Anyone using a Canon Selphy printer with Lion?

Bonjour dominikF,

I am very interested in getting the CP800 with my MBP on Lion. If I understand your post correctly, I can download the hack you made, so the driver is installed.

Does this mean that the CP800 prints on Lion? A wrong printer name is okay with me as long as I can print photos. This part I do not understand: "But you will not be able to create a valid printer."

Thanks for clarifying

No, I said that all files are correctly installed (like on Snow Leopard) but that it was impossible to create the printer. I'm always looking for why...
CANON selphy's installation driver seems a little bit complex, not standard. That's why the support between SL and Lion has been not done (I think).

That is sad news. But thanks for your quick reply!

The printer cannot be created most likely due to the upgraded version of CUPS in Lion or permission changes that prevents the installer from writing a file or two. No matter what I did...I could not get CUPS to recognize the device when I plugged it in (I repeatedly got the no driver posted error in the system log).

However...I was able to finally figure out how to do it manually. Just tonight I was able to finally print from a fresh install of Lion to my CP800.

I ended up having to reinstall snow leopard to figure out the differences (I just used a USB thumb drive so I could have my 10.6 and 10.7 volumes up at the same time).

1. You must install the drivers. The hack above works just fine (I assume). What I ended up doing was going to that blog from a few pages back and downloading the installer he referenced. I then made the change using a hex editor. I then copied the file into the CP800 installer. It installed fine since the hacked file was just a resource file for the installer itself.

2. I edited the /Library/Printers/InstalledPrinters.plist file to include an entry for Canon, Inc that was in the file in Snow Leopard.

3. I edited the file /private/etc/cups/printers.conf and manually put the entry in for the CP800 using the snow leopard version of the entry (note...make sure you stop cupsd before doing this)

4. I copied what I assume is a private ppd for the CP800 from /private/etc/cups/ppd on snow leopard to the same path on lion

5. Restarted CUPS

I then plugged in the printer and when I went to Print & Scan...low and behold it was there!

I was able to open the print queue and print a picture!!!

One last thing...I ended up calling Canon the other week and talked to a very helpful support rep. He confirmed for me that the emails going around about no Lion support are not accurate. The official position is that they may still be coming but there is no timeline...so lets hold out a little hope here. He also confirmed that the printer uses CUPS drivers so as long as you could get them installed and get a printer configured...they should work (he told me he was going beyond what he was supposed to tell customers...but he felt bad for me).

I hope this helps!!!

Kef1 : it works fine !!!
If we use my hack (for full CP drivers installation) and follow your informations about CUPS installation, all works fine !
But we need to use older files (an old CUPS installation) on Snow Leopard for a success.

A question : I'm working about a full installer now, including CUPS files editing...
My printers.conf contains this code :

<Printer Canon_CP780>

UUID urn:uuid:95421629-b6ae-3043-73e0-67deda1f7645

Info Canon CP780

Location MacPro

MakeModel Canon SELPHY CP780

DeviceURI file:///dev/null

State Idle

StateTime 1319310456

Type 36876

Accepting Yes

Shared Yes

JobSheets none none

QuotaPeriod 0

PageLimit 0

KLimit 0

OpPolicy default

ErrorPolicy stop-printer

</Printer>

Could you display yours (from CP800) ?

Thanx.

And thank you for your help. 😉
Dominik

<Printer Canon_CP800>

Info Canon CP800

Location Tester Kirk’s MacBook Pro 15"

MakeModel Canon SELPHY CP800

DeviceURI file:///dev/null

State Idle

StateTime 1324178230

Type 36868

Product (Canon SELPHY CP800)

Filter application/vnd.cups-raw 0 -

Filter application/pdf 0 /System/Library/Printers/Libraries/PrintJobMgr/Contents/MacOS/PrintJobMgr

Accepting Yes

Shared Yes

JobSheets none none

QuotaPeriod 0

PageLimit 0

KLimit 0

OpPolicy default

ErrorPolicy stop-printer

</Printer>

The only question is what to do about the /private/etc/cups/ppd directory? When I set the printer up in SL...a file called Canon_CP800.ppd gets created there. It is not there if/when I delete the printer object. I assume the other Selphy printers that do drivers like the 800 have this file as well. It appears to be created on the fly by CUPS. I am not sure we can get this to work unless we have a copy of this file for every Selphy.

I still have my SL on a USB thumb drive available. I am happy to test anything.

Glad to hear you got it working. Let me know if I can help out any other way.

