Q: Printer job "On hold (authentication required)"

Got a new mac, so of course I had to tackle this again (every time!!).  Solving this problem is always a fun adventure.  This time the Windows PC is Windows 8.1.  If anyone is familiar with that, it encourages you to tie your Windows login to a "Windows Live" login, and once you do, you log in using your Windows Live ID.

So on the Windows PC I log in as "FirstLast@outlook.com".  When I access a Windows file share in Finder, I had specified the user as "FirstLast@outlook.com" and use my password, and chose to save it in KeyChain.  HOWEVER for printing, this username does not work; neither does "guest" / "guest' as suggested above.  After tinkering for a while I found out that my PC uses two different logons: "FirstLast@outlook.com" and "PC-NAME\First".  I had to specify the second one to get printing to work.  In fact I found out that just using "First" worked for the user name.

After passing this hurdle I then couldn't get the printer password to save.  I went into Keychain Access and removed all of the passwords associated with both the computer and the printer.  Then I printed again, chose to save the password, and it worked.

2 years later - still helpful, thanks.

I deleted all related keychain files and started again. This time, no problem. It has remembered the password and stopped asking for it on every print.

Thanks

This worked for me too. I got the "On hold (authentication required)" message, then hit the reload button for that print job (looks like Safari's reload button) and then it asked me for username/password. Entered the correct user/pass and then it worked. Thanks!

I tried both @MatthewDebeyer and @Macounette's suggestions, one after the other, and then tried printing... and it worked!

Thanks for sharing, guys!

matthewdebeyer wrote:

 

Anyone still battling with this "Authentication Required" when connecting to a shared printer connected to a Windows 7 PC try what I did, sorted out the issue.

 

Open keychain access and delete all passwords/items linked to the problem printer.

 

Try send a print through again.

 

It should now give you a dialog box to enter a username and password.

 

Enter guest/guest.

 

Check remember in keychain.

 

Ok.

 

This worked for me after trying everything else.

 

Good luck!

I fixed this problem (on a wireless work network, with a Fuji Xerox APEOS) by

opening prefs Printers and Scanners

>select the problematic printer

>select 'options and supplies'

>select 'options'

>go to 'customise user prompts' and in drop down menu select 'no need to enter'

Fixed the issue. Hope this helps someone else.

S

Actually - the above thing didn't stick....

Changing the access control setting in keychain access to 'allow all applications to access this item' is what has fixed it. (I hope).

Solved by assuring the services were set up correctly.

My setup is:

One wired Mac (to the router) with HP Color Jet 5600

One wireless mac

One wireless iPad

Two wireless iPhones

Three wireless Android Tablets

One wireless server running Win Server 2008 R2

One wireless server running Win Server 2008 with an ethernet HP Color Laser 4600 printer

Printing to the HP 4600 has been problematic, being down more than up. It came down to going to the Win Server 2008 computer and assuring both Remote Procedure Call Services were set to Automatic. One was set to manual. Also assured DCOM Service Process Launcher was set to automatic. These services are dependencies of the Print Spooler Service.

Hello Matt,

Thanks so much. It helped me.

Problem solved

I have been trying to get my mac to work with my printer since MAY 2013! I'm already starting to give up and trade it in for a bran new Surface 3 with Office 2016 on it.

It does not fix the issue on my mac which runs OS X Yosemite.

How long should I hold the button "Hold for Authentication" if it even says that?

See post below - click refresh icon on printer queue when you have a queued item. You'll get authentication dialogue so shouldn't have to muck about with keychain or deleting printers.

Thanks a lot was suffering from this issue for more than a year and it worked out like a charm.....

I just want to point out how absurd it is that 3+ years later, this is still an issue that I have to go through archaic methods to fix every time my network password at work changes. It even says "authentication required" so why not actually prompt for authentication instead of just hanging indefinitely?

THANK YOU !!!