Overview
You can use the iPad kiosk's Printer Status Page to check your Brother QL-820NWB's connection, print a test badge, or run a Network Diagnostic.
The diagnostic checks your connection in layers, from the iPad's basic network access to the printer's readiness to receive print jobs. Working through the layers in order helps you pinpoint exactly where the connection is breaking down, so you can address the cause immediately.
Start here: Check if the iPad can see your printer
Before changing any network settings, use the built-in Printer Debug Menu to check whether the iPad can already discover your printer.
On the Visitor kiosk, tap and hold the Envoy icon at the top of the screen
After a couple of seconds, you should be prompted to enter a PIN.
This PIN is set on your Devices page by clicking the ellipses next to New iPad and selecting Access code settings.
After entering the PIN, you'll see the debug menu.
Under Printing, tap Printer status page.
This opens on a general status page.
If your printer does not appear, your network is most likely blocking the iPad and printer from finding each other.
Printer Status Page
Multiple printers are only available on Visitors Enterprise
This page shows an overview of your Primary and Fallback printer(s). Live network logs are shown below.
Select printer
You can connect to a printer directly from your kiosk. This "scans" your network for any available printers.
Print test badge
As the name suggests, this button sends a test signal to the printer. If successful, it will print "Test Badge" along with the date and time.
Network Diagnostic
Tap the ellipses next to Print test badge to reveal more options.
Tap Network Diagnostic to open.
This robust troubleshooting tool ensures each "layer" used for printing is working as required.
Layers checked by the diagnostic tool:
Network path: Is the iPad connected to a network via Wi-Fi or Ethernet?
Local Network permission: Can the iPad see other devices on the network?
Printer discovery
Printer reachability: Can the iPad actually find and communicate with the printer's IP address on the network? Think of this as a ping test.
Print readiness - IPP: Is the printer responding correctly over IPP (Internet Printing Protocol, typically on port 631)? If reachability passes but IPP fails, the printer is on the network but isn't properly advertising/responding
Print readiness - Brother SDK: Is the printer responding correctly to Brother's software? This is separate from IPP because label printers like the QL-820NWB often need Brother-specific commands.
General
This tab checks connectivity to the local network and looks for any connected printers. This is a good place to start if you're experiencing issues.
Click Run to test whether this iPad can reach printers at all
Potential errors and how to solve them
No usable network connection
This iPad isn't on a usable network
This means your iPad can't connect to the internet. Check the connection to the iPad and ensure your Wi-Fi or Ethernet network is operational.
Local network access denied - enable it in Settings
Allow local network access
To connect the iPad kiosk app to your Brother printer, the app must be able to discover and connect to devices on your network. The fix for this is to turn this setting on.
Navigate to Settings > Apps > Envoy Visitors.
Ensure the Local Network setting is toggled On.
No network printers discovered
No printers found on this network
This means your printer cannot be reached by the iPad on this network. There are multiple potential causes of this:
Printer cannot communicate with iPad using your network
Many Wi-Fi networks — especially Guest networks — have a setting that prevents devices from talking to each other. When this is on, the iPad simply cannot discover the printer. It may be called:
Client Isolation
AP Isolation
Wireless Isolation
Guest Mode
Ensure AP/Client isolation isn't enabled on the router (common on mesh systems and some ISP routers. This blocks devices from "seeing" each other, even on the same SSID.
The following ports must be open between the iPad and printer within your local network: UDP 137, UDP 161, and TCP 5900.
Learn more about Advanced printer requirements.
Printer is on a different network than your iPad
A very common mistake is having the iPad on a Guest Wi-Fi network while the printer is on the main office network. Even though both have internet access, they can't see each other.
The QL-820NWB's Wi-Fi is 2.4GHz only, so if your router broadcasts separate SSIDs for each band, the iPad might be joined to the 5GHz one.
Quick check: Compare the IP addresses of the iPad and printer. If they match for the first three groups of numbers (for example, both start with
10.0.5.), they're on the same network. If they differ, they're not.
Printer is not connected to Wi-Fi
Ensure your printer's Wi-Fi connection is on and the device is not in Bluetooth mode.
