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

This is the easiest solution and it worked for me.

Thank you so much Matt it worked for me..... you are a life saver

this is my first post, i just want to say thank you matt. its worked. god bless you. cheers

You're a saint! it's been 2 days of trying and it was that simple all along!! Thank you!

Refreshing the icon does nothing... I cannot find in the keychain which entry corresponds to the printer..

this is so frustrating and just plain bad design and user experience - frustrating...

Your problem, hardware or software, may not be exactly the same as that of the original poster of this older thread (already marked Solved), and it can be very confusing for everybody if we try to answer more than one question in each thread, which can also result in you applying the wrong advice to your particular problem.

In order for us to give your problem our proper attention to try to solve it, would you kindly start your own thread, describing the trouble you are having in the fullest detail, including completing your details to show what Mac or iDevice you are using, what operating system, and what version of the application in question. Please remember to post in the forum relevant to your hardware or version of OS X. A full list of all the support forums is here:

http://discussions.apple.com/index.jspa

FYI--We are suffering this issue for a few months and I have done lot of research and test to identify the issue. One of my test was try print from older OSX which was 10.9 and I was keep sending print test every 10-15 minutes for a few days and never had issue but then I updated that laptop to new OSX which is 10.11.4 and it occurred right after upgrade to new version and now I am getting the error "HOLD FOR AUTHENTICATION".

It seems one of OS update/patch causing this issue.

This worked out for me excellent! Didn´t have to delete anything, just typed guest and guest for user and pass. THANKS!

My solution is a bit different that matthewdebeyer because of the secure network we have, so maybe this will help you: delete the printer from your list of installed printers. Re-add the printer using the IP address (second icon in the dialog box). If you do not know the correct IP address, depending on your printer you may be able to print a network status page from the printer itself, or go to another computer that is communicating with it successfully and send a test page to the printer from the device setting menu (windows). Once you have added the computer by IP address, send a new print job to it from your Mac. You will be prompted for your username and password. On our network, each user has to use their real username and password to access the windows printers, guest does not work, but you can save it to your key chain, and keychains are Mac login dependent. So as long as you do not share your computer with others under the same mac account, save it to your keychain, otherwise leave that option unchecked.

Hope this helps:

Sometimes, us regular folk are overwhelmed by the rest of those ‘computer pros’ [being kind] and what you say simply goes right over our heads? :/

So for those of you who are as ignorant about this device we are currently using as I am [no offense] I have the simple, layman’s FIX for the problem of continuous “Authentication Required” pop up, which quite frankly, if not fixed will suck up 15% of the rest of your life !!!! 

So here we go:

1) Double click on your HD icon.

2) Go to ‘File’ - ‘Get info’  (your Macintosh HD box will pop up on the left top of your computer   ^  < .

3) At the bottom, click on ‘Sharing & Permissions’ arrow    >  .

4) A little box should open and tell you that “you have READ ONLY permission.

5) At the very bottom right, you will see a locked padlock.

6) Click once on the lock to open it. When you do, that dreaded “Finder.app wants to make changes. Type your password to allow this” note will come up for hopefully the very LAST time ever!  Whoooohoooo.....!!!

7) Enter the same password that you have been required to do for the past 27 years!!!  lol

8) When you click “OK” bottom right, the lock will open and you are “IN”....

9) Once you are “IN”, don’t be afraid!!!  Smile... 

10) Once the lock is open, you will see this (  + - * check sign ) at the bottom, now highlighted in black.

11) Click on the + and you will be given some choices.

12) Choose “administrators” - and then ‘select’.

13) You will be taken right back to the bottom, ‘read only, write only or read & write’?

14) For “administrators”, click on ‘Read & Write’.  [for safety purposes, it may be best to leave all of your other choices as “read only” so no one else can mess with your HD?]

15) Once you have highlighted those permissions, re-click on your “padlock” which will lock, save and close your changes.

16) Your Sharing & Permissions tab should now say “you have custom access”?

17) Close your Mac HD info, try drag a dropping any doc you choose into your HD icon, and “viola”!!!  You are now a MacHead and your life has improved by about 100% !!!

(Ok, maybe 15%, but still, doesn’t it feel good????)  lol    Remember, you can ALWAYS GO BACK and make changes here or reset it how it was, but in my experience, “If it ain’t broke......”   Best of luck and Blessings on your computer journey....