Printer sharing with HP Officejet 4315

Question

Level 3

735 points

Printer sharing with HP Officejet 4315

Hi there,

I just bought a really cheap all-in-one printer/fax/scanner/copier from Hewlett Packard called the HP Officejet 4315. However when I hooked up a computer to it, and now try to print from a remote computer using "Shared Printers", the application I am printing from crashes.

So I contacted HP customer support and they said, "Unfortunately we at HP are unable to support print sharing. Please contact apple for further support on this issue."

I figured they hadn't understood my problem so I asked again if they had a problem with their drivers. They said: "Misha, as previously indicated in an earlier email, HP does not support print sharing of any of their printers. The Officejet 4315 was designed to be used as a direct connected printer using a USB cable from the printer to the computer with NO pass through devices."

Is this weird to anyone else? Anyone know a way to get printer sharing to work with this printer??

More details:

The computer hooked up to the printer is running 10.2.8. The remote computer is running 10.4.11.

I have repaired permissions on the 10.2.8 computer.

I am able to add the shared printer to my remote computer, but as soon as I select it in the "Print > Printers > Shared Printers" menu, the application crashes (I've tried printing from SimpleText, Firefox, and Preview).

Any thoughts on this one? I do have the crash log if anyone is interested.

PowerBook G4 500mhz; iMac G5 1.9ghz, Mac OS X (10.4.10)

Posted on May 8, 2008 1:29 PM

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Answer 1

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

May 8, 2008 2:00 PM in response to Misha Cohen

Are you trying to share over Ethernet or wireless?

On the computer to which the printer is connected have you turned on Printer Sharing? Have you installed the printer driver and Added the printer on this computer? Does the printer work from this computer?

On the remote computer have you turned off Printer Sharing (it should not be turned on?) Have you installed the printer driver? When you select the shared printer did you also select the correct printer driver before Adding it?

When trying to print from the remote did you select the desired printer from the application's Print dialog?

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Answer 2

K Shaffer

Level 8

36,022 points

May 8, 2008 2:00 PM in response to Misha Cohen

Some of the HP all-in-one printers have an Ethernet port on them. Of these, it has
been said that some users were able to connect an HP printer to a local network
and share the printer (given an IP address of its own) among other user computers
on the network.

Another way a printer could be shared, if it is supported, may be through use of
a wireless base station with USB port; such as the AirPort Extreme, and choose
(depending on model the setup may be different, if supported at all) wireless
printing options in the Airport Utility or in the settings found by directly attaching
a computer to the Ethernet on said AEBS (or use a printer sharing server) and
use the base station's setup preferences to allow use as wireless printer. Then,
other computers can use a supported printer as a shared printer, wirelessly.

This said, I am supposed to help a relative set up a new (two year old, new)
HP all-in-one 'printer fax copier scanner' device. And I'm not looking forward..!

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Answer 3

Misha Cohen Author

Level 3

735 points

May 8, 2008 3:31 PM in response to Kappy

Hi Kappy, thanks for the suggestions/questions.

1. I have installed the drivers (from the CD for the 10.2.8 computer, from the website with latest drivers for the 10.4 computer). The printer is working when I print from each of the computers.

2. Printer sharing is on on the connected, 10.2.8 computer. Printer sharing is off on the remote 10.4 computer.

3. I have previously used printer sharing with an all-in-one Brother printer with no problem.

4. -- I am trying to share the printer over a wireless connection.

"On the remote computer have you turned off Printer Sharing (it should not be turned on?) Have you installed the printer driver? When you select the shared printer did you also select the correct printer driver before Adding it?"

- I don't understand what you mean by "did you also select the correct printer driver before Adding it". Can you clarify?

"When trying to print from the remote did you select the desired printer from the application's Print dialog?"

- Yep, when I select it the application crashes. But it is there to select from.

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Answer 4

Misha Cohen Author

Level 3

735 points

May 8, 2008 3:37 PM in response to K Shaffer

Thanks, K Shaffer. Let's see. I'm not on a wired local network. Also, the printer has no ethernet port. I assume this makes this solution impossible. I was thinking about connecting to the 10.2.8 computer (the one connected to the printer) via local IP or something. I don't know how I would go about this. It seems that this is what Printer Sharing is doing already.

Regarding the second solution, I am connected wirelessly to the internet via an Airport Base station, but it's an older model that I don't think has printer sharing abilities. I think it's called the Gray Base station?

