Firmware library › Update guide
How to update printer firmware safely
Firmware is the software inside the printer itself. Updating it fixes real faults — dropped network connections, wrong paper handling, security holes — and occasionally introduces new ones. The procedure below is what our technicians follow on site. It takes ten minutes longer than the manufacturer’s version, and those ten minutes are the reason we rarely have to come back.
The short version. Know the version you are on, know why you are updating,
protect the power, empty the queue, and do not touch anything until the device says Ready twice.
Step by step
- Print a configuration page. On most devices: Menu → Reports → Configuration. Keep it. It records the firmware version, serial number, IP address and page counts.
- Find out what the new release changes. If none of the fixes matches a problem you have, you do not need this update. “Being current” is not a reason on a working device.
- Download from the manufacturer only. Firmware from a forum or a reseller mirror may be modified, and a printer will happily install it. This library links to procedures, never to files.
- Check the model string exactly. M404dn and M404n take different packages. A wrong-model package usually refuses to install — usually.
- Move to a wired connection if the device has an Ethernet port. Wi-Fi drops during a firmware upload are the single most common cause of a half-flashed printer.
- Pause the print queue on the server or on every client. Jobs that arrive during the update are lost silently.
- Secure the power. Direct to a wall socket or a UPS. Not a switched strip, not a socket someone else can reach with their foot.
- Start the update and leave it alone. No panel buttons, no cover opening, no closing the browser tab, no “it looks stuck, I will just restart it”.
- Wait for the second reboot. Many devices reach Ready, then reboot again a minute later to write the engine or panel firmware. Cutting power in that window is what actually kills printers.
- Print a second configuration page and compare it with the first. The version must have changed; the IP and the trays must not.
- Test the work that matters: a duplex job, a scan to the usual destination, a fax if there is one, and one print from a normal user account — not only from the admin machine.
How long it takes
| Device type | Typical | Longest we have measured |
|---|---|---|
| Desktop mono laser | 4–8 min | 14 min |
| Inkjet MFP | 8–12 min | 19 min |
| Colour laser MFP | 15–25 min | 41 min |
| Department MFP with finisher | 25–40 min | 1 h 10 min |
If the device has been silent for longer than the right-hand column, treat it as a failed update and read rollback and recovery — but do not power-cycle it before you have.
Five ways people break a printer with firmware
- Updating over Wi-Fi from a laptop that goes to sleep mid-upload.
- Flashing a device that is already faulty. Fix the hardware first; firmware does not repair a worn fuser, and now you have two problems that look like one.
- Skipping a required intermediate version. Some platforms will not jump from a very old release straight to the newest one. Each model page lists this where it applies.
- Updating the whole fleet on the same morning. Do one device, use it for a day, then the rest.
- Doing it on a Friday. Whatever breaks will break with nobody there until Monday.
One device at a time. Fleet tools that push firmware to twenty printers at
once are excellent right up to the release that has a bug in it. We stage: one device, one day, then the rest.