Canon Pixma IP8500 not visible in printer list

Question

Level 1

8 points

Canon Pixma IP8500 not visible in printer list

When trying to install my Canon Pixma IP8500 printer (wireless connected) for the first time on my new iMac I found this particular printer was missing from the printer list, although in the OS X documentation it was stated that this printer would be supported. Although somewhat surprised I downloaded the latest driver from Canon. Surprise, surprise, after installing this driver (an action which was 'succesfully completed') it still was not visible in the printer list !?
Has anyone had a similar experience and/or does anyone know how to tackle this problem ?

themoose

iMac 24", Mac OS X (10.5.2)

Posted on May 10, 2008 11:51 PM

Reply

Answer 1

greg sahli

Level 7

25,508 points

May 11, 2008 4:07 AM in response to imac_moose

Hi, imac_moose,
This is a result of the type of driver Canon provides - the driver only works via USB. To use the standard network protocols in OS X, which are provided by the CUPS system, you have to use a CUPS driver. Canon started providing CUPS drivers in December, so maybe someday they'll make one for the iP8500.
Otherwise, you'll have to use a third-party driver, like Gutenprint. The latest updates support your printer:
http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/MacOSX.php3
(get 5.1.6 or newer)
There is also a commercial CUPS driver from:
http://www.printfab.net

Reply

Answer 2

imac_moose Author

Level 1

8 points

May 11, 2008 4:57 AM in response to greg sahli

Hi Greg,

Thanks for your fast response!
I downloaded a trial from the PrintFab site and installed the driver, unfortunately with the following results:

########################
Installing Prinfab
########################
Language=en
Installing program files... mkdir: /Library/Printers/PPD Plugins: No such file or directory
cp: /Library/Printers/PPD Plugins/PrintFabPDE2.plugin: No such file or directory
cp: gui/PrintFabPDE.plugin/Contents: unable to copy extended attributes to /Library/Printers/PPD Plugins/PrintFabPDE2.plugin: No such file or directory
cp: /Library/Printers/PPD Plugins/PrintFabPDE2.plugin/MacOS: No such file or directory
cp: gui/PrintFabPDE.plugin/Contents/MacOS: unable to copy extended attributes to /Library/Printers/PPD Plugins/PrintFabPDE2.plugin/MacOS: No such file or directory
cp: /Library/Printers/PPD Plugins/PrintFabPDE2.plugin/MacOS/PrintFabPDE: No such file or directory
cp: /Library/Printers/PPD Plugins/PrintFabPDE2.plugin/Resources: No such file or directory
cp: gui/PrintFabPDE.plugin/Contents/Resources: unable to copy extended attributes to /Library/Printers/PPD Plugins/PrintFabPDE2.plugin/Resources: No such file or directory
cp: ...

I have no clue as to what is going on here, perhaps I should leave the PrintFab guys a note....

Reply

Answer 3

direwolf8

Level 4

1,286 points

May 23, 2008 12:57 PM in response to imac_moose

After coercing CUPS to print to my iP8500 connected through a Zonet network printer server, I found it tedious to change formats, parameters for paper type, etc. So I downloaded the Printfab demo. It worked with my iP8500 and Zonet print server. I'm not sure about your particular problem, but it should be fixable. It looks like everything didn't install correctly. Did you install it as admin?

Reply

Answer 4

imac_moose Author

Level 1

8 points

May 31, 2008 12:14 PM in response to direwolf8

I contacted Printfab and they told me I wasn't the only one who got the error message 'unable to install' because of a directory not existing, they did however not have an idea why this would have been the case (I did install as admin). They suggested simply creating that directory myself and reinstall, which I did. Everything then looked ok up to the point where there are jobs present in the print queue but I have have not been able to get any of these jobs to actually produce output )-:

Reply