Safari 5.1.2 not working with USPS Click-N-Ship Label Printing

I use the USPS Click-N-Ship for printing postage labels. Prior to this update the behavior was: I'd enter the label information, check out and click the print button. The labels would be generated and downloaded to my downloads folder and Preview would automatically open the file with the labels. A quick CMD-P and I was all done.

Since the update to 5.1.2 when I tell the post office website to print (ie generate) the label, no label is downloaded, thus nothing can be printed. The post office website behaves normally and acts as though the label was generated and handed off to the OS.

My guess here is that the new PDF handeling is kicking in but because the PDF that's generated has a wacky (Adobe Reader?) extention Safari doesn't know what to do with it. Here's the file name that the USPS generates:

com.usps.cns.web.pdf.LabelGenerationServlet

My workaround today was to use firefox, which will download the above file, then I chage the extention to .pdf, then I can open it in Preview and print. A lot more steps and a lot more hassle. Any ideas on how I can go back to the prior behavior or should I just punt and install Adobe Reader, which is what the post office website is expecting, but I've never needed up until now?

MacBook Pro 2.2 Intel Core 2 Duo, Mac OS X (10.6)

Posted on Nov 30, 2011 3:02 PM

20 replies

Jan 26, 2012 11:15 AM in response to Anthonyz

I just had a variation of this glitch happen yesterday with a USPS Priority label. Sys 10.7.2 Sarafi 5.1.2..

The label printed perfectly except the barcode was totally missing in the appropriate box. I didn't notice it until I went to the PO counter and the clerk asked me why the barcode wasn't there. ?? The clerk entered the tracking number manually and said it was OK this time but don't let that happen again..

I just got off the phone with a USPS website tech very knowledgeable with the Sarafi bug and indicated the fault probably was Adobe/Sarafi compatability and the PO and Apple were on it. The disappearing barcode was a new glitch to them tho.

He also said to try Chrome or Firefox like was posted earlier in this thread. IMHO, Apple should just buy Adobe with the cash on hand (I'm a stockholder) and eliminate the pi$$ing match between the two platforms.

Feb 24, 2012 6:21 AM in response to P. Scott

Scott--

Thank you for posting this. Spent an hour last night trying to get Safari then Foxfire to work. Installed Google Chrome and a couple minutes later, done!!!

P. Scott

Level 1

20 points

Feb 24, 2012 7:14 AM in response to xracermom

I'm really happy it worked out for all. I am surprised that Safari will not blend well with Adobe (just a bit of sarcasm, really no surprise at all) yet this minor change has left many using USPS in limbo. I particularly do not like browser jumping, but if it gets the job done then we must improvise, adapt, and overcome the weakness of what is presented to us in many of these minor/major development CF’s. I would think USPS would post a note for users of Safari for the work around just to cut down on the hours of wasted time looking for a solution.

Feb 24, 2012 7:26 AM in response to P. Scott

Yesterday, under FAQ in the USPS website, they instructed me to open Internet Explore on my Mac to get the labels to print. Yay, that was a big help.

Jun 12, 2012 3:17 PM in response to Anthonyz

I'm currently using Lion with Safari 5.1.7. I (was) having the same "no barcode" issue with Safari. Just a quick note, it prints fine with Firefox.

So I went ahead and thinker with it a little and found following:

In the activity window if you double click on the address (which also is the largest in size):

tps://cns.usps.com/go/Secure/LabelDownloadServlet?orderId=123456789&labelIds=123 456789&fileForSave=0&prtNoInstructions=true

(your orderId and labelsIds will be different)

..it opens in a new window and shows the label with barcodes, as it should be.

Now, if you change "fileForSave" option the in the addres from 0 to 1, Safari downloads it automatically and opens it in Preview.

So apperantly it does work with Safari but somehow something is broken and it can't get there. This is ofcourse inconvenient way of doing it, might as well just use Firefox. I just wanted to show that it's possible with Safari too, just with an odd way..

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Safari 5.1.2 not working with USPS Click-N-Ship Label Printing