Can't find my printer..

RouterOS Beginner Basics
1

Hello!

so I am trying to print a document, in windows 10 im going on the add a printer and tcp/ip but I cant find it.
my printer is connected to the isp modem/router via wps with an ip 192.168.1.7 network 192.168.1.0/24
my computer is connected to the mikrotik with an ip 10.10.3.231 in the network 10.10.3.0/24.

should I make some changes in the mikrotik so I can find the printer in windows 10 ?

2

It all depends on how Win10 would “find” your printer. Because you work in 2 different networks (192.168.1.x and 10.10.3.x) mDNS/Bonjour traffic will not pass. These types of traffic are often used for detection. Also a simple “broadcast” even will not “pass” the Mikrotik and it is “confined” within each of the 2 networks.
You should make sure you FW-rules are set to LOG and then take look at the LOG to really see IF you see DROPS. By doing so you might learn/evaluate if you can “open” something up between the 2 networks.

But I’m afraid its a classic mDNS/Zeroconf/Bonjour type of problem and this traffic was never designed to be ROUTED or leave you “local” LAN. (TTL=1)

On a side note, if you know the IP of the printer, why not symply add it manually ?? Or is your problem that Windows 10 reports the printer “OFFLINE” ??
THAT is a real bugger, Win10 uses different mechanism to “probe” if printers are online, including SNMP etc.
You REALLY must examine FW-logs if you are filtering.

3

Thank you for the fast response, yes I get a message is offline / error while printing
I have disabled the windows FW

4

My printer is wireless one. Even I had serious problems with this, and they are on the same LAN :wink:
I had to add FW-rules to the Win10 firewall for it to work, and then even depending on some settings with certain vendors it is not 100% rock solid.
Sure you could disable the Win10 FW all together :wink:

If you Google around on “Win 10 printer offline” stuff you can find some annoying stories on this etc.

For now, it seems to work as long as I first make sure my printer is online & running (Brother DCP multifunctional wireless) before powering up the Windows 10 machine.