Getting a new router should be a straightforward upgrade. You swap the hardware, reconnect your devices, and everything works. Then you try to print something and the Canon printer shows offline, cannot be found, or produces error after error. The printer that worked perfectly for two years is suddenly broken — and the only thing you changed was the router.
This resource at PrinterSolved covers the complete fix process for this exact scenario for Canon Pixma printers in the United States and Canada — addressing every reason a Canon printer fails to reconnect after a router replacement.
The printer did not break. The connection information stored in three separate locations became outdated the moment the new router came online. Here is what needs to be updated and in what order.
Even if you gave the new router the same network name and password as the old one, the Canon printer may not automatically reconnect. The printer stores connection credentials including the network name and password in its own memory. A new router with a different hardware MAC address and potentially different DHCP range is treated as a different network by the printer even when the name matches.
The fix is reconnecting the printer to WiFi manually. On the printer control panel go to Settings then Device Settings then LAN Settings then Wireless LAN Setup then Standard Setup. Select your 2.4GHz network from the list and re-enter the password. Wait for the WiFi indicator light to go solid and confirm the connection by printing a network status page — hold the Stop or Reset button for five seconds.
If your new router is a WiFi 6 model check two additional settings before reconnecting. Band steering on WiFi 6 routers automatically pushes devices to 5GHz. Canon Pixma printers only support 2.4GHz. Disable band steering or give your 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks different names so you can connect the printer specifically to 2.4GHz. Also check whether the new router is set to WPA3-only security — Canon Pixma models manufactured before 2022 do not support WPA3 fully. Switch to WPA2/WPA3 transition mode to restore compatibility.
When the old router was replaced its DHCP address pool reset. Even if the printer reconnected to WiFi successfully it received a new IP address — different from the one it had on the old router. The Canon driver on your computer still has the old address stored from when you originally installed the printer. The driver sends every print job to a location that no longer exists.
This mismatch is the most common reason a Canon printer shows offline despite being visibly connected to the network.
Update the driver port to the printer's current address. Print the network status page by holding Stop or Reset for five seconds and note the IP address shown on the printout. On Windows go to Control Panel then Devices and Printers then right-click the Canon then Printer Properties then Ports then select the active Canon port then Configure Port then update the IP address to match the status page. Click OK and Apply.
On Mac go to System Settings then Printers and Scanners then remove the Canon by clicking the minus button then re-add it by clicking the plus button. macOS automatically detects the printer at its current address.
If you only update the driver port without doing anything else, the printer will go offline again the next time the router restarts. The new router is assigning addresses dynamically and will eventually give the printer a different address again.
The permanent fix is creating a DHCP reservation in the new router's settings. Find the printer's MAC address on the network status page — it appears in the format XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX. Log into the new router's admin panel at 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1, find the DHCP reservation or address reservation section, and bind the printer's MAC address to a fixed IP address. After saving the reservation update the driver port one more time to match the reserved IP.
After this three-step process — reconnect to WiFi, update the driver port, create the DHCP reservation — the printer reconnects correctly after router restarts and the offline error does not return. The router change that caused two years of reliable printing to fail suddenly requires about fifteen minutes to resolve completely and permanently.
For the complete ij start canon connect walkthrough covering router-specific DHCP reservation instructions for Xfinity, Spectrum, Bell, Rogers, Telus, Asus, Netgear and TP-Link alongside the full driver installation and WiFi configuration process for all current Canon Pixma models in the United States and Canada visit PrinterSolved at printersolved.com/ij-start-canon-setup/ — free with no registration required.
Canon Pixma models covered: TS3522, TS3520, TR4520, TR4722, TR8620, MG3620, MG2522, G3410, G3411, G3420, E470 and all current Canon Pixma inkjet models sold in the United States and Canada.
