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Zoom · Aug 28, 2014, 09:37 PM

I'm just digging into this for the first time, but this has been bugging me for a while. I have a 2013 iMac running the latest Mavericks. I have two printers shared on this computer - one USB (Canon inkjet), one network (Brother laser). Supposedly, if you set Energy preferences to "Wake on network access", then people should be able to print even if the mac is asleep.... almost. From what I've read tonight, you also need some Apple device on the network that provides the Bonjour Sleep Proxy function - like a Time Capsule or Apple TV. I happen to have THREE Apple TV's in the house, all on the same LAN - two ATV2's and one ATV3. However, my Mac will not wake up when someone tries to print to either printer. What am I missing??

ghporter · Aug 30, 2014, 10:09 AM

I'm not sure exactly, but I believe that the Apple device with the sleep proxy function needs to be the device that shares the printers.

Of course if your printers are shared through some mechanism other than Bonjour, that may be a different matter. In the last few iterations of OS X, "wake on network" and "printer sharing" have morphed into something I don't quite understand. I DO know that a printer shared through my AirPort Extreme works whether or not any wired computer on the network is "awake". It does NOT work for ANY iOS device though, since iOS is limited (in its code) to AirPrint capable printers only.

Mike Wuerthele · Aug 30, 2014, 02:58 PM

If I read the documentation properly, the printers really aren't visible to Bonjour (despite still being in network caches), and the WoL fails. This may be aggravated by a third party router that doesn't pass Bonjour correctly.

Shared printers are best implemented with an Airport * device with USB ports and a USB hub.

P · Sep 1, 2014, 10:07 AM

This can be because the router is blocking multicast packets - I know Netgear routers do that by default. Check the router settings and see if you can disable that.

Zoom · Sep 3, 2014, 09:04 PM

Sorry, just saw these... for some reason I didn't get notified about the replies.

I use DD-WRT. All I can find is "filter multicast" under "Block WAN requests". This should be a LAN-side setting, right?

Oh, and my Apple TV's and iMac are all connected via Ethernet, not WiFi. I've seen some threads about multicast and wifi messing with some things, but this isn't wifi.

ghporter · Sep 4, 2014, 07:04 AM

WAN requests would be coming in from outside, so the option does affect the LAN side, but it shouldn't change how printer sharing works.

Again, it seems to be that an Apple device that can host Bonjour services (i.e. an AirPort Extreme, Time Machine, etc.) is what Apple expects to be managing printer sharing at the moment. I don't know how all the other types of printer sharing work nowadays, but tthey should still be available for everything running OS X (but not iOS).

P · Sep 5, 2014, 04:51 PM

Originally Posted by Zoom

Sorry, just saw these... for some reason I didn't get notified about the replies.

I use DD-WRT. All I can find is "filter multicast" under "Block WAN requests". This should be a LAN-side setting, right?

Oh, and my Apple TV's and iMac are all connected via Ethernet, not WiFi. I've seen some threads about multicast and wifi messing with some things, but this isn't wifi.

It should be in LAN settings yes. I am not familiar with dd-wrt (despite having a more than passing interest in this for decades, I never bothered installing it on a router), but it seems like this should be a reasonably obvious setting in pro level software.