Lion broke printing to Windows Print Server (smb)

Great that you seem to have solved the problem, internettechnik! But would you please put this in a language even a total muppet like me can understand?! I'm getting fed up not being able to print. It would be awesome if you could do this in a step-bystep explanation, as I'm certain many people have been affected by the same problem!

Many thanks

OK, I had a go and can get this to work for a time, but after restarting the computer the printer list gets stuck again and can't successfully resume. So something goes wrong again!

Right, I think I have it pegged now: it is really important to delete any and all refrences to the printer from your keychain. Once I had done this, and reentered the username and password for a print job, rebooting the computer did not affect printing capability. Fingers crossed it 'sticks'! Thanks internettechnik for your post!

Hi,

Thought I'd chime in with how we fixed this issue in our environment. Just got a couple Macbook Airs with Lion pre-installed. Our Macbook Pros that originally had Snow Leopard and were upgraded to Lion would print fine but if we removed the printers, which are SMB, and re-added them, printing no longer functioned. Adding the printers via SMB in the Print & Fax dialog did not work either on the Airs.

Solution was to add the port number for printing to the SMB name and that fixed it. We were able to do this from System Prefs->Print & Fax:

smb://(server name):9100(default Windows TCP/IP port for printing)/(printer share name)

It will then prompt for authentication on the first print job and proceed as normal. You do not need to enter the domain name as far as I know for Lion. This is how we fixed it so we could use the Print & Fax setup rather than CUPS.

Hope it helps someone out there.

Good day,

I worked on that issue and find something interesting, you could create a standard SMB printer but when comes time to authenticate standard entry (domain\username) won't work, to get it work i'm using domain;username and it works fine even after a reboot. So the only difference for users from 10.6 to 10.7 is a ; rather than a \, not to bad 🙂

Have a good day.

Hi all...I too have been battling against this since it was brought to my attention towards the end of last week.

And have this morning come up with a solution that does not involve the CUPS web interface and is basically just a slight change from the behaviour in Snow Leopard....

I created my Windows printer via spoolss from the Advanced print options in 10.7.2

smb://<FQDN of print server>:9100/<PrinterShare> (note the port number required!!! Have not yet tried this without using FQDN)

Upon receiving the authentication dialog, whereas previously under Snow Leopard, I had to specify DOMAIN\USERNAME

Under Lion all I have to put is USERNAME and the password in the pasword box.

This has worked successully throughout machine reboots, adding and recreating of printers etc etc....

Hope this helps someone!!!!

Regards

Alex Parker, Liverpool JMU

I run a university network with windows AD on server 2003. We have a printer server with smb printers. Students want to print directly from their personal PC:s/Macs.

I also had **** working this out, but this works for me! This thread helped me with clues, thanks everyone! Printing from Mac to windows printers on a windows server, we use a print account system. And also we use "follow me printing".

This has only been tested on Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion), but probably works for older versions as well.

1. Erase all (unsuccessful) printers in Print & Scan.
2. Erase all Keychain entrys relating to those printers in Keychain access.
3. Create a new printer in Print & Scan.
4. Click +
5. Click "Advanced" (If you dont find that; ctrl-click the toolbar and add it)
6. Select "Type:Windows printer via spoolss”
7. Select ”Device: Another Device”
8. Follow this syntax in "URL:"
   smb://ntdomain;username:password@servername/sharename
   example:
   smb://rotan;dd08der:superhemligt@pcounter.rotan.taber.nu/ricoh4501
9. Write something intelligent in "Name:" and "Location:"
10. It is a good idea to choose the rigth driver in "Print using" (b.t.w. Ricoh drivers have to be googled)
11. Click "Add"
12. The first time you print you will be asked for Username and Password. Do not add the domain before the username!

PS: Found the syntax here: http://www.cups.org/articles.php?L294

I'm going to state emphatically that though PeterV's method likely works, that putting your password in plain text in the printer's address is not a good idea. Especially since the Keychain can hold the password fine once you authenticate to the printer by sending a job. That will likely work but is defintely not necessary to get SMB printing working on Lion. Cisapark's method will work without issue--or should--as well.

Dane

I can only agree. I was so happy to finally see it working that I did not really consider the risk. Do you know how safe the password exchange is when printing as opposed to sending it with the printer name?

I made further testing and to my delight you and cisapark were rigth. So this is how I did it this time:

This has only been tested on Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion), but probably works for older versions as well.

1. Erase all (unsuccessful) printers in Print & Scan.
2. Erase all Keychain entrys relating to those printers in Keychain access.
3. Create a new printer in Print & Scan.
4. Click +
5. Click "Advanced" (If you dont find that; ctrl-click the toolbar and add it)
6. Select "Type:Windows printer via spoolss”
7. Select ”Device: Another Device”
8. Follow this syntax in "URL:"
   smb://servername/sharename
   example:
   smb://pcounter.rotan.gribub.nu/ricoh4501
9. Write something intelligent in "Name:" and "Location:"
10. It is a good idea to choose the rigth driver in "Print using" (b.t.w. Ricoh drivers have to be googled)
11. Click "Add"
12. The first time you print you will be asked for Username and Password. Do not add the domain before the username!

I my case I did not have to add the port.

Environment: Windows print server 2003, smb-shared printers, AD-domain, printing from Mac:s outside of the windows domain, but within the ip-domain. What mainly surprised me is that the domain does not have to be specified, but as a part of the server name.

PS: References: http://www.cups.org/articles.php?L294

I'm not certain regarding the passord exchange but I can say that the address is definitely stored in the User Library somewhere and will remain in plain text there whereas it's encrypted and password protected in the Keychain.

One thing I would like to add is when placing the server name in the smb address field, it's best to use the FQDN as cisa noted. The TCP port (9100) seems to only be necessary sometimes; not sure why but I just put it in every time as I can't say why it works sometimes and others not.

As a side note, if anyone's curious, with Lion, Apple has dropped SAMBA support, which is what was primarily used to connect via SMB. There's been quite a bit of anger over this. I have no problem with Apple dropping SAMBA; I just wish they would have said, "hey, your printers and drive connections might not work now. Better re-map them like this: {insert Apple provided info here}." Oh well. Like most, I'm just glad it works in the end.

Thanks Peter for the useful post. It helped me solve the issue. I use Mac book air Lion to connect to a HP Laser 2015 shared in Windows 2003.

I'm having thes same issues with 10.7.2

I have a printer which I share by plugging it into a Buffalo NAS, it uses SMB, it works great in Snow Leopard. I have tried every recommendation in this thread and a few others from another similar thread and it still seems to fail at authentication "AuthInfoRequired".

There is no domain it's just smb://NASname/share and the users are admin (with a password) and guest (with no password). I have tried entering both in the authentication dialog and it just immediately pauses the printer. I have also tried admin@NASname and admin@NASname/share Going to http://localhost:631 shows the AuthInfoRequired message.

As I mentioned it works fine from my Snow Leopard machine, but not from my 2 Lion machines.

smb view smb://NASname returns:

lp Printer Network Printer for Windows

I honestly think Apple needs to fix this so it works like it did in Snow Leopard

Try the IP address of the host. Example:

smb://192.168.1.100/printersharename

Send a job, such as a test page and see if it asks for authentication correctly and allows you to enter that authentication.

Thanks Dane,

That is one of the "many" things I've tried which doesn't work. It does show the autentication dialog when I try to print, but neither admin and password or guest and nopassword works.

Interestingly I'm not getting the authentication error, it just pauses at processing job 15% and will not resume. Perhaps it's another issue?