Bonjour finds printer but Windows still can't print

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Level 1

8 points

Bonjour finds printer but Windows still can't print

I have an HP PSC 2210 printer connected to my iMac via USB. I am running Bonjour on my Windows XP machine which is connected via WIFI to the Mac. Bonjour finds the printer no problem and I can set it up with the right driver.

I can see the printer from the Windows Printer and Faxes Control Panel, but if I try to access it (e.g. via Properties or Open)...nothing happens (Printers & Fax Application not responding). When I try to print to it from Word, Word crashes.

I have turned off my firewall (ZoneAlarm), so this is not the problem.

Any suggestions?

iMac, Mac OS X (10.5.2)

Posted on May 10, 2008 3:34 AM

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Answer 1

DASMVS Author

Level 1

8 points

May 10, 2008 11:34 PM in response to DASMVS

Update: Based on a suggestion I found on the web, I shortened the name of the printer and the name of my Mac to one word each to eliminate spaces and I can now access the printer from Properties in Windows and I can send a document to the printer from Word without Word crashing, but nothing actually prints.

Anybody have any other ideas? (Does anyone from Apple Tech Support actually read these discussions?)

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Answer 2

DASMVS Author

Level 1

8 points

May 11, 2008 2:21 AM in response to DASMVS

Update: Finally working. I had to use Bonjour's recommended generic printer manufacturer and generic postscript printer driver instead of specifying HP and HP PSC 2200 series printer driver (which is what I am actually printing to). If you go back and look at the device driver field, the generic driver appears to be for an HP Colorjet 4550 postscript printer. It seems to work for my PSC 2210, but I haven't tried to print anything fancy.

In addition, I had to go into Printer Properties from Windows, select Ports and then chose Automatically use Windows Logon name and password (previously it had the anonymous username field checked. I wasn't aware that I had a Windows logon name and password turned on for this machine, but so be it

So in summary, in addition to all of the stuff you find on other websites about how to get Bonjour printing working on Windows (to a printer attached via USB to a Mac), if you are having problems print you should try the following:

1) Make sure printer name is one word, no spaces
2) Make sure Mac name is one word, no spaces
3) Use the generic printer/generic device driver
4) Configure the printer port in the Properties window to automatically use the Windows Username/Logon

Also, make sure that your firewall is not blocking Bonjour (which was not a problem for me but I know that others have had and issue with this) and, of course, your Mac cannot be in hibernation mode when you are trying to print to a printer attached to it via USB

Step 3 may not be necessary if your printer driver supports Bonjour (I am not sure how you determine this), but give it a try if you are having problems printing

If anyone figures out how to get Bonjour to use my actual printer driver, let me know

Good luck

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Answer 3

May 15, 2008 8:03 PM in response to DASMVS

Regarding your question on how to get Bonjour to use an actual printer driver, for what it is worth here is what I did:

I have an HP Deskjet 4260 printer connected to a Mac Pro and am printing to it wirelessly from Vista Ultimate on a MacBook. Like you, I originally got the printer working using the generic postscript driver and, like you, I found that the device driver field indicated that I was using the Colorjet 4550 driver. While this actually did work I found that the selection of printer features available did not match up very well with the actual features available on my printer.

What I did was download and install the latest Vista driver for the 4260 on my notebook. Then I connected the printer directly to my notebook and installed it. I then reconnected the printer to my Mac Pro and and in Vista control panel deleted both the the original Bonjour printer installation and the directly connected printer installation. I then re-ran Bonjour and found that the correct HP driver was now available! The driver features now match my printer and everything works!

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Answer 4

rothnd

Level 1

22 points

May 29, 2008 1:29 PM in response to Magnitude15

Hey all. I have a problem along these lines as well. I've been working on getting the printer to print and also associate with the correct driver and finally have done it, however some features of the printer are not working.

I'm running a Windows PC with an HP PSC 2210 printer as mentioned through an Apple Extreme Base Station. Now, despite the printer now printing and being recognized by everything, certain functions are missing. For example, when I look in My Computer with the printer directly connected to the pc I will see a removable disk drive and scanner. However, I cannot find these when the printer is connected through the Extreme. Also, in HPs imaging software (included in the driver package) a user should be able to scan an image in to edit, however, when I test it it says there are no scanner sources available. Any thoughts????

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Answer 5

Thaneos

Level 1

0 points

Jul 12, 2008 2:13 AM in response to DASMVS

i had this same issue. the cure for me was to open, on the laptop(windows), the printer and faxes in the control panel. select the printer i wanted to print at. right click. sharing.... then change the printer to 'Sharing"... SIMPLE AS 123.

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Answer 6

Jul 19, 2008 11:07 AM in response to Thaneos

I believe I have the same setup. I'm running Windows XP SP2 on a Macbook, and I am attempting to print to an HP PSC 2210 All-In-One connected to my Airport Extreme. I can find the printer, and it will print, but the print is garbled. I am using the generic printer driver. When I connect the printer directly to the Macbook and use the 2210 driver, it prints fine. I'm thinking I need to perform the procedure to get the 2210 driver to show up in the Bonjour setup wizard. Anybody else have this problem?

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Answer 7

nyc_now

Level 1

0 points

Jul 21, 2008 8:24 PM in response to DASMVS

I have an IBM Thinkpad, an Apple Airport Express, and Windows XP.

Bonjour finds my printer right away (Brother MFC-420CN). I can print when connecting printer directly to laptop via my USB, but not using my Airport. My print job just hangs in the queue until I delete it. Tried installing the Generic Postscript driver, but the same thing happens, print job hangs in queue. Printer is shared. Any other ideas, I am out of them???

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Answer 8

Aug 2, 2008 6:23 PM in response to nyc_now

try this: http://tech.ifelix.net/1004.html

it worked for me.

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Answer 9

Aug 21, 2008 10:09 PM in response to DASMVS

I have an iBook mac os x 10.4 , an airport express , an hp officejet 5610 printer
I cannot get Bonjour on my mac to find the right driver for my printer even though it is there because I can print when I connect through the USB cable.

Do you know how to get that list of printer drivers updated on the mac from the bonjour list ?

I tried the generic postcript as indicated before in this discussion. Nothing prints.

Any idea ????

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