[LightWaver-67]

So... I'm the guy that 'complained' about Panther's printing when I was trying to connect to and use a host of Canon CLC copier/printers, an imagesetter and a few HP LaserJets. I was helped by some of you and found the 'drivers' I needed for the Z70 and V80 servers and got up and running a few months ago.

Here's the thing I don't understand. Why is navigating the print dialogs so EXTREMELY slow...? I'll give an example:

I'm in QuarkXPress. I need to print a proof for an 11 x 17 poster. Now, in OS9 I would simply hit PRINT, Select my "Print Style" from the pull-down, select the PRINTER button which brings up the system print dialog box, I'd choose (for example) the CLC-1150, click on PAPER FEED and choose "Manual Feed", click on Paper type and choose "Heavy Paper", then click print (which brings you back to the Quark print-box), then I click print in THAT box, and off-it-spools to the printer.

That whole process used to take roughly 10-15-Seconds.

In OSX, to do the same, goes like this: I hit PRINT and select my Print Style from the pull-down menu, I go to the bottom and hit the PRINTER button and wait 5-seconds for it to appear, I switch to a different printer (CLC-1150) and wait another 5-seconds for the list to update, I choose Paper feed, only takes 2-seconds and I choose Manual Feed, I then choose Printer Options and wait almost a full 10-seconds for it to (?) (Read-in the PPD? - I don't know) and THEN it displays some options broken-out into "sets", I need to choose "Set 6" because that's where the Paper type is, I choose "Set 6" and it takes another 3-seconds, I change it to "Heavy Paper" and have to wait another 5-seconds (spinning beach ball) for it to update and show my choice and THEN I can hit Print and return to Quark's print dialog.

When it's all said & done, for me to proof a single document to ONE source may take up-to 45-seconds. If I need to generate a PDF, a print proof and output film, it takes a lot longer. Some jobs are 5-documents per order... that's close to 10-minutes wasted per ONE job JUST for navigating the print dialogs...!!! I work on 15-20 jobs a day... some times more. That's a LOT of 'down-time' due to watching a silly little beach-ball spin.

Where did all this overhead come from...?

The OS9 drivers had the same options and depth of features, yet was INSTANTANEOUS when navigating. For some reason (unbeknownst to me) printing in OSX has a huge bottleneck.

I don't know enough about printing to even harbor an intelligent guess... so here's a few unintelligent ones:

- The drivers are not written properly...?
- OSX reads the drivers differently...?
- The amount of printer options are clogging the OSX Printer UI (hence needing six SETS of printer option pages in the dialog box)

I dunno... it can't be the computer speed... like I said... the SAME computer booted into OS9 FLIES through the print dialogs with nary a flicker and is spooling data to the print-server within a mere seconds.

Any guesses as to why...? and how should I categorize this feedback to Apple...? Is it even Apples problem... or a DRIVER problem...?

* sigh *

Thanks in advance.

[Detrius]

Everything is different in OS X. How much memory do you have? What machine are you running?

An 8500 w/a 270MHz G3 update was pretty fast in OS 9, but absolutely everything is slow in OS X on that machine. 128MB of RAM was a lot for OS 9, but you would have issues with the OS reading from the hard drive any time you did anything with only that much memory. You need 128MB of RAM to run the operating system. If you want to do more than that, you should have more memory.

[LightWaver-67]

It's a 400Mhz (450Mhz?... I forget, it's at work) G4 w/ 512MB Mem.

So, it may not be the NEWEST of machines, but it's not exactly a slow-poke either. That was the point of my inquiry... OBVIOUSLY, things are different... I'm just trying to nail-down what is happening in those "beach-ball" moments. Is it the OS, is it the Printer Services within the OS, is it the driver...? What is causing the slow-down...?

I know it's not the machine itself, because once I have a simpler printer selected and DON'T need to go into Printer Options... it is VERY responsive and quick... without any delay. So, SOMEWHERE along the line... these more "Complex" printer PPDs 'may' be part of the problem... or how OSX DEALS with those PPDs. But that is just pure speculation on my behalf.

I wish there was a way to "Monitor" or "Watch" what's going-on with the CPU during those hang-times and see exactly what is taking so long and where it happens.

[msuper69]

Have you tried printing from other applications? Do all print dialogs cause the wait cursor to appear? Could it be Quark?

[LightWaver-67]

Originally posted by msuper69:
Have you tried printing from other applications? Do all print dialogs cause the wait cursor to appear? Could it be Quark?

Yes, and it happens whenever I need to go into any printer's "Printer Specific" areas, or when I switch TO a printer that has a boatload of Printer Settings.

I used QXP as an example, but the slow-down hapens in the OS Print dialog box(es) and in any app that needs those printers.

Again... the response in OS9 was INSTANTANEOUS.

