Level 6

16,843 points

Canon Support for Snow Leopard

Canon has posted their support schedule for Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) for their consumer printers.

http://support-au.canon.com.au/contents/AU/EN/8200620400.html

It looks like if your product is a few years old then it is not advisable to purchase 10.6, or be ready to buy a new printer.

As for their business products, such as the imageRUNNER series, none of the current Canon printer drivers work on 10.6. Having been involved with the 10.6 seed testing I found that while the drivers appear to install okay, the creation of a network printer queue fails. This occurred with the following drivers.

CUPS PS v2.11
PS v1.81
UFR2 v1.80
Fax v2.20

So if you feel the need to update, then beware.

If your Canon device supports PostScript, then you can use either the Generic PostScript included with 10.6 or install the Canon PPDs so that you get some finishing options.

If your Canon device only supports a Canon proprietary protocol, such as UFR2, CAPT or GARO, then there is currently no solution for them with Mac OS X 10.6.

Pahu

MacBook Pro 17', Mac OS X (10.5.8), Mac Pro, Xserve G5, iPhone 3G

Posted on Aug 25, 2009 11:38 PM

416 replies

Oct 15, 2009 3:33 PM in response to SamuraiNigel

Canon gave us a couple of Snow Leopard Workarounds that didn't end up working out for us, but one of methods(non-UFR II) used hasn't been discussed in the thread and might offer someone a solution/idea. I posted it temporarily here

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/2285750/Snow%20Leopard%20Workarounds.pdf

Oct 17, 2009 2:30 PM in response to hippocrack

Uh-oh... I've been doing fine with my MF4330d Japanese version of the multifunction Canon laser printer (called Satera in Japan), using a Japan-based driver called CARPS2-- they still haven't come out with an SL version, but this is working fine for printing. As of yesterday, Print/Fax preference pane was seeing the scanner component of this multifunction device, but today I tried installing the latest version of the Canon MF ScanGear driver that I saw posted on the Japan site. It also wasn't Snow Leopard but seemed newer than what I had (my printer is capable of double-sided scanning, but it still is not able to do that, so I figured I might have the wrong driver...)

No joy! After installing this driver, my computer stopped seeing the scanner component altogether, and ever since then I have had absolutely no luck getting my Mac to recognize that this multifunction device even is capable of scanning. More specifically, the scanner does not show in the list of devices at all. The printer does and it works... However, I have been unsuccessful in locating the previous driver the scanner was using and I can't figure out for the life of me what was allowing me to use ScanGear before.

Does Pahu or anyone have any suggestion for what would be either a generic scanner driver, and/or a suggestion for what specific steps I should take to go into TimeMachine to restore the appropriate files or settings, clear caches, reset the machine, etc? I've tried repairing permissions, redownloading and installing drivers, turning on and off the printer and restarting my Mac-- all with no luck. I can't believe this is so complicated.

Please let me know how I can get scan capability back, even if it's a temporary measure until Canon Japan finally comes out with fully Snow Leopard compatible drivers here for this device (they are taking forever!!!)

Oct 20, 2009 2:19 PM in response to alohasamurai

I am having some trouble with an canon ir5070

I skimmed this discussion. Basically where I am currently stuck is at "The printer is not supported, or the printer information is not acquired correctly" dialog when trying to print.

I have a canon ir 5070 which has been using canon ir 5075 (PS US) drivers for years. Primarily this is to enable Job Accounting. Now of course, the mac users say that everything is fine with the new osx so we upgrade and most things work ok but now they cant print to the copier. So i find this thread and start installing drivers. The driver that gives me the "printer is not supported" is: *Canon ir5075 UFR II (UK)* which i think i downloaded from the Australian site linked in page 11, as the US and Canadian sites do not have 2.0 UFR II drivers (they have 1.8).

