Wednesday 12 June 2019

Apple and HP - Not playing nicely - AirPrint and Bonjour and WiFi bands

Fun discovery after new ADSL modem/router/WAP acquisition ..... Draytek Vigor 2762ac .... AirPrint to HP deskjet via Bonjour gets borked ....

I couldn't print from my iOS devices, unless I brought them close to the printer ....

Long story short, new WAP has two WiFi bands ( 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz ) ... both bands sit on the same SSID, so there appears to be one WiFi....

It looks like printer was connecting to one band, and iOS devices were connecting to the other .... when they're NOT in the same room as the printer ( which is ~15 feet diagonally away from the WAP )

I checked this with the router's web UI, which shows devices connected to each band ... the printer always sits on the 2.4 GHz band .....

The iOS devices sit on the 5 GHz band, when they're closer to the router, but switch to the 2.4 GHz band when I move them upstairs to the study/computer/printer room

I'm assuming that Bonjour doesn't "like" crossing between the two bands i.e. if the printer is sitting on one, the iOS devices can no longer see it

I temporarily mitigated this by disabling the 5 GHz band ...

#EveryDayIsASchoolDay

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Visual Studio Code - Wow 🙀

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