Canon MP830 Not Being recognised

The MP830 has two components - printer and scanner. When you select to add in Print & Fax, with the Default view selected you should see both. The scanner appears first, shown as Bonjour Scanner in the Kind column, and the printer appears several seconds later, shown as canonijnetwork in the Kind column. If you are seeing neither in the Default Add Printer view then either the software has an issue, as it is needed to make the device appear, or there is something wrong with the USB connection between the Mac and the MP.

To check if its the cable, open System Profiler and under the Hardware section, select the USB entry. In the right pane all the USB busses in the Mac will be shown and if the cabling is okay then the MP830 should be listed under one of the USB busses. If you don't see the Canon and you are sure that the USB cable is okay, try turning off the Canon and disconnecting the USB cable for about a minute. Then reconnect the USB cable and turn the printer back on. Hopefully now it shows under one of the USB busses. If it doesn't then try another USB cable (I know you tested it on another Mac but I can't tell you how many times the cable has still been the cause) and also try another USB port on the Mac. And ensure it is connected into the back of the iMac - connecting the printer to the USB keyboard is not supported.

If the printer does appear under one of the USB busses but it still fails to appear in the Default view when you select to Add Printer then the drivers can be the cause. Adding and removing new/old drivers can cause problems if a step is missed. Also some of the Canon provided drivers can have issues with installation if certain folders are missing. So I recommend you download and install the Canon v2.5 Update from Apple. This package can resolve driver installation issues.

With the printer not appearing in System Profiler, this is not a driver issue. The driver has no influence over the device appearing under any of the USB bus lines. So there must be some other cause but based on the device working on the other Mac, you would have to assume that the printer is okay. So that leaves the Mac, as you mention also trying other USB cables. As to what it would be on the Mac, well that is hard to tell from here. All I can say is that until the MP830 appears in System Profiler you won't be able to add it to this Mac. You could try downloading and installing the 10.6.7 Combo update. You would also run repair disk permissions. Either of these may help although on the surface it sounds more like a hardware issue.

As for the Bluetooth, this is not a supported function as there is no fax driver for OS X.

Mallrats, I'm sure you've already done this, since you've done so much troubleshooting, but just to be sure — have you restarted your Mac? I had a similar problem not long ago, and restarting the computer solved it just before I had to resort to tearing out my rapidly-greying hair. 😉

Drat! I was hoping that perhaps you hadn't done that yet — but of course I suspected that you had. Best of luck with the comparison.

I'd say that the empty ink cartridges are the problem, if your Canon is like my Canon MX870! Mine absolutely refuses to print if any of the cartridges need to be replaced, even if I'm printing b/w and it's a color cartridge that must be replaced.

Another idea is to call Canon tech support. I've never had to pay for phone support from them, even though the phone message always says I may have to. And their help is really good — just about as good as Apple's. 🙂

Good luck!

Reading Canon's reply I didn't think that the cartridges would be the issue but I wanted to make sure before saying anything. So I removed one of my MP980 ink tanks, which put the printer offline (In Use), but the device was still present in System Profiler. But it did stop the scanner from working, so this was probably the initial cause for the offline message.

It sounds like the larger black tank (PGI-5Bk) could have a problem. This tank is used for text printing while the smaller black tank (CLI-8Bk) is used for photographs, to complement the other three colours. Since you got the text to print by selecting to print on photo paper, then this text would have used the CLI-8Bk tank. So perform a deep head clean and run the nozzle test again.