*So if anyone has a link to the US version of these 2.0 UFR drivers i could try that.* Any other suggestions? I tried the generic apple drivers, the old 5075 PS drivers, the PFD or MFD or whatever drivers. Very annoying, but i am used to annoyingly "thinking different" supporting the small minority of macs that we have.

Anyone have a ir 5070 and got it working with job accounting? I also occasionally receive the -50 error with a different driver, i forget which at this point.

Oct 20, 2009 2:38 PM in response to crapple95

Not sure how i can edit a previous post, so i should also mention that i tried the generic cannon ir UK driver (i am in canada) as recomended in another post, and the print job goes through but the printer reports *PDL UFR II Version Error* on the display and does not actually print anything.

I have a good feeling that if i could find the US drivers I might be OK.

PAHU Author

Level 6

16,843 points

Oct 20, 2009 2:54 PM in response to crapple95

Hi there.

Checking the Canon USA web site, your iR5070 is the same as the iR5570/6570. We have an iR6570 in the office and I have tested this version 2 of the UFR2 driver with this model and it doesn't work, so I believe the US version of the UFR2 driver will not help you. But if you wanted to try you can download via this link. While this link is for a different model of printer, it uses the same version of the UFR2 driver.

If the US version doesn't work, and I would bet it doesn't, then that leaves you with a couple of options...

1. Change the Job Accounting settings in the copier (aka Dept ID Management) to allow Unknown ID's. Then the Mac's using 10.6 could install the PPD for the iR5075 and at least print, although there would be no control or tracking of their print usage so this may not fit with company policy.

2. Take the Mac's back to 10.5 and use the Canon PS driver that was working previously with Job Accounting. My Canon contact indicated that a PS driver for 10.6 was due in November, so you could berate the early adopters in the meantime and tell them they will have to wait.

Pahu

Oct 20, 2009 4:15 PM in response to PAHU

Well it worked! Using the US 5075 UFR II driver. Can now print fine from all apps!

Disappointing thing though is that I tried installing the driver on another identical PC and it did not work. Will try again tomorrow as maybe it was a combination of drivers which made it work.

I will report back. But thanks! I do think this will solve the issue.

Oct 21, 2009 9:56 AM in response to crapple95

Ok this imho a ridiculous amount of hoops to jump through but I have got the drivers working on 4 imacs now.

UFR II 1.80 from cannon website (which restarts machine)
install old drivers ( canon ps3 for mac osx , ive had it for years, it creates a US PS driver for the 5075, unfortunately i do not have a download link)
install new drivers (UFR II 2.0 US)
delete printer
add printer
turn on job accounting
try textedit print
works!

Also the driver i am using is ir5075 UFR II PS

Iam not sure if the order makes a difference, so if you are trying this proceedure, install in this order and then if it doesnt work, re order it. Make sure you install the 2.0 UFR US drivers last.

Message was edited by: crapple12

Oct 21, 2009 11:35 AM in response to PAHU

Workarounds... workarounds... workarounds...

Does anyone know of any schedule from Canon regarding the release of SL drivers for equipment not yet supported?

I mean a published timescale of when devices such as the ImageRunner series will be supported.

My interest is in the IRC2880, but it seems that there are a great number of businesses having to pursue workarounds almost 2 months after the release of SL.

What I'm after is a Canon news release about SL drivers or similar, i.e. something that is from the company itself.

PAHU Author

Level 6

16,843 points

Oct 21, 2009 2:57 PM in response to David MacDonald2

Hello David,

The v2.00 UFR2 driver is working to our iRC3380, which is the big brother to the iRC2880.

As for something official, this is a user forum. Maybe you should contact your Canon support to see if they can give you something in writing. I haven't seen anything on their web sites for the business products, only the consumer.

