Problems printing with OS X Lion and 4.1.18 ***SOLVED***

After tinkering for several hours trying to get my Canon MP530 working, I *think* I've advanced my cause, although I've yet to print anything.

I got rid of all the printers I had defined over the past couple of days and started with a fresh one. This time, when initially choosing the printer I selected "Add other printer or scanner". Then from the next screen I choose "Windows" and waited while the NV+'s spoolers showed up in the network. I chose *that* printer (which is named Canon MP530) and printed a test page. The document seemed to process through the stream until its status shows "On Hold (Authentication Required)" and stops there. I think that it's waiting for me to enter the Windows network's smb id/password, but I've never set one up, nor do I know what would happen if I should get the id/password right.

Does where I'm at now sound familiar to anyone? Where should this Widows password go?


p.s. - even though it seems the print is waiting for authorization, the spool in the NV+ shows nothing in it.

I found out even more information....

In looking at my CUPS log, it seems that it cannot get into smb://readynas/

D [13/Sep/2011:15:32:12 -0400] [Job 1] PrintFab: printing page 1, 0% complete...
D [13/Sep/2011:15:32:12 -0400] [Job 1] Set job-printer-state-message to "PrintFab: printing page 1, 0% complete...", current level=INFO
D [13/Sep/2011:15:32:12 -0400] [Job 1] PrintFab: printing page 1, 2% complete...
D [13/Sep/2011:15:32:12 -0400] [Job 1] Set job-printer-state-message to "PrintFab: printing page 1, 2% complete...", current level=INFO
D [13/Sep/2011:15:32:12 -0400] [Job 1] PrintFab: printing page 1, 4% complete...
D [13/Sep/2011:15:32:12 -0400] [Job 1] Set job-printer-state-message to "PrintFab: printing page 1, 4% complete...", current level=INFO
D [13/Sep/2011:15:32:12 -0400] [Job 1] Failed to connect to "smb://readynas/": STATUS_LOGON_FAILURE
D [13/Sep/2011:15:32:12 -0400] [Job 1] Set job-printer-state-message to "Authentication required", current level=ERROR
D [13/Sep/2011:15:32:12 -0400] [Job 1] smb backend (PID=6881) stopped with status 512
D [13/Sep/2011:15:32:12 -0400] [Job 1] smb backend will exit with status 2
D [13/Sep/2011:15:32:12 -0400] [Job 1] /usr/libexec/cups/filter/pstoprintfab: line 47: kill: (6891) - No such process
D [13/Sep/2011:15:32:12 -0400] [Job 1] Backend returned status 2 (authentication required)
D [13/Sep/2011:15:32:12 -0400] [Job 1] Job held for authentication.
D [13/Sep/2011:15:32:12 -0400] [Job 1] End of messages
D [13/Sep/2011:15:32:12 -0400] [Job 1] printer-state=3(idle)
D [13/Sep/2011:15:32:12 -0400] [Job 1] printer-state-message="Authentication required"
D [13/Sep/2011:15:32:12 -0400] [Job 1] printer-state-reasons=none
E [13/Sep/2011:15:37:19 -0400] [Job 1] Stopping unresponsive job!

This seems strange, since I used the Windows printer dialog to point to the NV+'s spooler on /workgroup/readynas/Canon_MP530. PrintFAB is my Canon print driver I bought a few years ago. It gives much better image quality with Canons over a network than Canon's own Mac print driver,

After spending hours and hours reading these forums, the 'net in general, Canon's Web site, PrintFAB's website, and who knows whos, maybe even Steve Job's web site, I finally got my Canon MP530 USB printer to print on my smb network using my NV+'s spooler under OS X Lion 10.7.1 and ReadyNAS NV+ 4.1.8 firmware. I'm writing this down for 2 reasons - 1) to help everyone else in my position (i.e. people with ReadyNAS devices who are using their spooling services under OS X Lion, and 2) because if I didn't write all this down, I'd never be able to do it again :D

After trying over and over again to set up the MP530 using the normal Printer/Fax System Preference, the only way I could configure it correctly was by using CUPS. So the first step in this process is to create the printer using CUPS.

