I’ve been meaning to update the firmware on the studio’s Canon iPF6400 printer for a while now. The previous incarnation of the v1.18 update tool didn’t detect my networked printer … I presumed that was just an OS X 10.9 Mavericks glitch, but when I checked the updates today I found a new version of the update tool that supports OS X 10.9.

Oddly enough though, the new utility detected the printer as offline (which was strange because it was definitely switched on and awake). Even power-cycling the printer didn’t help with this. I’d just been printing too and now the print monitor was telling me it was offline too.

The solution appears to be to load paper (I’d been using A4 sheets for some flyers and had unloaded the roll). With a sheet loaded the update tool will see the printer as online and the update happens quite happily – a sheet of paper makes the print monitor happy too.

I’m now honestly not sure if this is a change in the behaviour (since OS X Mavericks?), but maybe posting this solution will save someone some frustration.