[kennedy]

Does OS X 10.2 printer sharing really work?
If anyone here has it working, maybe you can help me out:

1) A printer shared by another computer shows up in PrintCenter as pink. Right? There is no other significance to the pink, right?

2) If you print to such a shared printer, who has authority to delete that job from the queue? It doesn't seem to be a) the user who submitted the job; b) the admin on the computer that submitted the job; c) the admin on the computer sharing the printer. I don't see a lock anywhere to authenticate. Is there some magic incantation?

3) If you have a bunch of jobs queued up for a printer, and no user can delete them the normal way... is there any other way to clear out the queue forcibly?

4) PrintCenter on my PowerBook currently thinks it is printing to each of the three printers installed on my PowerMac. PrintCenter on my PowerBook currently sees none of the jobs from the PowerBook. How do I make this work?

5) Does anybody have printer sharing working such that you can actually print to the shared printers?

Thanks for any suggestions.

[KidRed]

Well, I recently was told that prior to 10.2.6, this just worked. If a printer was on the network, you could see it via rendezvous and select it. Then you could print from it no problem. However, there seemed to be a security issue with the subnet, where anyone could print anywhere or something so this was changed in 10.2.6. So, in order for it to work in 10.2+ you need to put the printers on the same subnet no idea how to do that) So while rendezvous was cool and easy to print with, it seems it's a techie level to set it up and get it working now. Because I can't get it working either.

[mitchell_pgh]

I have a setup at home where an iMac can access my G4 towers laser printer (the G4 and printer are connected via USB)

I simply turned on USB print sharing and it was recognized by the iMac in print center (YES, it was in pink)

They should be on the subnet (YOU WOULD NOT want the print information going above the subnet!!! (as anyone would be able to intercept your print job including a potential hacker etc.)

If you need a way to connect two computers on different subnets, you should get a better printer or try one of the tunneling softwares out there.

[nickm]

I've experience the problem you are having removing items from the queue. If you need a workaround, go to the command line and type: "man lpq" and "man lprm"

Those commands will allow you to remove items, I think.

[cpac]

Originally posted by kennedy:
Does OS X 10.2 printer sharing really work?

Yes it does. Works great for me. One key commonly overlooked necessary step is that: A user must be logged into the computer sharing the printer for the sharing to work.

1) A printer shared by another computer shows up in PrintCenter as pink. Right? There is no other significance to the pink, right?

Yep, that seems to be the case.

2) If you print to such a shared printer, who has authority to delete that job from the queue? It doesn't seem to be a) the user who submitted the job; b) the admin on the computer that submitted the job; c) the admin on the computer sharing the printer. I don't see a lock anywhere to authenticate. Is there some magic incantation?

When you print to a shared printer, the user that is logged into the computer that is sharing the printer has authority to delete the job.

3) If you have a bunch of jobs queued up for a printer, and no user can delete them the normal way... is there any other way to clear out the queue forcibly?

No need. See above.

4) PrintCenter on my PowerBook currently thinks it is printing to each of the three printers installed on my PowerMac. PrintCenter on my PowerBook currently sees none of the jobs from the PowerBook. How do I make this work?

We had a problem with this for a while, if nothing else I'd quit print center, throw away any of it's preferences/queues/caches or the like, and then try printing again.

5) Does anybody have printer sharing working such that you can actually print to the shared printers?

Yep, again, that's me. The key is to have somebody logged into the computer sharing the printer.

[KidRed]

Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
I have a setup at home where an iMac can access my G4 towers laser printer (the G4 and printer are connected via USB)

I simply turned on USB print sharing and it was recognized by the iMac in print center (YES, it was in pink)

They should be on the subnet (YOU WOULD NOT want the print information going above the subnet!!! (as anyone would be able to intercept your print job including a potential hacker etc.)

If you need a way to connect two computers on different subnets, you should get a better printer or try one of the tunneling softwares out there.

Can you explain the subnet thing? My wife's iMac sees my HP USB-ed to my G4. I tried to print to it, it spooled the data and played out like all was good but my printer never printed anything. Printer sharing is enabled on both machines.

[kennedy]

Originally posted by KidRed:
However, there seemed to be a security issue with the subnet, where anyone could print anywhere or something so this was changed in 10.2.6. So, in order for it to work in 10.2+ you need to put the printers on the same subnet

Interesting... that may explain why my attempt at setting up an IP print server has so far failed. The print server is integrated in an Asante Wireless Router. However, I placed the wireless router *outside* the firewall router with my critical systems. I want to give anyone wireless access to my internet connection, but I do not want to give them access to my internal network. So, my internal machines are in one subnet that is within another subnet that is within the Internet. This works great... except I cannot seem to get access to the print server on the wireless router. Next step will be to try connecting directly in the outer subnet and see if I gain access. At least its something to try.