Pahu

sbolin

Level 1

8 points

Oct 21, 2009 9:07 PM in response to PAHU

We have a IR C3380i at work and SL does not work. One user going thru hoops to print is one thing, but if you have a lot of users then workarounds aren't acceptable and IT will be wasting a lot of time because things will not work right. Epson and HP had drivers working right away, and in Epson's case they have already had two different updates. Canon had one for the consumer printers, but nothing so far for the Imagerunner series. SL has a lot of good things in it, and in our testing has been very stable, so we want to upgrade, but only the Canon print drivers are holding us up. Even our 10+ year old HP 4MV printer works, as do our other older HP printers - but not our expensive and fairly recent IRC3380i.

ATC7

Level 1

16 points

Oct 21, 2009 10:04 PM in response to sbolin

Canon seems to be dragging their feet which is making a lot of us Mac users question our decision to buy Canon. We're having the same issues with the ImageClass series (MF4270) - it's an SHO-type printer. The driver is just unusable, I mean they might as well have not released one IMO.

I'm expecting a call tomorrow morning (my escalated case) from Canon Tech Support. I'm hoping I'll hear something about the long awaited and rumoured UFR 2.2 but frankly I'm not holding my breath.

PAHU Author

Level 6

16,843 points

Oct 22, 2009 4:46 AM in response to sbolin

The v2.00 of the UFR2 driver is working to our iRC3380, and so is the PPD for the same model. If you cannot get either working on SL then you must have something incorrectly configured for the queue.

Pahu

PAHU Author

Level 6

16,843 points

Oct 22, 2009 5:03 AM in response to ATC7

It looks like Canon has approved the usage of the v2.00 UFR2 driver for your MF4270 on 10.6. There are some limitations listed, but nothing about the second side of a duplex print not printing correctly.

http://support-au.canon.com.au/contents/AU/EN/0100212608.html

Strange thing I have found with my SL testing is that the duplex problem to my MF4680 only occurs on my old MBP15, which has 2G RAM with just a Core Duo. My 2009 Mini with 4G RAM and a Core 2 Duo does not have this problem, using the same driver and printing the same document (the PDF manual for the v2.00 driver). Also, the same document with the UFR2 driver prints fine on our imageRUNNER devices, so maybe the symptom is a result of memory usage? Also, there is some other testing that I have been doing that proves the problem is not related to the driver but something with 10.6.

BTW - the next version of UFR2 planned for 10.6 support is v2.05, not 2.20...

Pahu

ATC7

Level 1

16 points

Oct 22, 2009 8:47 AM in response to PAHU

Hi PAHU,

Yeah, I know the UFR2 2.0 is approved for the MF4270, it's been there for over a week. But I've finally got confirmation (see below) that the driver is very buggy and IMO wasn't even tested before release, on the ImageClass series at least.

After numerous tech support calls to Canon Canada without any resolution, I requested that the matter be escalated. It did and I finally got a call this morning that pretty much confirmed my fears that the 2.0 driver is crap.

The guy sounded very knowledgeable (definitely higher than front-end support) and skipped through all the steps that I had already done. He also had a Mac running SL with the same printer connected to it to do runs in parallel to verify the issue with me over the phone. Without going into too much detail, he was able to consistently reproduce all the issues we were having. FINALLY!!!

On more than a couple of occasions I heard him say "wow" (not in a good way). He even witnessed issues that we've suspected but hadn't tried to reproduce (issues with non-duplex multipage printing). I'm really starting to question whether Canon even tested this driver.

He assured me that he's passing this feedback to the higher-ups but he said he wouldn't know when a new updated driver will be released and said that the driver would be coming through Canon Japan.

It was a lengthy call and I was late for work because of it but here's hoping for a quick resolution.

jascot

Level 1

4 points

Oct 22, 2009 3:06 PM in response to PAHU

PAHU,
I have two network printers at my office - iRC3220 and iR7086.
Any suggestions on getting these to work with 10.6? I tried reading through the discussions, but nothing has worked so far. Is there a UFRII driver that will work with either of these?
Thanks

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Canon Support for Snow Leopard