Canon MP530 offline on iMac

Hello and welcome to Apple Discussions.

Since you have already tried a new USB cable and the printer now does not appear in the Default Add Printer view of Print & Fax, then I suggest you open the System Profiler application and select the USB entry in the left column. Then in the right section you will see all the USB busses. The MP530 should be listed under one of the busses. If it is not, then try turning off the MP530 for several seconds and then back on. If it still does not appear then try another USB port on the Mac. And if it still fails to appear then something may have died in the printer (even though it can still print from the panel). Note that the ability to see the printer in System Profiler is not printer driver related - it is purely looking at the connection from a hardware perspective. So until you can see the MP530 as connected you will not be able to add the printer in Print & Fax.

I am having the same problem on a new Canon Mp560. In my case, the USB is recognized but still get the offline message. I have tried uninstalling, reinstalling, several times. Canon keeps giving me suggestions, but nothing has worked. Going by the many postings on the internet, it sounds as if there is a problem on the Mac side with several brands of printers. The printer shows up in the Print/Fax fields every time I have deleted and added it. Having a new printer that will not work is very frustrating, and I don't know if I should go back to an older system version?

The MP560 is a wireless printer. So are you only using this printer via USB?

I don't believe the solution for you is to go back to an older version of OS X. For those posts that you do read stating there is problems I believe there would be a greater percentage of Mac users who are not having a problem and thus there is no need to complain...

An offline print queue is a failure of the Mac to communicate with the printer. For a USB connection this could be physical problem. If you power cycle the printer (turn it off then back on) are you then able to resume the print queue and get your print job started?

I'm using it with the cable and even went and bought another one to see if the cable was the problem. Canon has been sending me procedures to try. Nothing works! I have installed ( and uninstalled ) the printer drivers and software several times. I have tried unhooking the cables (both at the computer and then at the printer), turning the printer off to try and reset it. I clicked in the printer fax and reset the printer. Threw out the preference files before reinstalling. All to no avail. The USB is showing up. Everything looks fine except when it starts to print the dreaded exclamation mark comes up.
(I bought it for the individual tanks rather than the wireless feature.)

I suggest you have a look at the cups error log. This can be accessed via Console or via the MP560 print queue (Printer > Log & History). The log may give some clues as to why it believes the printer is not available. For a failed print job you will see a job number inside square brackets and the details for that particular process. To make things easier you could reset the view and then try a new print job. If it fails with the offline message then you should get all the associated log information and can post it back here.

Hmmm....I'm on a Macbook Pro and can't find this....I went to About this mac and More info ...my printer window does not have a way to check error messages.
Under Printer/Info/General it lists 'local host' and this:
usb://Canon/MP560%20series?serial=33F5E9

Open Print & Fax and with the Canon printer selected click on Open Printer Queue.
With the print queue showing select the Printer menu. Here you will see Log& History. Select this to access the cups error log. You will see that this log appears inside the Console application.

This is the last printer operation


I [16/Dec/2010:16:14:49 -0500] Printer sharing is off and there are no jobs pending, will restart on demand.
I [16/Dec/2010:16:25:03 -0500] Printer sharing is off and there are no jobs pending, will restart on demand.
I [16/Dec/2010:16:35:17 -0500] Printer sharing is off and there are no jobs pending, will restart on demand.
I [16/Dec/2010:16:45:30 -0500] Printer sharing is off and there are no jobs pending, will restart on demand.
I [16/Dec/2010:16:55:43 -0500] Printer sharing is off and there are no jobs pending, will restart on demand.
I [16/Dec/2010:17:05:56 -0500] Printer sharing is off and there are no jobs pending, will restart on demand.
I [16/Dec/2010:17:16:09 -0500] Printer sharing is off and there are no jobs pending, will restart on demand.
I [16/Dec/2010:17:35:34 -0500] Setting Canon MP560series printer-is-shared to 0 (was 1.)
I [16/Dec/2010:17:35:34 -0500] Saving printers.conf...
I [16/Dec/2010:17:35:34 -0500] Printer "Canon MP560series" modified by "sherrihager".
I [16/Dec/2010:17:36:33 -0500] [Job 3] Started filter /Library/Printers/Canon/BJPrinter/Filters/Raster2CanonIJ/Raster2CanonIJ.bundle/ Contents/MacOS/Raster2CanonIJ (PID 6211)
E [16/Dec/2010:17:37:27 -0500] Pause-Printer: Unauthorized

