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Wireless Printer Setup & Login Recovery

The MCW10 is Star's wireless LAN adapter — it plugs into a TSP100IV printer and puts it on your shop's wifi instead of an ethernet cable. This page covers getting it onto your network from scratch, and what to do when the printer's own settings page stops letting you in.

Use it when:

  • The MCW10 has been reset, or is new out of the box.
  • A temporary StarWLAN-XXXXXX network is showing up in your phone's wifi list.
  • You need the MCW10 to join your business wifi.
  • The printer's settings page returns Authentication Failed.

For the ForkLine side of printer setup — turning printing on and pointing the printer at ForkLine — see Setting Up Your Receipt Printer. This page is only about getting the hardware onto the network and reachable.

Login credentials

When you open the printer's web settings page in a browser, log in with:

Field Value
Username root
Password public

Do not use 1234 for the browser login. That's a different code, and entering it here is a common reason people conclude their password is broken when it isn't.

Part 1: Reset the MCW10

  1. Confirm the MCW10 is connected to the printer and the printer is powered on.
  2. Press and hold the Reset button on the MCW10.
  3. Keep holding until the Power LED flashes and the other LEDs turn off.
  4. Release Reset while the Power LED is still flashing.
  5. Wait for the MCW10 to restart.
  6. On your phone, open wifi settings and connect to the temporary network — it's named something like StarWLAN-XXXXXX.

Your phone is now talking to the adapter directly. That's the only way to tell it about your real network.

Part 2: Configure it with the Star app

  1. Open the Star Quick Setup Utility app.
  2. Choose the option to configure a Wireless LAN Unit.
  3. Enter your business wifi network name and password.
  4. Submit the settings.

The MCW10 restarts and the StarWLAN-XXXXXX network disappears. That's expected — it's the adapter leaving its own temporary network to join yours.

  1. Open your phone's wifi settings and connect to the same business wifi network you just entered.
  2. Go back to the Star Quick Setup Utility and confirm the MCW10 and printer are discovered.

If the app says you're on a different network

Your phone and the printer have to be on the same network for the app to find it. Check all of these:

  • Your phone is on the same wifi network you gave the MCW10 — not a second network, and not the 5GHz twin of a 2.4GHz one.
  • You're not on cellular data only.
  • VPN is off, at least temporarily.
  • Local Network access is enabled for the Star app in your phone's app permissions.
  • You're not on a guest network. Guest wifi usually isolates devices from each other on purpose, which blocks this entirely.

Part 3: Open the printer's settings page

  1. Find the printer's current IP address — either from the Star Quick Setup Utility, or by printing a network configuration page from the printer.
  2. Open a browser and enter that address over HTTP, for example:
    http://192.168.1.50
  3. Log in with root / public.

Don't assume the address is still 192.168.10.2. That address is used during the MCW10's temporary setup process. Once the adapter joins your business wifi, your router hands the printer a completely different address. Always use the current one from the Star app or the configuration receipt.

Part 4: Fix "Authentication Failed" on a TSP100IV

Resetting the MCW10 does not reset the printer's own network login. They're separate devices with separate settings, which is why a freshly reset adapter can still land you on a login page that rejects root / public.

If those credentials fail, reset the TSP100IV communication settings:

  1. Turn the printer on.
  2. Open the paper cover.
  3. Press and hold FEED until the blue LED starts flashing.
  4. Release FEED.
  5. Press and hold FEED again.
  6. While still holding FEED, close the paper cover.
  7. Release FEED when the printer begins resetting or starts printing.
  8. Let it restart completely.

This resets the printer's network interface and its login — not the whole printer configuration. Avoid a full configuration reset unless you actually need one.

Part 5: Reconnect and log in

  1. Open the Star Quick Setup Utility and rediscover the printer.
  2. Reconfigure the MCW10 if the wireless connection was cleared by the reset — repeat Parts 1 and 2.
  3. Find the printer's new IP address. It will very likely have changed again.
  4. Open that address in a browser.
  5. Log in with root / public.

Then re-point the printer at ForkLine

A communication reset clears the printer's network interface, and the CloudPRNT Server URL lives there. Before you walk away, open the printer's CloudPRNT settings and confirm the Server URL still reads exactly what Settings → Printer shows in ForkLine:

https://print.forklines.com:8443/api/printers/your-restaurant/cloudprnt

ForkLine can't see or change that address. A printer with a blank or wrong Server URL looks perfectly healthy from its own front panel and will simply never print. Full steps are in Setting Up Your Receipt Printer — then fire a test print to confirm.

Worth remembering

  • The MCW10 and the TSP100IV are two devices with two sets of settings. Resetting one leaves the other alone.
  • Resetting the MCW10 resets the wireless adapter.
  • Resetting the TSP100IV communication settings resets the printer's network interface and its login.
  • The printer's IP address changes after almost any reset. Never work from a written-down address — take the current one from the Star app or a network configuration receipt every time.
  • The browser login is always root / public.

Where to go next

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