6 If a Copy of Brother Printer’s Icon Appears
A copy of your Brother Printer gets created when you connect your printer into a different USB port or when you have installed the same driver for your printer so many times. As a result, some copies of the Brother Printer driver may not work correctly; hence you will need to select the one that is working. This is one of the most common reasons due to which your Brother printer keeps going offline in Windows 10 and other versions.
To know which one is working, here is what you need to do:
- Turn the Brother printer on that you want to use.
- Go to the ‘Devices and Printers’ section and take your mouse over the printer icon to check its status. If the status shows ‘Ready’, you can use it while printing.
- If you want to use the same device always, you can set it as default so that whenever you print, this printer driver will be automatically selected.
Using all the methods above, you can bring your offline Brother printer back online.