December 22, 2025
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Brother HL-L2340DW Goes Offline on Eero 6 Plus: How to Fix It Permanently

Freddy Reyes03 mins

Last Updated on December 22, 2025 by Freddy Reyes

If you’re using a Brother HL-L2340DW laser printer on Wi-Fi with an Eero 6 Plus mesh router, you may notice a frustrating pattern:

  • The printer works after a power cycle
  • After a few minutes of idle time, it becomes unreachable
  • Printing fails until you reboot the printer again

Factory resets and Wi-Fi reconfiguration don’t solve it — the problem keeps coming back.

This is not a defective printer. It’s a compatibility issue between modern mesh Wi-Fi behavior and an older printer Wi-Fi chipset. The good news: it can usually be fixed with the right settings.

Why This Happens

Modern mesh routers like Eero aggressively optimize wireless traffic using features such as:

  • Band steering (2.4 GHz ↔ 5 GHz)
  • WPA3 transition mode
  • Client power-saving optimizations
  • IPv6 networking

The Brother HL-L2340DW:

  • Is 2.4 GHz only
  • Has a basic Wi-Fi radio
  • Often fails to reconnect after the router marks it as “idle”

The result: the printer appears to be “asleep,” but it’s actually dropped from the Wi-Fi network.

Required Eero 6 Plus Settings (Most Important Section)

Open the Eero app and apply the following changes.

1. Disable WPA3 (Critical)

Settings → Network settings → WPA3

  • Turn WPA3 OFF
  • Use WPA2 only

WPA3 transition mode frequently breaks older Wi-Fi devices.

2. Turn Off Client Steering

Settings → Network settings

  • Disable Client Steering

This prevents Eero from trying to move the printer to unsupported bands.

3. Force a Clean 2.4 GHz Connection (Setup Trick)

Eero doesn’t allow permanent band separation, but you can do this temporarily:

Settings → Troubleshooting → My device won’t connect → Pause 5 GHz

Then:

  1. Pause 5 GHz
  2. Power-cycle the printer
  3. Reconnect the printer to Wi-Fi
  4. Confirm printing works
  5. Re-enable 5 GHz

This ensures the printer locks onto 2.4 GHz properly.

4. Disable IPv6

Settings → Network settings → IPv6

  • Turn IPv6 OFF
  • Restart the Eero network

Brother printers frequently fail discovery after sleep when IPv6 is enabled.

5. Reserve an IP Address

Settings → Network settings → Reservations & Port Forwarding

  • Add the printer
  • Reserve its IP address

Without this, Eero may silently drop the printer’s lease while it sleeps.

Printer Settings to Change (Once)

On the Brother printer’s control panel:

  1. Menu → General Setup → Ecology
  2. Set Sleep Time to the maximum
  3. Disable Deep Sleep
  4. Power-cycle the printer

This reduces how often the router flags the printer as inactive.

Firmware Update (Strongly Recommended)

If you haven’t updated the printer firmware:

  1. Connect the printer to a computer via USB
  2. Download and install the latest Brother firmware
  3. Power-cycle the printer
  4. Reconfigure Wi-Fi after changing the Eero settings

Earlier firmware versions have known Wi-Fi sleep bugs.

What Results to Expect

After applying these changes:

  • The printer stays online for days
  • Printing works after long idle periods
  • No more constant power-cycling

If problems persist even after all steps:

  • The printer’s Wi-Fi hardware is simply at its limit
  • USB printing or a wired printer model is the only 100% reliable solution

That’s a hardware-era limitation — not a configuration mistake.

Final Recommended Configuration (Quick Checklist)

  • WPA2 only (no WPA3)
  • Client Steering OFF
  • IPv6 OFF
  • IP reservation ON
  • Deep Sleep OFF on printer

This setup resolves the issue for the vast majority of Eero + Brother HL-L2340DW users.

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