Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

Macpilot · Sep 22, 2003, 12:17 PM

So I have two printers. An Epson laser and a HP inkjet.

When I have the HP hooked up to the Airport Extreme Base station, I can print to it over Airport.

When I have the Epson printer (EPL-5700i) hooked up to the base station, I get a communications error and I am unable to print wirelessly to that printer.

Since I use the Epson more than the HP, I REALLY want to make this work.

Does anybody know what is going on?

The Epson prints fine when hooked up to my USB hub plugged into the Powerbook, just not over Airport.

Thanks!

Macpilot · Sep 22, 2003, 12:19 PM

One more thing, after I get the communications error message from the Epson monitor, the Print Center says that jobs have been stopped. I click on start jobs and then I get the error again.

??????

Macpilot · Sep 22, 2003, 12:39 PM

Next, I have tried removing all printers from the printer list, logging out, running cocktail, etc.

I have successfully added the HP and it works fine.

When I try to add the Epson (via Rendezvous) and click add, Print Center hangs, and then I get the beach ball.

This is frustrating.

I have removed all other print drivers from the machine.

aaanorton · Sep 22, 2003, 12:45 PM

Just sounds like a compatibility issue.

Macpilot · Sep 22, 2003, 12:49 PM

Well, that solves that! Thanks for the info.

jak86094 · Oct 4, 2003, 05:33 PM

I have had problems with my Airport Extreme USB printing also (printing to an Epson printer). I spent hours on the phone with Apple. We tried everything. But I recently found the solution to my problem...Apple has posted an upgrade of the Airport Extreme firmware from version 5.1.1 to 5.1.3 on their site. Here's the URL for the Knowledgebase article that explains how to download and install the update and also starts the download process:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=120249

Hope this works as well for you as it has for me. 6 weeks of trying and this was the fix I needed.

TeknoTurd · Oct 24, 2003, 04:43 PM

Hey, i feel ya on this problem. Everything was working 100% for me when I was running Jaguar 10.2.8 with my Airport Extreme Base Station and Epson C62, but then I made the jump to Panther Build 7B85 and did a clean install. Now the printer works fine when its plugged into my iBook 700, BUT it wont print when its connected to the AEBS. It shows up just fine when I check the Airport Admin Utility, but still the print jobs just time out. Anyone have any ideas?

jak86094 · Oct 24, 2003, 07:37 PM

Haven't worked with Panther yet, so I have no experience with what you may be dealing with. However, it may be a problem similar to the one I had with AEBS firmware 5.1.1. You can back up to a prior version (or move forward). Have you upgraded your AEBS firmware to 5.1.3? That was the only thing that fixed my problem. If you are still using firmware 5.1 or 5.1.1, it's really possible that the newer firmware will fix the problem. It appears that something in the newer OS's doesn't work right with older versions of AEBS firmware. Give it a try. Go back to the message I originally sent and follow the link.

By the way, can you successfully open the AEBS configuration page? Always or just after a reset of the AEBS?

Any messages show in the Print Center printer status screen when the job stops? Those might help figure out what's happening.

TeknoTurd · Oct 25, 2003, 10:33 PM

I upgraded to AEBS version 5.1.3 as soon as it came out and it worked like a charm. The error I'm getting when I try to print wirelessly is "Communication error with the printer. Please reset (or turn on) the printer and try printing again." I did that, and still nothing. I can't understand why it worked perfectly before and now it's having issues.

TeknoTurd · Dec 17, 2003, 09:53 PM

OK, The printing issue continues. Let's recap. Epson C62, Airport Extreme. Now it recognizes the Epson C62 in the Rendezvous menu in the Printer Setup Utility, BUT when i try to add it, it says that the drivers are not installed. The drivers are installed on the computer through. I chose not to install the Epson printer drivers that came with Panther, but instead just downloaded the ones I needed off the Epson website. Any ideas guys?

Macpilot · Dec 17, 2003, 10:29 PM

Install the drivers from the third Panther CD. It installs all kinds of utilities that can't be downloaded. After installing Panther on several machines using the customized install (where you can choose to not install any printer drivers) I realized this.

The third Panther CD apparently installs the utilities for various functionalities.

Just select the brand of printer during the install process. It really is not that much hard disk space.