Canon Printer

Created: 2022-06-02
Last Modified: 2025-02-22

Recently Canon printers around the world started entering something like a boot-loop. This issue started occurring on 2022.05.30. To be precise it looks like all Canon MX490 printers are affected by this. The day before they worked perfectly fine but the next day they only boot-looped.

Update: I updated the article. Canon released an update tool.

Investigation and Solution

After I had to deal with this problem I suspected that the printer was broken. I still think that consumer-grade-printers are still one of the worst tech in existence. But after searching on the internet about this issue I realized that it happens to others too. Exactly the same issue. This phenomenon could be observed in the Canon forums as well on reddit.com/r/printers.

Users who have connected their printer to the internet over WI-FI or LAN look like they have this issue. My printer is connected via WI-FI. I suspect that the printer auto-updates it’s firmware by default. This would explain why so many users with a printer connected to the internet have/had the problem. I solved the problem my blocking my printer from accessing the internet within my AVM Fritz!Box router.

Here are some pictures of it.

This solves the problem as the printer is not able to connect to the internet anymore.

Afterthought

Canon, this was unnecessary. And as far as I observed at the time of writing the support in the forums recommended buying a new printer.

I can imagine that not every user knows why this problem occurs and that this act produces a lot of e-waste. And this leads me to the question: What are “good” printers for consumers? Firstly, the printer should not auto-update by default. Secondly I think a printer does not need to connect to the internet, but I welcome printing over network.

This makes me wonder about another thing. If the printer talks to a server handing out updates without me knowing. Could my printer have downloaded compromised updates? To what others servers is the printer talking?

Additionally, I wonder if Canon developers are testing their software. I would like it, if they tested their code. We are living in the 21st century, I would expect code which is handed out to thousands of users to be well tested.

I hope I could at least help someone with the solution to the problem.

Thank you for reading and have a great day!

Update

Canon released a firmware updater on their website (Germany - Germany, Europe - English)

With this you can easily update the printer. But you can only use it on Windows and macOS. Every person who only runs Linux on their computers needs fall back to either a Windows computer or a Mac if they want to use their printer without a “hack”. Here are some screenshots from the tool.