In the world of IT support, every day brings new challenges. Today, I'd like to share a recent experience that highlights the importance of patience, thoroughness, and adapting to user needs. Join me on this journey of troubleshooting a seemingly simple printer issue that turned into an adventure through the intricacies of home networking.

The Ticket: A Printer's Silent Treatment

It all began with a routine ticket: "Employee unable to use printer at home." Simple enough, right? Little did I know, this ticket would lead me down a rabbit hole of technical detective work that would consume the next two hours of my day.

The Initial Call: More Than Meets the Eye

Upon calling the employee, I discovered a few key points:

• The user was elderly and not particularly tech-savvy
• The printer had been non-functional for two weeks
• Even the employee's cybersecurity-expert son couldn't resolve the issue

This information set the stage for what I knew would be an interesting troubleshooting session.

Remote Access: The Plot Thickens

After remoting into the employee's computer, I attempted to print a test page. The result? "Printer offline." Now we were getting somewhere.

The Pairing Game: A Glimmer of Hope

Armed with the printer's manual, I guided the user through putting the printer in pairing mode. We then attempted to add the printer using the Canon PRINT app on their smartphone.

But here's where things got interesting: at the network selection page, their home network was nowhere to be found. Curiously, neighboring networks appeared just fine. This told us the printer's Wi-Fi module was working, but something was amiss with the home network.

The Plot Twist: A Tale of Two Bands

Diving into the home router's configuration page revealed our culprit: a dual-band router broadcasting a single SSID. Our printer, it seemed, was stubbornly 2.4GHz-only.

The solution? I split the bands into two distinct SSIDs, allowing us to connect the printer specifically to the 2.4GHz network.

The Final Hurdle: Encryption Woes

Victory seemed close as the network finally appeared in the Canon app. But alas! Authentication kept failing, with the app insisting the network was unencrypted (despite the router config saying otherwise).

Suspecting the printer might not support modern encryption methods, I took a calculated risk: downgrading the network to WPA2 Personal encryption.

And just like that, our printer sprang to life, ready to put ink to paper once more.

Lessons Learned: The Takeaway

This experience reinforced a crucial principle in home networking:

Always split your home network's dual-band routers into two different SSIDs.

This simple step allows you to explicitly select which band to use for each device:

• 2.4GHz for IoT devices and older hardware
• 5GHz for more demanding devices like smartphones, smart TVs, and laptops

By doing so, you'll save yourself (and perhaps your IT support team) a lot of troubleshooting headaches down the road.

Conclusion: Patience, Persistence, and Problem-Solving

In the end, what seemed like a simple printer issue unveiled a complex interplay of network configurations, hardware limitations, and user knowledge gaps. It's a reminder that in IT support, we're not just fixing technology – we're bridging the gap between complex systems and the people who use them every day.

So the next time you face a perplexing tech issue, remember: the solution might be hidden in the most unexpected places. Happy troubleshooting!