A solution I will try: Uninstalling the software on the 10.4.11 (remote) computer and installing the lower-version-number software. Perhaps this one will be compatible.

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Answer 5

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

May 8, 2008 3:40 PM in response to Misha Cohen

No need for clarification as your replies answered my questions.

I can only assume you may have either a problem with the application (maybe there's a bad preference file or it needs reinstalling;) or it's a problem trying to share the printer from the Jaguar to the Tiger computer rather than the other way around or having Tiger installed on both; or the HP driver will not work wirelessly (a problem with some HP drivers/printers;) or you might try printing a different document from a different application. My inclination is that the driver or printer simply won't share wirelessly. However, the only way to test that is to network your two computers via Ethernet instead of wireless.

Sorry, but I wish I had more to offer.

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Answer 6

Misha Cohen Author

Level 3

735 points

May 8, 2008 3:56 PM in response to Misha Cohen

OK check this out. I uninstalled the newer version of the drivers/software from the 10.4.11 computer. Then I installed the drivers/software from the CD so that it matches, more closely, the software on the 10.2.8 computer.

First, I tried sharing with the printer connected to the 10.4.11 computer. It works!

Then I tried sharing from the 10.4.11 computer to the 10.2.8 computer. It works!

So I have absolutely no idea what HP's problem is. Obviously their printer works with Printer Sharing, however they simply haven't fixed issues with newer versions of the driver/software interacting with older versions. Very strange.

So, to clarify for the future, software version 7.9 works fine (even though one is for version OS 10.2 and one is for version OS 10.4). Software version 9.7 (coincidentally) doesn't work for me.

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Answer 7

K Shaffer

Level 8

36,022 points

May 8, 2008 7:26 PM in response to Misha Cohen

So, have you tried buying a USB printer server; or, setup one or the other of the
computers to work as one, and then sending the print files to whichever one supports
the printer, from the other? (Both would have to be on though, for this to work.)

There also are adapters to convert USB to Ethernet, but I am not sure if that would
work in your situation; since the device has to be seen with an IP address for it
to be shared on a wired Ethernet network. With or without wi-fi internet. A local
network need not include internet access, by definition. Since you are not wireless
printing, the wires you are using will support sharing, given proper technology.

There also are several printer driver options available; one open source is what
was called GimpPrint or GutenPrint.

In any event, best of luck. 🙂

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Answer 8

Misha Cohen Author

Level 3

735 points

May 9, 2008 9:53 AM in response to K Shaffer

I may not have been clear in my last post; I solved the problem. I reverted to an older driver on one of the computers. Now it is possible to print from my 10.4.11 computer on the printer connected to my 10.2.8 computer.

Thanks for the suggestions and thoughts.

K Shaffer wrote:
So, have you tried buying a USB printer server; or, setup one or the other of the
computers to work as one, and then sending the print files to whichever one supports
the printer, from the other? (Both would have to be on though, for this to work.)

I haven't bought a printer server, but what I mean by "printer sharing" is connecting one computer to the USB printer and printing remotely from another computer.

There also are several printer driver options available; one open source is what
was called GimpPrint or GutenPrint.

I have heard about this. I don't know much about it. Would this be better than the drivers that come with the printer?

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Answer 9

Clea Rees

Level 4

1,245 points

May 9, 2008 11:20 AM in response to Misha Cohen

There also are several printer driver options available; one open source is what
was called GimpPrint or GutenPrint.

I have heard about this. I don't know much about it. Would this be better than the drivers that come with the printer?

Possibly. In many cases the drivers offer a greater range of options and often can get better quality from printers. They typically specialise in getting high quality printing from lower end printers like inkjets.

Later versions of Mac OS X have some version of the software installed but a newer version may work better e.g. include bug fixes, support for more devices and options etc.

You can usually have both GutenPrint and vendor drivers installed and you can set up printers so that you have multiple printers corresponding to one device. For example, I've got two printers set up in OS X for one inkject. The first of these uses Canon's own drivers; the second uses the GutenPrint driver. I can choose which to use when I come to print just as I could choose the device if I had more than one printer available. I have sometimes found the GutenPrint drivers to cause more jobs to hang than Canon's but I've also found I can get better quality from them. Also, I've just updated the software so the new version may not have the hanging problem - I'll have to wait and see.

- cfr

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