Canon Selphy CP1300 lost connection

[Dalia]

Hello,

yesterday I buy the Pro Subscription of Wifibooth and first it seems to work very well.

But at the event tonight, when the Booth was not used for over than 30 Minutes, it seems the printer goes into sleep mode or something. The connection is lost and the following error was in the display https://ibb.co/mBN9Jp. (Sleep mode in the settings is off fore sure)

If you skip the error message, wait a moment (just take about a half minute) and press print again it will work. But for the guests this was a big problem. My telephone has not stopped ringing

My configuration:
iPad mini 3
Canon Eos 1300d
Canon Selphy CP1300
all devices are connected to local wifi without internet with a AVM fritz repeater

Next Event will be next weekend and it was great to fix this problem before.

Greetings,
Dalia

[tim]

Hi Dalia
Let’s get this working for you. Please can you do a test for me?
1. set up the devices the same as you had before
2. open wifibooth and do one print
3. wait 30 minutes
4. in wifibooth open the status popover (wifi icon top right). Does it show printer disconnected?
5. open printer popover (top left). Does it show printer disconnected? Does it change if you leave that popover open for a moment?
6. now try a second print. Did it work this time?
7. again open the printer popover. Does it now show connected?

This information will help me fix the issue.

[Dalia]

Hi,

thanks for the fast reply.

My result:
First it seems everything is well...
1. The printer in status popover was connected.
2. Also in printer popover.
3. I take a photo and press print.
Now
4. Same error like before.
5. printer is disconnected in both popovers.
6. Wait a moment.
7. automatically connected again and printing works.

[tim]

Ok. In your steps above, is the 30 mins between 2 and 3 or 3 and 4?

[Dalia]

I wait 30 min and start with 1. It looks like the printer is connected first but then it‘s not.

[tim]

OK. In that case, Wifibooth is doing everything it can: it is checking the connection to your printer every 30 seconds to make sure it is connected, and iOS is telling Wifibooth "yes, it is connected". But then when you print, either iOS or your printer throws an error.
Question: what version of iOS is running on your iPad Mini 3?

[Dalia]

the ipad is running 11.4.1. now i make an update to 12.0.1. and try again.

[tim]

Great idea lets see if that helps

[Dalia]

Hi Tim,

after updating iOS the problem is even worse as before

1. I set up all devices as before
2. everything is connected
3. I Take a photo and print it
4. wait approx. 30 minutes
5. Printer in both popover is disconnected
6. I Take a photo without connect the printer manually
7. error message is displayed
8. I wait a moment, but the printer doesn't reconnect automatically
9. I go in print popover and connect the printer manually
10. everything is working

[tim]

Ooof that is not good.
One more thing to try: let's see if the router is part of the problem.
Please connect the wifi of the ipad directly to the wifi of the printer.
To make the CP1300 create a wifi hotspot, follow instructions here: https://support-asia.canon-asia.com/con ... 69000.html

By removing the wifi router from the setup, we can see if it had any effect.

[Dalia]

Ok, now the printer is directly connected to the iPad.

But just in this very moment I have begun once more an attempt.

Photo diary here:
1. screenshot: error message (but another error message as before). See right in status popover: everything looks good.
2. and 3. screenshot: when I klick "Fortfahren" at the error code, the app still say printer is connected.

After that I try to print again and the same error message was shown as in screenshot 1. I klick "abbrechen" and connect the printer directly to the iPad. Now I wait for the next test.

[tim]

Thank you for your patience, and for posting the screenshots.
The bad news is, that popup "Der Drucker ist offline" is directly from iOS (it's not Wifibooth). So the connection between the iPad and the printer is definitely being broken -- which isn't something Wifibooth can help with.
Next thing to try: do you have another iPad, or an iPhone? Try running Wifibooth on your other iPad/iPhone to test if there is some issue with your iPad Mini 3 dropping the wifi connection.
It could also be that the CP1300 deliberately drops wifi connections after 30 minutes

[Dalia]

ok, that sounds bad.

Before I bought Wifibooth the same configuration runs with Shutter Snitch without an error. But I don't like Shutter Snitch as an professional Photo Booth App. For private events it was ok, but not for business party's.

[tim]

Hmm - is that still the case? If you print once with Shuttersnitch, let it sit 30 minutes, and print again, does it still work?
I am assuming that you don't have to pick the printer each time you print in Shuttersnitch....?

