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archercat · Dec 13, 2007, 09:47 AM

OK, here's the deal... my wife has an ibook with Tiger 10.4.10. I bought her a Epson Stylus Photo RX595 because it says it was all coolio with Mac 10.4 and even Leopard with a download... Plus I had thought that Epson’s and Mac's got along fine...

So I installed the disc, then plugged in the Printer, it added all the software like Epson Scan and Photo Impressions etc.. and instructed me to add my printer from the printer utility. So everything is hunky dory, the print utility recognizes that an Epson Stylus RX595 is connected through USB, and it auto fills in 2 lines at the bottom, (the name of my Printer and the location), which lists my (Wife's name)'s Ibook. The last line has a dropdown which says please select your printer model I am assuming this is the driver that I am selecting. I also assume from reading online and the instructions that it should match the printer name that it found. Well no luck here, almost all of the Epson drivers say GIMP V.5 Beta 2. The closest thing to the printer I have is a GIMP driver that says Stylus Photo RX500, I selected this and added the printer, but when I send anything to the printer all the printer does is shoot paper through until it runs out.

After some frustration I go to the Epson site and download the driver for the RX595 for 10.4 and it savers an executable to my desktop, it runs as an application and asks for my password on the Mac etc... and seems to install the driver, or at least says it finished installing the RX595 drivers. When I go back to adding the printer it still lists only the GIMP drivers...

I am sure I am missing some easy step, but unfortunately I cannot figure out what that is...

The scanner seems to work fine (it's an all in one) but when I even try to do a nozzle check or head cleaner from the Epson Utility, it says there is a communication problem with the printer...

Please please please any assistance would be great!!!!

sf32571 · Dec 16, 2007, 01:48 PM

I'm experiencing the exact same thing, went through the same steps as you and it just keeps sending the paper through. I know I'm not much help, but you're not alone.

Anyone have any ideas???

meonherenow · Dec 16, 2007, 06:36 PM

Well, I guess third times a charm. I have been wrestling with all the same symptoms and frustrations since LAST Sunday. What a hoot. Not. It would appear that the Gimp-print needs much modification for these (our mac and Epson) models. Upgrade to gutenprint-5.1.4-UB.dmg... I sincerely hope this will solve our problems!

meonherenow · Dec 17, 2007, 06:45 AM

After having shut off the power to all devices overnight and trying to print again this morning - it would appear that the gutenprint did the trick. I have contacted Apple and Epson to pass this along. If you have any questions, e-mail is: j_j_murray@yahoo.com. Hope you have similar success. (It's quite a rush when a different choice finally shows up in the option scroll!) Hope no one else has to go through that special hell.

alinnova · Dec 17, 2007, 10:31 AM

Hello. Google gave me the beginning of this thread yesterday. I want to order an RX595 and got worried as to why Apple no longer sells consumer level EPSON printers. One of their "red shirts" told me that EPSON is no longer as friendly to Macintosh as it used to be years ago.

So, does the gutenprint solution give you the utilities for cleaning, ink tank levels, and diagnostics? Thanks.

deschampsia · 07:15 PM

My husband also purchased this lovely All-In_One for me for the holidays and setting it up has been a two hour nightmare. However, it is solved.

Epson does install a driver for the RX595, but it is a .prm file and not the old .plugins that just "work." A generic solution appears under the heading ESP instead of under Epson and it works, though it is very slow. Installing gutenprint to replace the old gimp-print files is a better solution.

I had to restart the computer at least once before this option worked, but it is printing pretty full color pictures even as I write this.

Now to change it to a network printer and see how that goes.

deschampsia · 05:11 PM

How do I delete a message? Yikes!

deschampsia · Dec 23, 2007, 05:07 PM

The Epson printer Utility measures "cleaning, ink tank levels, and diagnostics" and works just fine. That was my first clue that the problem wasn't the computer talking to the printer, but a driver only problem.

ringos · Dec 29, 2007, 01:17 PM

I just got this printer also, and am quite impressed at all the functions and the quality. This even in comparison to the HP B9180 and Epson 3800. I realize they're not in the same league, but for ease of use, it's a great bargain at $99.

back to this thread, I was able to install on G4 933 running OS X 10.4.11 without issue. Added the printer under Printer Setup Utility and it showed as Stylus Photo RX595 with kind as Epson SP RX595 Series under USB as connection. Drop down menu for "Print Using" automatically selected correct driver. No sign of Gimp printer driver. So, not sure why it wouldn't work with your setup. FYI, it also appears on my other systems and works fine under USB printer sharing.

Cadaver · Dec 29, 2007, 03:41 PM

I think Epson isn't as Mac-friendly as in years past. Not sure why... Canon and Brother seem to be pretty Mac-friendly these days, as does HP (which is nice, as just a few years ago an HP printer was pretty unhappy on a Mac).

I have a Brother HL-2070N black & white laser (ethernet), a Canon Pixma 5000 and a new HP C6250 all-in-one, and they all have fully-functional Mac drivers.

calvinneal · Jan 2, 2008, 03:15 PM

You can use the epson utilities okay, but and this is a big one, I have never had any sucess using epson twain drivers for scanning. I have 2 epson scanners. I use vuescan for scanning. It works great. Epson works great for printing, however, their drivers don't work well for scanning and are very problematic. Cannon has a better reputation for mac.