Granted... in OS9, it dumped ALL of the printer-specific options into ONE window with a scroll-bar. In OSX, they put it in the same area of the pull-down, but they segment the options into groups that will fit in a non-scrollable area, hence the need for sub-sets with a pull-down. So when I go to Printer specific options, it loads in "Set 1" with no scroll bar and depending on the printer, it can have anywhere from 3-6 sets of options.

[oscar]

Try deleting all printers, dumping your cache files, and readding the printers. I had the sam eproblem when I had 3 printers connected to my machine.

[LightWaver-67]

Originally posted by oscar:
Try deleting all printers, dumping your cache files, and readding the printers. I had the sam eproblem when I had 3 printers connected to my machine.

Okay, when you say "dump my cache files"... what files and where are they...?

I have a total of 12 Printers in my list to choose from. Now, 8 of those are actually 4 Printers with 2 different ques... a direct-print que and a "hold" que that spools to the Canon server... another is our PDF Distiller... so there's really only 7 actual printers.

Back on-topic...

I can give it a try, but need clarification of WHAT files specifically I am deleting. Thanks.

[Gul Banana]

Originally posted by LightWaver-67:
I wish there was a way to "Monitor" or "Watch" what's going-on with the CPU during those hang-times and see exactly what is taking so long and where it happens.

Incidentally, there is. Install the developer tools, and use Sampler. It's a pretty useful program for diagnosing this sort of thing.

[Big Mac]

I can switch through the print menu options instantaneously on my lowly iBook 466. You're making the erroneous presumption that simply because you're having a problem with your particular setup, everyone must be experiencing the same problem.

[LightWaver-67]

Originally posted by Big Mac:
I can switch through the print menu options instantaneously on my lowly iBook 466. You're making the erroneous presumption that simply because you're having a problem with your particular setup, everyone must be experiencing the same problem.

Well... I'm happy for you that YOU are not experiencing this issue, but at what point was a presumption made on my part...? Where did I say that ANOYONE other than myself was having this issue...?

All I did was share my experience and asked for input into troubleshooting WHY it's happening and how to fix it. How is that an erroneous presumption...?

I swear, at times, it seems like some people here put more effort trying to find fault in peoples posts and/or replies, than actually helping them. Your post was not only unhelpful to me, but it also wrongly accused me of being presumptuous.

* sigh *

Think before you type, please.

[LightWaver-67]

Originally posted by Gul Banana:
Incidentally, there is. Install the developer tools, and use Sampler. It's a pretty useful program for diagnosing this sort of thing.

Hmmm... just found it on MY machine. Can't recall if I installed DevTools on my box at work. Even if I did... is it safe to assume I can find documentation on HOW to use this app somewhere online...? I launched it to get a glimpse, but have no idea how to get the results I may want. Thanks for the heads-up.

[msuper69]

Originally posted by LightWaver-67:
Well... I'm happy for you that YOU are not experiencing this issue, but at what point was a presumption made on my part...? Where did I say that ANOYONE other than myself was having this issue...?

All I did was share my experience and asked for input into troubleshooting WHY it's happening and how to fix it. How is that an erroneous presumption...?

I swear, at times, it seems like some people here put more effort trying to find fault in peoples posts and/or replies, than actually helping them. Your post was not only unhelpful to me, but it also wrongly accused me of being presumptuous.

* sigh *

Think before you type, please.

I was thinking the same thing. Unlike others, you didn't post with a title "Mac OS X printing sucks". Those types of posts are presumptious, inferring that there is some kind of inherent logic error in the code because of a problem with one particular installation.

"My car broke down the other day so ALL cars of the same type MUST be inherently faulty."
Now that's a logical inference. NOT.

[LightWaver-67]

Well... apparently, I did NOT install the Developer Tools when I did the install here at work.

Two questions:

a) Can I run that application WITHOUT installing the DevTools...?

b) If not, are the DevTools a seperate install I can run on its own...?

Thanks.

[-Q-]

Originally posted by LightWaver-67:
b) If not, are the DevTools a seperate install I can run on its own...?

Thanks.

It should be a separate CD that you can install on it's own. But if you can't find that, you can also download the tools from here: http://developer.apple.com/tools/macosxtools.html

You'll probably want the tools from this download: http://developer.apple.com/tools/performance/

Unfortunately, I've never used that particular tool so I can't give you any insite into setting it up.

Hopefully that's a little more helpful than "My system is fine, don't blame OS X" BS.

[JKT]

Have you tried creating a new user account as a troubleshooting exercise? That is, in the new account, do you experience the same issues? If not, then it would indicate that the problem lies with your prefs etc. IIRC, the freeware Onyx maintenance app can be used to clear your Cache files. If not, then the shareware Cocktail certainly can.

[LightWaver-67]

Originally posted by JKT:
[B]Have you tried creating a new user account as a troubleshooting exercise?/B]

No... not yet... but not a bad idea. Thnx.

(I never remember to try that for troubleshooting)