[kennedy]

Originally posted by cpac:
Yes it does. Works great for me. One key commonly overlooked necessary step is that: A user must be logged into the computer sharing the printer for the sharing to work.

Yes, we did discover that. I currently have one PowerMac with two USB printers attached, though the Lexmark X83 drivers aren't normal of USB printers... sort of a type of their own.

I have two other Macs... so that's 4 possible printer sharings: iMac->HP, iMac->Lexmark, PowerBook->HP, PowerBook->Lexmark.

Of those, one does seem to work: iMac->Lexmark. None of the others do. And that is with someone logged into the PowerMac.

When you print to a shared printer, the user that is logged into the computer that is sharing the printer has authority to delete the job.

Really? I don't see this... even in the one case that works. PrintCenter on the PowerMac never shows any foreign jobs.

I have bunches of jobs showing up for both printers on the PowerBook, and nothing on the PowerMac. But no ability to delete those jobs on the PowerBook.

We had a problem with this for a while, if nothing else I'd quit print center, throw away any of it's preferences/queues/caches or the like, and then try printing again.

Tried this. Did manage to clear out the HP's queues; but the Lexmark's queue did not empty.

I tried printing to the HP... PrintCenter shows

"Unable to connect to IPP host: Undefined error: 0"

Mean anything to anyone???

[tooki]

Originally posted by cpac:

Yes it does. Works great for me. One key commonly overlooked necessary step is that: A user must be logged into the computer sharing the printer for the sharing to work.

Yep, again, that's me. The key is to have somebody logged into the computer sharing the printer.

Where is this myth coming from?!? It's clearly not a universal rule, because I can share my printers perfectly fine, even with nobody logged in on the Mac that the printers are hooked up to. I just tried it, so I know it works.

Maybe it's a problem specific to HP and Lexmark printer drivers? (I kinda doubt it, though.)

tooki

[kennedy]

Originally posted by tooki:
Where is this myth coming from?!? It's clearly not a universal rule, because I can share my printers perfectly fine, even with nobody logged in on the Mac that the printers are hooked up to. I just tried it, so I know it works.

Maybe it's a problem specific to HP and Lexmark printer drivers? (I kinda doubt it, though.)

Really!! The myth is coming from a lot of experimentation across a number of different systems in a number of different networks by a number of different people! Reinforced by a few threads around the Internet.

Please help us figure out how you have it working... you're the ONLY person I have yet to hear that it works for!!

1) On your *sharing* computer, are you running OS X or OS X Server? Are you running 10.2.6 or are you running 10.2.5 or earlier? Do you have any sort of background processes or daemons setup?

2) On your *sharing* computer, how did you set up the printers? Are they configured as USB printers? Did they have any special "shared" drivers? (Lexmark X83 does, for example. But the HP does not.)

3) On your *using* computer, do you explicitly install the same drivers? How do you setup and configure the printers there? Or do you just do nothing on the *using* side other than select the printer from the "Shared Printers" list?


If anyone else has this working, please chime in. As I said, AFAIK, Tooki's system is unique in the world.

Thanks!!

Brian

[Gavin]

Please help us figure out how you have it working... you're the ONLY person I have yet to hear that it works for!!


Works fine for me too.


1) On your *sharing* computer, are you running OS X or OS X Server? Are you running 10.2.6 or are you running 10.2.5 or earlier? Do you have any sort of background processes or daemons setup?

I am running 10.2.6 on both my desktop which is connected to the printer (an epson) and my laptop. I can print just fine from the laptop in the living room to the printer connected to the G3 in the den over my wireless network.

I have nothing special set up with printing or networking daemons, CUPS or anything. A plain vanilla set up.


2) On your *sharing* computer, how did you set up the printers? Are they configured as USB printers? Did they have any special "shared" drivers? (Lexmark X83 does, for example. But the HP does not.)


The printer was already in the list of printers in print center. I just checked 'printer sharing' in the sharing control panel. That's it.


3) On your *using* computer, do you explicitly install the same drivers? How do you setup and configure the printers there? Or do you just do nothing on the *using* side other than select the printer from the "Shared Printers" list?

I did nothing on the laptop I print from. The printer is just there, with no set up at all.

Simply choose 'print'. Under the printer pop up menu in the sheet go down to shared printers and choose the remote printer.

I am not able to delete or pause the print job from the laptop once it is printing, but I can delete it from the desktop connected to the printer. Looks like the computer actually connected to the printer 'owns' the print job.

I also just tried it while no one was logged in. Works the same. If you have to log in it could be that the computer was asleep, when my desktop goes to sleep everything network related goes with it; file sharing, printing, itunes, etc. Try adjusting your energy settings. There is also a way to wake it up over the network using 'Wake On Lan', so you don't have to walk all the way in there. Someone has a perl script that you run from the client machine, I haven't tried it though.