Go to http://localhost:631/ . That's where the printer configuration utility for OS X lives. It's pretty straightforward with loads of documentation, so take a few minutes to read it over; it's not very hard to understand. Then, when you're ready, go to the Administration tab, and Add A Printer. Now, this is not a normal printer definition by any means. That's why I needed CUPS to create the printer profile. There may be a way to use the normal OS X interfaces to do this, but as the sun set I just got tired of creating/deleting printer profiles. So CUPS it is!

The first thing you need to do is choose the type of network printer. Now, as I was reading somewhere that someone got their printer working under Lion by using smb shares. But since I've exhausted my normal AFP/Bonjour stuff, I gave it a shot with smb. To do this select "Windows printer via spoolss". With the way I have my system configured, smb needs login credentials, and I need to add them into the printer definition. So my definition starts with smb://username:password , the normal way to pass credentials to an external host. Since my credentials are just formatted in the default manner, the username is my shortname (firstnamelastname) and the password is my OS X one, making it easy to format this part.

Next would be the server - my ReadyNAS NV+ (or just readynas in my parlance). But for some reason I couldn't get ReadyNAS or readynas or whatever to work. Eventually I realized that there has to be some DNS somewhere to resolve my server name. But since I didn't have (know) one, I just used its IP address, which hasn't changed for my NV+ since I put it in my network a few years ago. My printer definition now becomes smb://username:password/192.168.#.#/ . Replace with your NAS's IP, of course :)

The last part of this stage uses the spooler name from the ReadyNAS. Use the one without spaces in the name (or FAX too, if you have one like that). Since my spooler name is Canon_MP530, my entire printer network path name is:

smb://username:password/192.168.#.#/Canon_MP530

There's some other configurations you have to do in CUPS, like setting up the printer driver and the default print configurations, but most of that is using the CUPS menus and pulldowns, making it real easy to build a complete printer profile....or so it seemed when I sent a test page to it. I waited and waited, but nothing came out. The printer status dialog said that it was sending the print, but it never moved from that status.

Oh boy. I thought I had it all figured out :(

Then, I remembered that I've been using PrintFAB's print driver since 2007 or so, since Canon's Mac driver's really stunk at the time, and didn't work at all if you shared the printer on a network. I bought the PrintFAB printer driver to get excellent network quality printing from my MP530. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how to tell CUPS the PrintFAB's driver name. But then a light bulb turned on - I went back into the normal Printer/FAX System Preference panel, chose my newly-built CUPS printer driver, and chose my PrintFAB driver name from the drop-down dialog box built into the printer's configuration panel. After saving the changes, I sent another test page, and I got a keychain dialog box asking me my password. I was almost there. A few minutes after saving the the logon in the keychain, I heard the familiar cranking of my good old Canon MP530. I ran to the computer room and practically cried on the test sheet that the MP530 so fabulously printed :) My last task (before writing this diatribe) is to click the little padlock on the bottom left corner of the Printer/FAX setup box. I'm not risking someone unwittingly deleting my precious printer definition.

Well, finally a good end to a seemingly disaster of an OS upgrade. But thinking back on all of this, I really need to get a nice network print spooler that works with hundreds of printers/faxes and plays nice with other OS's. I think I'm too exposed to changes coming from all sides for a service (printing) that is essential to me. Getting a dedicated print spooler should (in theory) insulate me from OS changes, driver changes, and definitely CUPS changes. I love my NV+, but it could be much better in the printer spooler arena. Well, life's a win-lose situation, and I think I won a little battle in life today.

