Backstory

I recently upgraded my network from an Airport Extreme to the Eero Pro 6. One of the things I learned while researching how to setup my network was to keep the exact same name and password as my previous setup. Most of the devices would just magically connect. This process went exactly as described and everything just worked.

This included my Brother printer. At some point I lost the ability to print from my phone (AirPrint), which is my primary way to print. So I figured I’d explore how to get this working again. When looking up how to fix this issue, you’ll see resetting your network, resetting your printer to default settings, amongst other things. Do NOT do this. This will remove your previously connected printer from your network and you’ll basically be stuck. In my case other devices like my laptop and my family’s devices all lost their ability to print to the printer wirelessly.

I tried to fix via USB and the WLAN option on the printer. This all led me to having to just install the printer and print while using a USB cord. Which is less than ideal for any of us, but at least we could print in a bind.

To avoid spending 3 hours troubleshooting this issue, as I ended up doing, you can follow the fix below.

Fix

I should note this “fix” probably isn’t endorsed by Eero or Brother, but it works 😅

  1. Reset your printer to its factory settings
  2. Turn off your Eero network (physically unplug it, don’t just severe the connection)
  3. Turn on your old router (in my case it was the Apple Airport Extreme) and connect it to the modem
  4. Make sure your old router is properly serving internet
  5. Download the Brother install software
  6. Connect your printer to your machine and run the install process
  7. Have your printer connect to the router with the same name as the Eero router
    1. Ex) If your Eero router was named “RedLeader” you’ll want the printer to connect to “RedLeader”
    2. If these aren’t named the same this will NOT work
  8. The connection process should succeed and you can print a test page

In my case I needed to connect another computer. So if you’re in a similiar spot as me you can follow steps 4-8 for each computer device.

After connecting all devices you want to do the following:

  1. Unplug your old router
  2. Plug-in the Eero router and wait for it to start serving internet
  3. Make sure WPA3 is disabled (Found in the Eero app)
  4. Print a test page

After I successfully printed my test page I enabled WPA3 and everything continuted to work. 🙌

I hope this helps anyone in a similar situation as me.