The last entry about pausing the printer being unauthorized reminded me of an issue that existed with Leopard. Looking at your tag you show that you are using 10.5 rather than 10.6 (this is the Snow Leopard printing forum). If you are using 10.5.8 then the solution is to make the admin group, which usually has your user account as a member, a member of the lpadmin group.

You can open the Terminal application, located in Applications > Utilities, and type the following (or copy and paste the following line into Terminal)

dseditgroup -o edit -p -a admin -t group _lpadmin

Now press the Enter key. You will be prompted for your password. Enter your password and you should see a message about a change was made.

Restart your Mac and try printing again.

I copied it in and did get it to upgrade the administrator but printer still says 'offline.'
I noticed in the console error log an entry that said: 'Hint - set log level to debug'
Is this something that I can do? (Nearest Apple store is 80 miles)

Carolinablue wrote:
I copied it in and did get it to upgrade the administrator but printer still says 'offline.'

But if you open the print queue and press the Resume button, does the job in the queue attempt to print or does the queue return to paused again.

I noticed in the console error log an entry that said: 'Hint - set log level to debug'
Is this something that I can do? (Nearest Apple store is 80 miles)

You can set the log level to debug but I don't think it will be all that helpful. Anyway, to enable the debug mode, open the [CUPS Admin web page|http://127.0.0.1:631/admin]. Here you will see the entry "Save debugging information...". Enable the check box - you will be prompted to enter the admin user name and password. Once entered on OK'd, the printing system will restart and everything that happens with regards to printing will be logged.

No I'm still getting the jumping printer icon. On the console cups error I just see a message that says 'remote access disabled.'
Could there be a problem with the 'print job manager'? I had Avast anti virus installed, but trashed the application....
I went on a Windows forum where they were having the 'printer offline' problem and one person said they had to just reinstall their operating system. I would rather be beaten with a baseball bat - but I may have to do it. I guess I could try a new USB cable but since it is showing up ok ..?
(The Canon people are clearly stumped at this point.)

Well, before I throw this thing out the window... I'm getting a message on the console error page: PID 1069 (usr/libexec/cups/daemon/cups-deviced) crashed on signal 9

Also had an earlier message signal 1 crash as well.

Also sometimes when I try to delete a printing job: client-error-not possible

When I went to airport and turned it off and then back on, it seemed like it was going to print, but then went offline again.

Carolinablue wrote:
Well, before I throw this thing out the window... I'm getting a message on the console error page: PID 1069 (usr/libexec/cups/daemon/cups-deviced) crashed on signal 9

This is not a good message and it could explain your current symptom. Before you do throw anything out I would suggest you download the Combo update for the respective OS you currently have (your tag mentions OS X 10.5.8) and run this. It can help with resolving these sort of system crashes.

Also sometimes when I try to delete a printing job: client-error-not possible

The Terminal command should have changed your ability to delete a job. So maybe the cups daemon crash is stopping you from deleting the print job.

When I went to airport and turned it off and then back on, it seemed like it was going to print, but then went offline again.

The Airport connection should not influence your ability to print via the Mac's USB port, unless the configuration of the print queue was incorrect or there was a previous brand of printer that was connected via the network to your Mac and this software is still present on your Mac and causing trouble. So is this the only printer you have had or did you have a different printer previously and was this connected to the Mac via a network of some sort?