Mike

i tried this solution with only partial success. I still get a message stating that OSX still cannot find the driver for my printer (HP D7160). This configuration was working
just fine with 4.1.7 and Snow Leopard. is important that I can the print spooler name correctly from Frontview or that just an arbitrary bit?

scopedial wrote:
i tried this solution with only partial success. I still get a message stating that OSX still cannot find the driver for my printer (HP D7160). This configuration was working just fine with 4.1.7 and Snow Leopard. is important that I can the print spooler name correctly from Frontview or that just an arbitrary bit?

On my first round of testing, I downloaded all the printer drivers for my printer from Apple; these did not work. Eventually I got my MP530 working by using the PrintFAB driver from them. They have a trial; you should see if they works with your setup.

I definitely believe the 3rd party hardware makes should provide free, working drivers for Lion, but since Canon's printer drivers never worked satisfactorily over the network ( as in attached to a Windows PC on my network), I was happy that I got the MP530 working at the best possible level with PrintFAB.

I had a slightly different problem and I think I've solved it. Just bought a Lion-based Air and initially was able to find, install, and use my old Canon i550 served by my ReadyNAS DUO using Bonjour. However, when I updated my NAS image to 4.1.18, I completely lost the ability to print, even though Bonjour could see the printer. I needed to update to utilize the Time Machine fix to be compatible with Lion.

On top of this I also run VMWare Fusion with Win7-64bit as a client. This complicated things (later).

Reading the forum, I finally was able to get Mac printing to work with smb://192.168.X.X/Canon_i550 (note that the previous suggestion to include username:password in the address did not work for me). Once added as a printer, the first time you print you are asked for username and password -- check the box to save in Keychain. Important--don't use the "Send Test Page" as the first printing--this doesn't trigger the password request. Had no problem using the pre-existing, Apple-supplied driver. All good so far.

Then I went into my virtual machine and could not use the pass-through printer automatically set up by VMware. My guess is that the subsystem isn't able to retrieve the user/pass from Keychain.

Oddly enough, I use IP printing from my Windows computers, specifying http://192.168.X.X:631/printers/Canon_i550 as the address. This didn't work from the Win7 VM. I finally realized that the VM was set up with my WORK user/pass, not my HOME user/pass, and so it failed to authenticate. So I tried this on the VMWare Win7 system:

http://username:password@192.168.X.X:631/printers/Canon_i550

Now both systems can print! HOWEVER, it is clear that the 4.1.18 update killed Bonjour printing. I'm looking forward to the next version to simplify things once this is fixed!

The solutions above (using CUPS) did not work for me. I have ReadyNas DUO with a Samsung SCX 4623. The printer kept refusing the connection, I tried the admin password or user passwords for ReadyNAS or the admin for Mac OSX with no luck. Eventually I deleted the printer. I reset the CUPS system on the OS X and then used the print&scan prefpane and added a new printer using the "windows" option. Initially this did not work because it would only give me the option to use the generic postscript drivers. But I installed the updated Samsung drivers from Apple (http://support.apple.com/kb/dl905). I tried this time and it allowed me to choose the correct driver and Voila! it worked.

perfect, MrHex. There was actually no need to reset anything - just adding my Kyocera Mita FS 1010 as Windows printer worked well. Actually i tried out the CUPS setup, but in this case - in opposite to the 'windows'-option - i had to put in username/password for every single print job.

This worked for me, with the slight proviso that the SMB path should read:

smb://user:pass@server/queue

Note that an @ sign, not a /, is required. Also, I had to select the Gutenprint driver form my Canon Pixma printer, or it would hang sending the data to the printer. Good job, ScuseMe

Actually, I found a much simpler way to solve my problem:

1) Add the printer as a windows printer from the pref pane, selecting the Gutenprint driver
2) Send it a test page, and watch it get stuck with "Authentication required"
3) Open "Keychain Access" in OSX (use spotlight)
4) Make sure all the network login passwords for smb://server are correct
5) Release the job and watch it print.

I had a stale password (had updated some passwords on the NV+), and it was therefore failing to authenticate.