More LPR over IP problems

[lowell]

This thread (http://forums.osxhints.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=245) about Brother printer problems with LPR/IP printing got me to wondering if anybody else is having the same problem I am. That is:

I've got a good old Apple LaserWriter Select 360, which was a pretty good printer in its day. It's still pretty good. Only problem is, it has only Parallel, Serial and LocalTalk ports. Back when I got the printer, I didn't even have a Mac--I always hooked it up to Windows using the parallel port.

Now I've got an iMac (an old one) and my Windows PC networked, via a 3com home ethernet gateway. This 3com router+switch also has an LPR print server built in, which is meant to make any parralel printer available over the network as an LPR printer. I can set up my Windows 2000 machine to print to the LPR printer (at the same IP as the router) and it works fine.

But the problem from the Mac--and this happens both in OS 9, OS X 10.0, and OS X 10.1, is that the first job prints fine, but then the printer's activity light keeps blinking for 5 minutes or so, until it times out. Then I can print again. Switching the printer off and on does let me print sooner, but that's hardly satisfactory.

I've played around with it quite a bit, but can't get around the problem. Since it's a PostScript printer, I assumed that the PostScript end-of-job code (ctrl-D) wasn't getting sent to the printer after each job. I tried reading up on the lpr printing daemon, and adding some scripts to intercept each job that was sent and insert a Ctrl-D into the stream at the appropriate point--I found a few documents on the web that told how to do it for linux and other unixen. But none of these seemed to be effective on OS X, even with going into NetInfo and messing with the printing settings there.

Anyone have any ideas? It seems like it ought to be a simple fix, but maybe this 3com lpr server is just not compatible with PostScript printers. (But why does it still work from Windows then?? :rolleyes: )

--Lowell

[ProfTournesol]

the problem comes from the UNIX base of X. There is a command called (I think) def that kills idle processes and this kicks in and kills the print function between pages. this happens because the printer doesn't have system privileges only user priviliges. This happens if you install the PPD or other components under your user name not as root. (I think I've got this right, an Apple tech support person talked me through the fix via terminal, although I believe that there are GUI solutions to changing priviliges.

Hope this helps. (I can now print a 167 page pdf manual for the first time!!!)

[lstewart]

(Same user as "lowell", only posting from work this time...)

I appreciate your reply, ProfTournesol. I had not thought of something like that before. However, I dropped to the command line and checked the privileges of all the relevant files I could think of:

My PPD is one that was installed with the system:
/System/Library/Printers/PPDs/Contents/Resources/en.lproj/LaserWriter\ Select\ 360 ... and that's owned by root/wheel.

/Applications/Utilities/Print\ Center.app is owned by root/wheel, and /Applications/Utilities/Print Center.app/Contents/MacOS/Print\ Center is owned by root/daemon, which seems like it should be okay. :(

Any other ideas?

[wiesbeck]

Hi,
I've got the exact same problem as mentioned above.
I've got the SMC AWBR7004 Switch/Router with integrated print server and an HP 3200M. The switch is connected to a 10.1.2 machine and a 9.2.2 machine and both expirience the same problem. After some pages the printer keeps stating "Receiving Documents", but just keeps doing that for ca 5 Minutes. Any print job sent to the printer during that time just "gets lost". The printer server log just tells me that all jobs have been completed successfully.
I contacted smc, and they told me to get in touch with them by phone.
It might also be a problem with the print server in he smc switch as it does not support bi-directional communication (how about the 3com?).
So on the weekend I'll hook up a HP Jetdirect 170X external print server to the switch and see what happens.
I'll post the results then.

Mathey.

[wiesbeck]

Forgot to mention:
when it works, page print out really slow.

[lstewart]

wiesbeck,

Yeah, sounds like exactly the same thing.

Check out the last comment on this thread (http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20010823002548107) from macosxhints.com. The user ("victory") says that his SMC Wireless Router (same model as yours) works with his HP LaserJet 6MP, also PostScript, from OS X. At least in his message, he did not mention the 5-minute timeout thing. I've tried sending him a message to find out the particulars, but haven't heard back yet (it was just yesterday).

A question for you: what firmware revision does your 7004 have loaded? The 3com 3c510 and the SMC Barricade line are basically firmware-interchangeable, but my 3com has version 1.89, which is really old... just wondering if yours is newer (1.94 is the latest), since you still experience the problem.

Oh, I almost forgot... no, the 3com does not support bidirectional communication either... but I don't think my LaserWriter Select 360 does either, so I didn't think that was the problem. I'm not positive, though.

[wiesbeck]

I updated my SMCs firmware to 1.94a (packet filtering!) just some days before I got the printer. I thought that it maybe wasn't the switch/router, but since your 3com is basically the same on the inside. who knows.
I'll let you know about my Jetdirect 170X experiment...

[wiesbeck]

OK, now I've got a spare HP JetDirect 170X!
I am having the same problem as before with the print server in the SMC Barricade, it took me about 30 Minutes to print just 10 pages. At least the printer did not stay in "Receiving Document..." mode after the printout.
Small documents print fine (<3 pages), but that's just unacceptable.
I did not have time to call SMC yet, but officially they don't support the mac when using the Barriacade as a print server.

Interesting side note: WhenI tried to configure the JetDirect 170X via Webinterface, I just get a white page with aline fo text saying "Macintosh OD is not supported". Great, I love HP!
Workaround was to configure it via telnet.

[rudar]

I think I'm having the same problem. It looks like something gets stuck in the print buffer. The first job prints fine, but the lights on the printer claim it's still printing, and the next job I send won't print until I hit the 'cancel job' button on the printer (HP 6MP running through an HP Jetdirect EX Plus). The funny thing is print jobs from Windows just seem to ignore whatever's stuck in there and prints out OK. But both classic (OS 9) computers which have never seen OS X and the OS X machines have the same problem.

[lstewart]

In the interest of gathering information about this problem (and related problems), I'll include here (by permission) a private email I recieved from another user who is experiencing problems using a SMC Barricade LPR print server.

I regret that I don't really have any meaningful answers for you.

However I can offer few observations on my setup with the SMC barricade as well as keep your configuration in mind as I continue to try an untangle lpr/lpd-based printing under OSX. (Trying to get my HPLJ6MP to work smoothly with all my systems is a low-level, but ongoing project :-)

I was pleased when I initially got the SMC's printserver to work with OSX, however there are still a few snags:

- From Photoshop, I have to send jobs as ASCII-encoded PostScript instead of Binary. Slower, but it works.

- I'm still having problems printing consistently from a few OSX apps. For example, from Word X I find that I often have to use the 'Print Preview>>Save as PDF' trick then print the resulting PDF from outside the app.

Of course it seems as if you're encountering a completely different problem, but at least this might give you some other options to mess with. (Of course I doubt either of us would be having problems if SMC or 3COM just updated their firmware to allow AppleTalk access to the built-in printserver)

Also, there is a posting here (http://www.linuxprinting.org/pipermail/general-list/2001q4/001200.html) that sounds suspiciously like your problem. It sounds as if one answer might be to mess with the filter command that lpr printjobs get sent to, except I'm not sure exactly how that happens under OSX. (Normally one modifies /etc/printcap but I'm almost certain that under OSX, NetInfo does this instead). You might search or wade through the archive at this site. Maybe you'll find something helpful. I'll drop you a note if I come across anything else.

Regards,
-Victor