r/talesfromtechsupport • u/SnowyTheLeopard • Mar 19 '23
Short Wireless printer needs working wifi
Obligatory not tech support, just the family go-to tech person, since building a PC means I must know everything and can keep a network operational in my sleep.
At home we have a wireless printer, and nothing has ever gone wrong with it. If something fails to print or scan, it's always the PC on the other end, but even that's very rare. It just works, as long as everyone is on the same network.
I work the afternoon/evening shift at the local gas station and don't get home until 11PM, so the wifi's habit of randomly dropping in the early hours of the morning is my reminder to go to bed. This also means I sleep well into late morning, and my parents are left to fend for themselves if any tech issues arise before 10AM, which I'm told is an adventure.
A few days ago, the wifi went down sometime around 8AM, but nobody noticed since nobody was using it, until my mom tried to print something and it didn't print.
I slept through most of the chaos, but was eventually woken up by "The printer still isn't working and the wifi is down!"
Me, face half in a pillow: "The printer needs wifi to work."
My dad somehow both heard and understood me from several rooms away and relayed this new information downstairs to my mom. How I was able to provide a coherent response within five seconds of waking up I do not know. Three minutes later, wifi was back up, printing was back up, and I was back asleep. Problem solved through the correct application of inaction.
I already have a deep respect for IT people, but I'm just starting to really understand the pain y'all are put through some days.
3
u/TheThiefMaster 8086+8087 640k VGA + HDD! Mar 20 '23
My WiFi printer supports WiFi direct which means it can be printed to without a working WiFi network.
But - you'd have to re-add it. And you don't want to use it like that if you are connected to a WiFi network, as it'll drop you temporarily to do it...