[Dalia]

this is a screenshot of shutter snitch. Although the printer is not selected automatically you can find it and select it manually before printing.

[tim]

Yes, that makes sense: ShutterSnitch is re-creating a connection to the printer each time you print. Wifibooth on the other hand is attempting to prevent the need for the user to do this every time, and is trying to re-use the connection.

Tomorrow I will look into this further and see if I can reproduce your issue on my end (I have an iPad mini 2, and can get access to a selphy CP910, which hopefully is similar).

[Dalia]

thank you so much. I will continue testing and document. Hear you tomorrow. Have a nice evening.

[tim]

So, I got a Selphy CP910 and used an iPad Mini 2 with iOS 11.4.1, and I could not reproduce the problem. I printed a photo, waited 35 minutes, and attempted to print a second photo. There was no issue printing the second photo.
It could be that what you are experiencing is an intentional behavior of the CP1300 (timing out wifi connections after some time), or, there might be a defect with your printer (or conceivably your iPad, but that seems much less likely). You might want to reach out to Canon to ask them if this is expected for the CP1300...

[Dalia]

Hello Tim and everyone who use also a Canon Selphy,

I still have promlems with this stupid little printer.

If the photo booth is not used for a while the connection get lost. Sometimes wifibooth find the printer for itself again and sometimes i must restart the printer for new connection.

But worse is that the selphy crashes completely, if the people send more photos and did not wait until the first photo is finished with printing.

Yesterday I picked up the photo booth from a location and the ipad hat 13 photos in buffer that were not printed

Anyone here, who use also a Selphy and can help me? What are your settings?

WLAN with Fritz!Repeater 310
iPad mini 2 with iOS 12.1.2
Canon Eos 1300d
Canon Selphy CP1300 (Autofokus off)
Wifibooth 4.7.1 (lower camera in setting is on)

[Thefotobomb]

Hey I have the same issue with my selphi printer. I’ll havent used it in a few weeks since the connection issue but i will test it out in a few days and see if the problem still occurs. It is definitely irritating during events. Every time it connects we would have to hurry and print as many photos as possible before it disconnects again. It would connect for about 2 min then disconnect again for a short period of time the reconnect again over and over and over. Kinda has us scared to offer print packages until its fixed completely.

[tim]

Hey thefotobomb which Selphy printer do you have?
I have the CP910 and it does not do this. I am connecting the CP910 to a wifi router (not using its own wifi)

[Dalia]

Canon Support can't help. In my case, I send the Selphy back now. Fortunately Amazon very accommodating.

Tim, is this right, that the CP910 doesn't cause any problems?

In my small Fotobox I prefer definitly a printer like a selphy.

In a new box I'm testing now a DNP DS620 with WPS Pro and a iPad pro 12.9'. It seems to work verry great. Camera and iPad use the Wifi from the DNP and it's very stable and fast.

[tim]

There's no guarantee the CP910 is going to work better for you -- it could be something else about your setup that the Selphys don't like. But yes for me when I run events, the CP910 has no issues.
If you can use the DS620 i'd definitely go with that.

[Thefotobomb]

HEY I USE THE CP1300

IT SEEMS AS IF HAVING A STRONG INTERNET CONNECTION MAKES IT WORK BETTER.
I USED IT ONE TIME USING A BUILDINGS WIFI AND IT NEVER GAVE ME ONE PROBLEM ALL NIGHT.

MAJORITY OF THE TIME I USE MY PHONES HOTSPOT AND ITS HIT OR MISS THEN. DISCONNECTS MULTIPLE TIMES.

[BBM]

We have discovered a consistent problem with the Selphy 1300 and ios12 operating system.

As soon as we upgraded our iPads to iOS 12 we began to have a flood of customers complaining that the printer would freeze/stop working during events. With extensive testing in the shop, we could see that after 8-10 photos (not 8-10 sitting in queue -- 8-10 total sent to the printer even if spaced out over time), the printer would show as "busy" and need to be re-started. This is terribly frustrating for customers trying to have a good time at weddings or parties.

My guess is that those of you who are experiencing these connection issues are on iOS 12. (The same testing showed that the freezing issue does not occur with iOS 10 or iOS 11.)

Unfortunately, Canon has not been helpful. They seem to be unaware of the issue, and efforts to bring it to their attention were met with "it's Apple's fault". That may be true (that Apple's programming changes created the problem), but as of now our view is that the Selphy printer is useless for anything other than one-off home printing.