Thank you.
I think that's possible to add all ppd files (for every CP SELPHY) in my Installer. But - before doing it - we need to know if that correct 😉
Keep contact

Kef1, could you send me your Canon_CP800.ppd file ? 😉 Thanx.

kef1 wrote:

The only question is what to do about the /private/etc/cups/ppd directory? When I set the printer up in SL...a file called Canon_CP800.ppd gets created there. It is not there if/when I delete the printer object. I assume the other Selphy printers that do drivers like the 800 have this file as well. It appears to be created on the fly by CUPS. I am not sure we can get this to work unless we have a copy of this file for every Selphy.

I would caution you about editing printers.conf and the /etc/cups/ppd directory. These contain files that are generated or written to by the operating system.

You most certainly do need the PPD that you see in /etc/cups/ppd. This file is almost assuredly generated by te Canon software and passed on to the system. That ios one of the reasons that you don't see any drivers when you try to add your printer using Print & Scan. The method Canon used is now depricated.

Copy your PPD file from /etc/cups/ppd to /Library/Printers/PPDs/Contents/Resources/ directory. That's the Library directory at the root of your hard disk. Now reset the printing system or at least delete your printer from Print & Scan and restart CUPS. Finally, try to add your printer again using the Print & Scan System Preference.

Does that let you add your printer? If so, you will find that an entry in printers.conf has been added and a copy of the PPD is also in /etc/cups/ppd.

Great!! I can use my CP760 again !! Had to install leopard server in parallels but hey, it works!!

Thanks Kef and Dominik

Dominik,

I would be happy to. What is the best way to get it to you? It is small so I could probably just email it to you.

Let me know. I don't see a way to upload files to this discussion.

You are welcome. Glad to see this works with other models besides the 800!

Matt,

I tried that long before I went through the pain of reinstalling SL just to capture the printer setup. The PPD that is generated is somehow not in the correct format for Apple's print list (I am guess it is missing multiple items...though I am no cups expert).

Manually modifying those files is fine. The aren't used by the OS...they are used by the printing system...which is CUPS. To anyone with any Linux experience...this exercise is trivial (and safe). I don't want to scare someone off who has no other way of getting their printer to work with LION due to the apparent crappiness of Canon.

AS LONG AS YOU FIRST SHUT DOWN CUPSD YOU CAN SAFELY PERFORM THE STEPS TO MANUALLY REGISTER THE PRINTER.

For those not familair...here are the instructions

1. open terminal.app

2. paste the following command: sudo launchctl stop org.cups.cupsd

-NOTE...when prompted for a password...use the same password that is used to log in

-NOTE2...this password cannot be blank...if you are using a blank password, set one first

3. perform the steps above to get the printer recognized in CUPS

4. paste the following command into terminal.app sudo launchctl start org.cups.cupsd

I confirmed that the printer now shows up and just for the heck of it rebooted just to make sure it stuck.

kef1 wrote:

I tried that long before I went through the pain of reinstalling SL just to capture the printer setup. The PPD that is generated is somehow not in the correct format for Apple's print list (I am guess it is missing multiple items...though I am no cups expert).

Have you tried `cupstestppd /etc/cups/ppd/queue_name` ? It would be interesting to see about the first 40 lines of the PPD to see if there is a reason it could not be added to the database CUPS stores.

Having said that, I just realized that even if we could get CUPS to recognize the PPD in /Library/Printers/PPDs/Contents/Resources, you still could not create a working printer as Canon needs to have the Device URI pointed to file:///dev/null. Print & Scan can't do that.

Manually modifying those files is fine. The aren't used by the OS...they are used by the printing system...which is CUPS. To anyone with any Linux experience...this exercise is trivial (and safe). I don't want to scare someone off who has no other way of getting their printer to work with LION due to the apparent crappiness of Canon.

I would agree that it is safe if you know what you are doing. Unfortunately there is no way to know a posters level of expertise on any given subject in these forums. I have seen too many people brick their systems by just making some simple file modifications.

AS LONG AS YOU FIRST SHUT DOWN CUPSD YOU CAN SAFELY PERFORM THE STEPS TO MANUALLY REGISTER THE PRINTER.

For those not familair...here are the instructions

1. open terminal.app

2. paste the following command: sudo launchctl stop org.cups.cupsd

-NOTE...when prompted for a password...use the same password that is used to log in

-NOTE2...this password cannot be blank...if you are using a blank password, set one first

3. perform the steps above to get the printer recognized in CUPS

4. paste the following command into terminal.app sudo launchctl start org.cups.cupsd

I confirmed that the printer now shows up and just for the heck of it rebooted just to make sure it stuck.

Thank you for posting the steps to safely stop CUPS and restart it. This information is on everyone's computer here. It should also be noted that when you enter your password in the Terminal, nothing will be seen on the screen. This is for security reasons.

So, for someone who is not too well into the deeper layers of Apple functionality (have to discover a lot), what steps do I have to take to get my Selphy 800 to work on a MacBook Pro with OS 10.7?

Looks like your posts will get that printer running...!