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Snow Leopard lousy for some printers

As far as I'm concerned, Snow Leopard is just a version upgrade with no significant speed or functional enhancements that I find useful, just some bells and whistles not worth 25 cents. My biggest gripe: it automatically replaced my perfectly good and recently updated Epson Photo RX620 printer driver with some generic piece of junk driver called Gutenprint 5.2.3, which also trashed my Epson Printer Utility that allowed me to check ink levels, clean printer heads etc. The "print/fax" window in System Preferences does not read ink levels in my all-in-one printer-photo-scanner, simply tells me "supply levels unavailable" and has no cleaning or refreshing functions. I had to go on the Epson web site, download their driver, updater and printer utility again and reinstall them. Now if someone will kindly tell me where the Gutenprint driver is hiding in my computer, I will find it and trash it -- and maybe trash Snow Leopard and go back to my snowless Leopard 10.5.8. Having been a loyal Mac user since my first SE20 decades ago, I am becoming increasingly annoyed at having to pay for version upgrades that provide more problems than benefits. And my question to the developers of this crappy new version is this: Why, if my model Epson printer is not on the list of those supporter by Snow Leopard, did said Snow Leopard force Gutenprint into my computer in the first place???

2GHz Mac Mini with 2Gigs of Ram, Mac OS X (10.5.6), Snow Leopard 10.6

Posted on Sep 2, 2009 10:33 AM

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25 replies

Sep 2, 2009 11:03 AM in response to Holger Jensen

Is there a question in here that can be answered by users, this being a user-to-user forum? I mean it can't be a question about where to find drivers, because obviously you'd have gone to the Epson site here

http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/support/supDetail.jsp?oid=44341&prodoid=54782 584&infoType=Downloads&platform=Macintosh

and found a driver updater for Snow Leopard at the top of the list

Sep 2, 2009 2:59 PM in response to Holger Jensen

I believe you just need to reset the printing system Of course doing so will probably require you reinstall the Epson drivers again.

Before you do this you should unplug the printer from the machine.

The only instructions I found were for 10.5 but it is probably the same for 10.6:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.5/en/14001.html

Once the reset has completed, follow Epson's instructions for installing the drivers/software for the device.

Frankly, I don't think you did your homework. You should have checked for new drivers from Epson before installing 10.6 and the printer should not have been connected to your machine for the OS installation.

-kpluck

Sep 2, 2009 3:47 PM in response to kaplucker

Thanks for your input but you fellows miss the point. I did check with Epson for new drivers, downloaded the common updater for my driver and updated it before installing 10.6. I also unplugged my printer before installing SL. But I couldn't very well "unplug" the updated Epson driver in my Mac when installing 10.6, which blithely overrode my Epson driver, installed Gutenprint and trashed my Epson Printer Utility. I finally fixed the problem by using Gutenprint's uninstaller to get rid of their trashy generic driver, reinstalled the Epson driver and utility and my printer works fine again -- unlike certain applications such as Cyberduck which just don't open in Snow Leopard, or WMV Player, which doesn't recognize the new Quicktime Player. Tomorrow I go back to snowless Leopard and will await all the bug fixes when Snow Tiger comes out.

Sep 2, 2009 4:48 PM in response to Holger Jensen

Why, if my model Epson printer is not on the list of those supporter by Snow Leopard, did said Snow Leopard force Gutenprint into my computer in the first place???


That's exactly why, your printer wasn't supported by Epson on Snow Leopard in time for the release. If Epson doesn't notify Apple that they have drivers for a product in time for the release, then Snow Leopard will try to install drivers that are supposed to be compatible with a particular printer. I'm sure the drivers you got were not what you wanted, but I'm also sure you could print with them. Some companies are behind the curve, sometimes on purpose.

These printer companies have had many months to develop drivers for Snow Leopard. Some did, like Brother, who had their 2.0 drivers working with Snow Leopard several months ago. They were available and are automatically added to Software Update after you install SL. Those drivers even improved my printer's abilities. HP, Epson, Samsung - they're playing catchup.

Time Machine is your friend. Apple has said many times that there would only be a few cosmetic changes to the GUI. There is no business reason to upgrade to a .0 version of any OS or program. SL is the foundation for new programs and systems to be able to take full advantage of the Intel processor. Now if Adobe and other companies will get off their butt$ we can get the potential improvements this foundation will support.

Sep 2, 2009 5:49 PM in response to Holger Jensen

Hi,

While your original questions—how to remove the Gutenprint driver and why did SL install it over the previously installed and working Epson driver—are answered, you raise additional qualms about other software not working. To that end, check out the listing http://snowleopard.wikidot.com/ for more-or-less current status on an impressive number of programs.

Cheers, Tristan

Sep 2, 2009 6:25 PM in response to Holger Jensen

HJ,
I feel you pain also. This is a really tough group in this discussion. Here's a solution that you may find useful:
Gutenprint loses almost all of the functions that came with my Epson SP R800. Plus the overall quality of the photos were dramatically poor. Even regular printing was bad. After reading a lot of posts with other users who have the same problem. I checked the Epson web site and quite naturally my printer has been discontinued so I felt stuck. Downloaded the newest drivers for 10.6 and such but the quality and functions were minimal at best. So I went to the Gutenprint web site and downloaded the uninstaller. VIola. Removal of Gutenprint and using the Epson drivers seems for now to have done the trick.
Hope that this "non-sarcastic" message will help you.

RAP

Snow Leopard lousy for some printers

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