Canon Printer is Not Responding? Here’s How to Fix It

If your Canon printer is not responding, there’s most likely a failed print job stuck in the print queue.

So how to fix it?

Yes, you just have to clear the print queue and it will bring your printer back to the functional state.

Clearing the Canon Printer’s Print Queue

On the error window that is showing “Printer not responding,” click this button that says Display Print Queue.

Then, on the new window, go to the Printer tab on the leftmost side and choose Cancel All Documents.

But hold on! Telling from my experience, there’s a high chance the printer will refuse to clear the print queue this way.

So, it’s better if you clear the print queue using the command prompt (with administrator rights).

Run these commands one after another and try printing again.

It will restart the print spooler service and clear the queue. You should not face the error afterwards.

But what if your printer has a connection issue rather than the stuck print queue?

Exactly! This is where you need to check the connection. Let’s start.

Go through this checklist and you will be able to fix any kind of connection issues with your Canon printer.

Make sure the printer is not offline or sleeping. It should be powered on.
Check if there’s any kind of error message on the screen. If yes, you need to sort it out before you can print.
Consider restarting the printer.
In case, you have a wired one, give USB cable re-plugging a try.
For wireless ones, check if the printer has an active Wi-Fi connection.
You can confirm it by looking at the Wi-Fi button lights on the printer panel.
Meanwhile, make sure printer and PC both are connected to the same Wi-Fi network (band as well, 2.4GHz or 5GHz).
Disable the VPN on your PC, if any is running.
Set your printer as default printer to avoid any kind of mistakes if you have multiple Canon printers installed on your computer.
Run the Printer troubleshooter. You can’t imagine how amazing this tool is when it comes to fixing the Canon printer is not responding error.
You will find it inside Windows Settings > Troubleshooter > Other/Additional troubleshooters > Printer.

If checking the connection issues and clearing the print queue does not seem to work, re-install your Canon printer.

When you reinstall the printer, it will also fix problems like printer port mismatching, which is also a major reason behind the error.

At first, go to Settings > Printers & scanners and Remove your Canon printer.
Next, click on Add printer.
You then have to choose either “Add manually” or “The printer I want isn’t listed.” (Depending upon whether you are on Windows 10 or Windows 11).
After that, you’ll get a small window as shown in the image below. All you need to do is choose the last option.
Choose Use an existing port and choose what kind of port you are using for your Canon printer.
Let me quickly tell you that, you have to choose USB001 for wired ones and Standard TCP/IP if you added the printer using the printer’s IP address.
Similarly, choose WSD option if you added the printer simply by scanning the network. Or, say without using the IP address.
Once you do that, select/install the appropriate printer driver on the next window.
Choose the second option that says “Replace the current driver”

Your Canon printer should now print without throwing the Printer is not responding error.

Yes, you read that right!

Most wireless printers run into issue because they use dynamic IP address.

Should there be any confusion, please reach out to me via comment section below.

I will address your queries as soon as possible 🙂