[pendragon]

On my two computers, a PPC and an Intel iMac (both 10.4.8), Print Sharing and Apple talk are enabled. The machines are connected via a D-Link 604 router.

My printer (Epson R340) had been connected directly to the Intel machine with printing from the PPC working as expected.

But a few days ago, when trying to print a Word document from the PPC, Word would just quit. No alert, no dialog, nada. Printing from the iMac was routine.

So, on the PPC, I did the usual, e.g., Repaired Permissions, Safe Booted, Cold Booted, Zapped, and ran DiskWarrior. No problems noted, but no resolution either. Copying back via SuperDuper from a verified backup yielded the same results.

Before reinstalling Office 2004, and just for kicks, I wondered what would happen if I connected the printer directly to the PPC. That should, I reasoned, affirm or refute the problem resting with Word.

Bingo! Both computers again print as they once did. At this point, I figured the issue must have been a faulty connection, so I put things back to their original state. But after doing that, the PPC can (again) no longer print.

I can get things to work, but I have no idea what is going on. Why does print sharing only work in “one direction”?

Guesses and musings most welcome.

[pendragon]

On the off chance that anyone is following this thread and is curious to know how the story ends...

To make a long story short, I have Little Snitch installed to prevent any undesired Calling Home. Somehow, Little Snitch had been configured to precluded M$ Word from accessing my network. (Well, duh, he says to himself—what a dope.)

A simple reconfiguring of LS and all is again right with the world.

[Art Vandelay]

BTW, you don't need AppleTalk turned on unless you're connecting to some legacy device that doesn't support IP.

[pendragon]

Originally Posted by Art Vandelay 

BTW, you don't need AppleTalk turned on unless you're connecting to some legacy device that doesn't support IP.

Yeah, I pretty much knew that, but in my desperation/frustration, I was hoping (clearly, I could not call that thinking) that enabling AppleTalk would somehow have a positive affect on my network.

Now, I wonder how M$ got in Little Snitch. While not certain, I suspect that sometime I started to run M$ AutoUpdate and then changed my mind. Or, something like that.

Aaaagh, the shame of making a problem worse than it is and not thinking. On the plus side, some learning did take place, even if it was a tad painful.

[Art Vandelay]

Unless you have an enterprise version of Office, each Office app will sniff the network for other instances of the same serial number active on the network every time you open it. That could be why Word was in Little Snitch.

[pendragon]

Good point Art, thanks! While I have 3 Office licenses, when I first got the Intel machine, I used Migration Assistant and that may have moved/duplicated the 1 license that was in use at the time.