Before digging into settings, rule out the obvious. These take under two minutes combined and clear up a surprising number of "not printing" cases on their own:
- Look at the printer itself. Is there a paper jam, an open cover, or a blinking light on the control panel?
- Check ink, toner, and paper. An empty cartridge or empty tray will silently block every job, even test pages.
- Confirm the cables or Wi-Fi. A loose USB cable or a printer that's dropped off the network won't accept anything you send it.
- Look at the print queue on your computer. A stuck job from an earlier print can block every job behind it until it's cleared.
If none of that explains it, the fixes below cover the rest.
Common Causes of a Brother Printer Not Printing
Most "not printing" reports trace back to one of five things:
- Connection drops. USB cables work loose, and wireless printers fall off the network after a router restart, a firmware update, or the printer sitting idle long enough to sleep.
- The wrong printer is set as default, or your computer is quietly sending jobs to a printer you removed months ago.
- A stalled print queue. One corrupted or oversized job can jam the queue, and everything after it just sits there.
- Outdated or corrupted drivers. This shows up most often after a Windows or macOS update, when the old driver no longer talks to the printer correctly.
- Consumables and hardware. Toner marked as ended, a drum unit flagging for replacement, or a paper jam sensor that's still triggered even after you've cleared the visible paper.
Fix It on Windows
Work through these in order. Most people are back to printing after step 2 or 3.
1. Clear the print queue.
Open Settings > Bluetooth & devices > Printers & scanners (Windows 11) or Devices and Printers (Windows 10), select your Brother printer, and open the queue. Cancel every job listed, even ones that look like they're already finished.
2. Restart the Print Spooler service.
Press Windows key + R, type services.msc, and press Enter. Find Print Spooler in the list, right-click it, and select Restart. This clears out background jobs that a simple queue cancel sometimes misses.
3. Make sure your Brother printer is actually set as default, and uncheck "Use Printer Offline" in the printer's menu if it's ticked. Windows sometimes flips this on its own after a network hiccup or a wake from sleep.
4. Reinstall the driver.
If printing still fails, remove the printer entirely, download the current driver for your exact model from Brother's support site, and reinstall it. A driver left over from an old Windows update is a common, easy-to-miss cause.
Fix It on Mac
macOS handles printers a bit differently than Windows, so the fix order looks a little different too.
1. Check the printer's status.
Open System Settings > Printers & Scanners and click your Brother printer. If it says "Paused," resume it. If it's missing entirely, that's your first clue: it needs to be re-added.
2. Remove and re-add the printer, and when the "Use" dropdown appears, choose the Brother-specific driver rather than the generic AirPrint option if it's available. Brother's own driver keeps more of the printer's status and settings features working correctly.
3. Reset the printing system if the problem keeps coming back.
Control-click (or right-click) inside the printer list and choose Reset Printing System, then set the printer up again from scratch. This clears out a corrupted printer profile that a simple remove-and-re-add sometimes doesn't fix.
4. Clear the queue the same way you would on Windows: open the queue for that printer and delete any stuck jobs before trying again.
Wireless and Network Fixes
If your Brother printer connects over Wi-Fi rather than USB, the cause is often the network, not the computer.
- Restart the router and the printer, in that order, and give them a minute to fully reconnect before testing.
- Check which Wi-Fi band you're on. Many Brother printers only join a 2.4GHz network, so if your router broadcasts a separate 5GHz network under a similar name, the printer may be trying to reach a network it can't actually use. Check your specific model's manual to confirm which bands it supports.
- Watch for a changed IP address. If your router reassigns addresses periodically, your computer may still be pointed at the printer's old address. Reprinting a network configuration report from the printer's control panel will show its current IP.
- Run the printer's built-in wireless report. Most Brother models can print a network status report directly from the control panel, which will flag a weak signal or a failed connection attempt.
Error Lights and Hardware Checks
If the fixes above don't change anything, look at the printer's control panel lights before assuming it's a software problem.
- A blinking toner light usually means the cartridge is low or registering as ended, not necessarily empty. Reseating it sometimes buys a few more pages, but a stuck light after replacement almost always means it's the drum unit's turn instead.
- A blinking drum light means the drum unit is flagging for replacement. It will often still print at reduced quality until you swap it, rather than stopping printing outright.
- A paper jam indicator that won't clear even after you've removed the paper usually means a small torn scrap is still sitting on a sensor further inside the path. Check both the front and rear access points.
LED patterns vary by model, so for an exact reading on your printer, check the specific model's page on Brother's support site.