If anyone else has this working, please chime in. As I said, AFAIK, Tooki's system is unique in the world.

For me, I clicked 'share the printer', and it did.
It's a Mac!

Are you sure the print queue is running? Mine get stopped all the time.

There are problems with certain drivers and printing certain programs. Bad drivers, post script issues, etc. Check out gimp print http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/MacOSX.php3 they have lots of free drivers and lots of info about using CUPS to share printers.

It also could be that people are trying too hard. You only need printer sharing turned on on the computer that is connected to the printer, turn it off on the clients. Maybe people are manually adding a printer on the client, you don't need to do that, the remote printer will show up all by itself once it is shared. If you print to the wrong printer (the unnecessarily added local driver instead of the shared remote printer) then you will get what people describe: it prints but never gets into the queue on the print server.

You could also be having a fire wall or subnet issue, this might affect file sharing too. Upgrade to the latest firmware on your router.

The easy solution is to just give up and have a beer. You can throw the empty bottle at the printer.

[KidRed]

Originally posted by tooki:
Yep, again, that's me. The key is to have somebody logged into the computer sharing the printer.

Where is this myth coming from?!? It's clearly not a universal rule, because I can share my printers perfectly fine, even with nobody logged in on the Mac that the printers are hooked up to. I just tried it, so I know it works.

Maybe it's a problem specific to HP and Lexmark printer drivers? (I kinda doubt it, though.)

tooki [/B][/QUOTE]

Are we confusing logged in with meaning computer on/off? This won't work if one machines is asleep or off.

That being said, I still can't get this to work.

[kennedy]

Originally posted by KidRed:
Are we confusing logged in with meaning computer on/off? This won't work if one machines is asleep or off.

That being said, I still can't get this to work.

In my case, the computer that is sharing the printers is set to never sleep... and it never does. So, that's not the issue for me.

And I, too, still can't get USB printer sharing to work consistently or predictably. And never will it work if nobody is logged in.

Fortunately, I also have an 18-year-old NEC Appletalk laser printer... and every machine I have can print to that effortlessly... its amazing how Appletalk, even thrust over IP, is still the easiest to configure and most reliable mechanism available. [sigh] Unfortunately, it doesn't do color.

[kennedy]

Originally posted by Gavin:
For me, I clicked 'share the printer', and it did. It's a Mac!

I guess mine aren't Macs. Damned imposters!

The easy solution is to just give up and have a beer. You can throw the empty bottle at the printer.

Okay, I tried that... other than the nice dorm-room odor I've recreated, it hasn't changed anything.

Gavin, Tooki, <and anyone else who has this working>,

What printers are you sharing?
(Maybe the printer drivers make the difference.)

Thanks.

[KidRed]

I've got an HP, 2 actually, and never had the problem until 10.2.6 because of the security risk to the subnet thing. So now that I;'m secure, I can printer share? Strange trade off.

[kennedy]

My day of pathetic inadequancy in Mac land continues...

Okay, I'm trying to simply clear out the two print queues on my laptop targetted at the two shared printers. Where the #e!! are they stored???

I can see them but can't delete them from PrintCenter on my laptop. Tried both user accounts on the machine.

I can't see them on the sharing machine... it thinks the queues of all its printers are empty... and it will happily print to either. So, its not on the sharing Mac.

~/Library/Printers is empty in both accounts on my laptop.

/Library/Printers doesn't seem to hold them. I deleted anything in there related to Lexmark.

/System/Library/Printers seems to just be printer descriptors and drivers and such... and all the Lexmark stuff is other printer models... nothing on the X83.

I uninstalled the Lexmark X83 software from the system.

I emptied trash in both accounts.

Find of "lexmark" and "hp" in finder yielded nothing that has those doc pointers in it. Found a lot of GZip files, a few Plug-In files, and some utilities.

Tried finding "queue", "spool" and "shar"... found some control panels and extensions. Shouldn't be any data in those, right?

And, yes, I've restarted several times.

Where are these shared printer queues stored?!?!?!

[Gavin]

My day of pathetic inadequancy in Mac land continues...

Where are these shared printer queues stored?!?!?!

try
sudo ls -l /var/spool/cups/
or
sudo ls -l /var/spool/cups/tmp

find won't show you files in the super secret unix areas. you have to use the terminal:
% locate spool

I think the file should be spooled on the server though.

Just to make sure. You are printing to the shared printer and not a local printer, right? It should look like this:

[kennedy]

Originally posted by Gavin:
try
sudo ls -l /var/spool/cups/
or
sudo ls -l /var/spool/cups/tmp

find won't show you files in the super secret unix areas. you have to use the terminal:
% locate spool

I think the file should be spooled on the server though.