On your printer, confirm that an IP address shows when navigating to Menu > WLAN > WLAN Status > Infrastructure Mode > IP Addr.
Printer may be sleep/deep sleep mode and not responding to discovery broadcasts. Your printer should have a green light next to the power button and be responsive to touch.
Make sure the network allows printer traffic
Some office firewalls or managed networks block the traffic printers rely on. Ask your IT team to confirm the network allows:
mDNS / Bonjour discovery — UDP port 5353
Printing — TCP port 9100 (and commonly 631 and 515)
Multicast traffic in general (not filtered or dropped)
If the printer has to stay on a separate network (advanced)
In some larger offices, IT keeps printers on a separate network segment (VLAN) for security. This blocks automatic discovery by design.
Your IT team can resolve this in one of two ways:
Enable a "Bonjour / mDNS gateway" (also called an mDNS repeater or forwarding) on your router or Wi-Fi controller. Most business-grade networking equipment (Cisco, Aruba, Meraki, UniFi, etc.) supports this. This lets discovery work across network segments.
Assign the printer a fixed IP address and configure it directly, where supported.
Still not working? Send us this info
If you've worked through the steps above and the printer still doesn't appear in the Printer Debug Menu, contact Envoy Support with the following so we can help quickly:
The printer make and model
Whether the iPad and printer are on the same network (and the network name each uses)
The IP address of the iPad and the IP address of the printer
Whether a computer on the same network can find and print to the printer
Whether your network uses Guest Wi-Fi, separate VLANs, or client isolation
Targeted tab
If you have your printer's IP address, you can direct the Envoy app to scan for a specific printer. This goes further than the General tab can since you can target the printer itself.
Printer reachability
TCP Open
This confirms the iPad successfully opened a raw TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) connection to the printer's IP address. TCP open means the socket connection succeeded.
If this layer fails, you'd typically see something like TCP closed or a timeout, which points to a network-layer problem (wrong subnet, port blocked, printer offline) rather than a printer software problem.
Print readiness - IPP
Idle - no blocking reasons
This confirms the printer responded correctly over IPP (Internet Printing Protocol) and reported its own status back. idle is the printer's self-reported state (as opposed to printing, stopped, etc.), and no blocking reasons means IPP's standard "printer-state-reasons" field came back empty, no reported errors like media-empty, door-open, or paper-jam.
If this layer fails, you'd likely see a specific state reason surface here instead, indicating a printer hardware/consumables issue rather than a network issue.
Print readiness — Brother SDK
Brother QL-820NWB · online · err —/—
This is the Brother-specific check confirming that the printer responds correctly to Brother's proprietary protocol layer (used for label-specific commands such as cut settings). online confirms the SDK sees the printer as available, and err —/— means no error code is being reported in either of the two error-code slots Brother's SDK tracks.
If this fails, you'd expect to see actual Brother error codes here instead of dashes — those map to specific hardware issues (cover open, no paper, no ribbon, etc.) per Brother's documentation.
Printer Webpage
In addition to the troubleshooting tools available in the Visitors app, Brother provides a webpage you can use to target your printer. You can access this through the debug menu.
Tap the ellipses next to Print test badge to reveal more options.
Tap Open Printer Webpage.
This gives you direct access to the printer's settings and status, which is useful when the debug menu's tools don't provide enough information or when you want to make changes at the printer level.
The page is organized into four tabs:
General: Shows the printer's live status (Ready, Error, etc.), media status and size, and basic device info. This is the fastest way to confirm the printer itself thinks it's working, independent of what the iPad reports.
Printer Settings: Power behavior (auto power on/off, eco charging) and other device-level configuration. This is worth checking if a printer seems to go to sleep or shut off unexpectedly between prints.
Administrator: Login password management, factory reset, and firmware updates. If Envoy support asks for your firmware version, or you're troubleshooting a bug that might be fixed by an update, this is where you'll find it
Network: Confirms whether the printer is connected via Wi-Fi or Ethernet, along with its MAC address and node name. This is handy for cross-checking against your router's connected devices list, or for network/IT teams who need the MAC address to whitelist the printer.
