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Forum Discussion
kfeige000
Dec 16, 2025Follower
More Printer Problems with an RBE371 Mesh Network
I've been having a problem with my new Netgear Orbi RBE371 mesh network since I installed it on Saturday. I have two printers, an Epson ET-8500 and a Brother MFC-L3770CDW. Until Saturday I was using an older Google Mesh network with no problems. I was able to print with no problems to both printers from my Macbook, my iPad and my iPhone. I upgraded to the Netgear Orbi mesh network. That's when my troubles began with these printers. I would be able to print to both printers from my Mac and then several minutes later my laptop couldn't connect to them. They still appear in the network and in the print settings on the laptop, but when sending a job the print queue would say it was unable to communicate with the printer. They also appear in the router web page when I display all the connected devices. Furthermore, my iPad can't even find the printers anymore. The first things I tried were to rejoin the printers to the network as well as my laptop and turn off / on the wifi on my laptop. This met with a little bit of temporary success, but then stopped working again within 30 minutes. I then set static IP addresses for each printer to make sure they won't change. The problem still occurred. Then I found an article that stated the Channel for the 2.4Ghz network needs to be between 1 and 11. This router goes between 1 and 13 and was set to Auto. So I set the channel to 11. The problem still continues. At this point I'm not sure what else I can do to solve this problem. I can't seem to find any other information that can help me with this. Is there anything else I can do to try and fix this problem?
1 Reply
- CrimpOnGuru - Experienced User
2.4G WiFi channels vary by geographic region. In North America (US. Canada, Mexico) only channels 1-11 may be used. The rest of the world commonly allows channels 12 & 13 as well.
If the router shows choices of 1-13, that would seem to indicate that it is located "in the rest of the world".
The Epson ET-8500 user manual seems to indicate that the printer works with both 2.4G (1-13) and 5G WiFi.
https://files.support.epson.com/docid/cpd5/cpd59879/index.html
The Brother MFC-L3770CDW does also.
Honestly, this seems more like an Apple issue than a router issue. Apple devices are often configured to randomize their network MAC address. Can you please check the setting on yours?