Thanks! Terminal is no problem... have 4 up right now. Since those are binary files, its hard to make a whole lot out of them... but it appears they are on the laptop, not the server. I assume, since they are in /var/spool/, that it won't hurt anything if I just delete them all?? True?

(BTW, what does "CUPS" stand for?)

Just to make sure. You are printing to the shared printer and not a local printer, right? It should look like this: <image>

Yes, it looks just like that. Different printer names. There are no local printers... in PrintCenter, everything listed is pink.

And based on that graphic, I take it the answer to my other question is: you have an Epson Stylus and ... uhhh... what's that other one?

Thanks a lot for the help!!

[kennedy]

Does anyone know if its safe for me to delete all the files out of /var/spool/cups??

I'm going to try again in the morning to get printing working... and the first step appears to be to try deleting those files.

Anyone?

Any other advice here?

[Gavin]

Thanks! Terminal is no problem... have 4 up right now. Since those are binary files, its hard to make a whole lot out of them... but it appears they are on the laptop, not the server. I assume, since they are in /var/spool/, that it won't hurt anything if I just delete them all?? True?

(BTW, what does "CUPS" stand for?)


I have a bunch of temp files sitting there too.
You can delete them if you want, but make a copy first in case zapping them causes it to print naked pictures when your mom is there or something.


Cocked Up Printers Suck or something like that. It is a unix printing system that is becoming standard for all the unixen. OSX uses it under the hood.

It is very modular and lets you drop custom parts into the chain of things that happen when you print.

Along those lines you should try out gimp print. It may have a driver that works better for your printer, at least for the network. It is a collection of drivers by programmers tried of the half-assed drivers done by the manufacturer, or no support at all in the case of linux or the mac.

Yes, it looks just like that. Different printer names. There are no local printers... in PrintCenter, everything listed is pink.

Cool, so now we know a couple of things.
The printer IS shared.
You ARE printing to the networked printer.

Could be a mediocre driver.


And based on that graphic, I take it the answer to my other question is: you have an Epson Stylus and ... uhhh... what's that other one?


That's a local driver for the same printer. Sometimes it's quicker to just plug the laptop into the printer.

Thanks a lot for the help!!

No problem

[kennedy]

Originally posted by Gavin:
That's a local driver for the same printer. Sometimes it's quicker to just plug the laptop into the printer.

Interesting! In the only cases where I've gotten this to work at all, I had at one time installed the same printer directly to the computer! (Still had to be logged in on the shared computer for it to work, but at least it did work.)

Hey, Tooki, does that fit your case, too? That is, on your computer that is able to access the shared printers, had you ever used the printer directly connected to the computer??

Maybe I should try that next? Thanks.

[kennedy]

Originally posted by Gavin:
try
sudo ls -l /var/spool/cups/
or
sudo ls -l /var/spool/cups/tmp

I removed those... on both machines... restarted just PrintCenter... it still had the queue. So, I re-deleted the files and then restarted the machine...

The queues were gone, but they were still stopped when viewed from the PowerBook (they are active and working fine on the sharing computer). PrintCenter doesn't give an option of restarting the queue on the PowerBook. Trying to print gets an extra dialog about the stopped queue... clicking continue to attempt to restart it gets a Printer Error dialog.

Suggestions?

[kennedy]

Partially Solved! But big problem remains (see below)...

I have my PowerMac and my iMac such that either can share with the other. Furthermore, I have shown that I can share without being logged in on the sharing computer... but that such ability is dependent upon the printer drivers The HP 5150 works great; no need to be logged in. The Lexmark X83 requires someone (anyone) to be logged in on the sharing machine. If nobody is, then the job will sit in queue "waiting" to be printed. As soon as someone logs in, the job prints.

How did I get this working?

You must have the drivers properly installed for the printers being shared. To do that, I recommend:

1) Temporarily plug the printer to be shared into the computer.

2) Install its printer drivers.

3) Add the printer in Print Center.

4) Print something to the printer.

5) Delete the printer from Print Center (don't delete the drivers; just remove the printer from the Printers List)

6) Plug the printer back into its sharing computer

7) Just in case, reboot the sharing computer and then reboot the other computer

Not sure if all those steps are necessary, but it worked in this case.

HOWEVER, it did NOT work in the case of my PowerBook. That's why its only partially solved.

Interestingly, on my iMac and my PowerMac, when you select the shared printers, it clearly invokes the proper print drivers for those printers... you see the Print... dialog change accordingly. On my PowerBook, the Print... dialog stays the same no matter which printer you select. Thus, the PowerBook, for some strange reason, is not invoking the print drivers for those printers.

Any ideas on why that might be?????