How to have print box close automatically?

Hello again Steve. The window you are referring to is known as the printer proxy. As you have seen, the view in 10.8 is different to previous versions and the auto quit setting, which was under the printer proxy preferences, is no longer present. Now the proxy is set to auto quit automatically, but you and some others are finding out that this is not always the case.

There was a beta build of 10.8 that had this exact symptom but this was fixed before the final release version of 10.8. If you have upgraded from 10.7 to 10.8 then I think that there is a preference file that is the cause, and it is not part of the core printing system as a reset does not resolve it.

I'm using the iPad at the moment but will check later for possible causes. So I will get back to you later unless someone else provides an solution in the meantime.

Sorry, forgot to mention the MP640. Canon supplied Apple with driver updates in June in preparation for 10.8 release. If you open System Information and select Printers and then select the MP640 you will see the driver version. If you have v10.57.2 the you have the latest.

I did indeed upgrade from LION to MOUNTAIN LION - and would really appreciate any comments on how to eliminate this issue - and if the cause is a preference file -- which one and how to delete etc

The preference file that contains this setting is ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.print.PrintingPrefs.plist, and deleting that should solve the problem, though there are other settings there that you might want to save. If that doesn't solve the problem, deleting the proxy from ~/Library/Printers/ and then re-adding it should work.

Hi Steve,

When you open ~/Library/Printers you should see the printer icons. These are the proxies John is referring to. So you can delete the MP640 icon here, or removing the printer from Print & Scan will have the same result.

In testing today I was not able to recreate your symptom. I also could not see where that was a reference to the proxy set to auto quit in that PrintingPrefs file or any other file that I checked. At one stage I though it may be the model.custompresets.plist but without the symptom occurring it is hard to rectify.

If you open the MP640 printer proxy and right click (or control click) on the MP640 icon in the dock, you can select to keep it in the dock. This will show the blue flat bubble under the icon. If you then select to quit the proxy, the blue bubble should go away. Now if you select to print to the MP640, this bubble should appear but it should also disappear when the job is sent. Does your bubble stay visible after the job is sent?

Also, with the printer proxy open, if you click on Window then Show Completed Jobs, are the print jobs shown have a state of Completed?

And one last thing. If you want to try a reset of the printing system, this action has been known to get things back in order for printing. This will remove all printers and scanners from Print & Scan, but not the supporting drivers. So you will only have to add the printer and scanner again.

Pahu,

You're right about the prefs. I was looking at an older file that never got deleted. Thank you for clearing that up. It looks like the new file is called com.apple.print.PrinterProxy.plist, and that contains the names of the printers but not anything about quitting the proxy. The com.apple.print.PrintingPrefs.plist sile still exists, it just doesn't have the information about the proxies.

Steve,

I can't get the proxy to stay open unless there is a problem with the print job.

Hi John,

I spent some more time on this today but I also could not get the proxy to stay open after the print job was submitted. At one stage I thought the status was set in "org.cups.printers.plist" in /Library/Preferences. But more testing showed that was not the case. And checking "com.apple.print.PrinterProxy.plist", the only way I could register a change with this file was to change the size of the proxy window, which seems to fit with what you see inside this file.

I still think it may be the proxy in ~/Library/Printers as you suggested earlier. I found one entry in the proxy package that shows

So Steve, can you open Finder and navigate to your user Library > Printers. For the MP640, Control-click on the icon and select "Show Package Contents". From the next view, open the Contents folder and then open the flle Info.plist in TextEdit and then copy and paste the data back here.

A couple more things Steve.

Does the LaserWriter suffer the same symptom?

And, as a test, if you created another user account on the Mac and logged in to that account and printed to the MP640, does it fail to quit after the print job is sent?

Thanks for supplying that file Steve. On first look it appears to be the same - at least the section that I was hoping was the cause is the same as what I have. So there must be some other setting. I'll keep looking at some of the Developer Guides and may even post a question on their forum.

To be continued...

Let me sneak in here with a slightly different direction. I do not guarantee that it will be of any help as I cannot duplicate the problem with my Epson WorkForce printer.

My approach to this was to compare long listing of preference files via the Terminal (ls -l ~/Library/Preferences). I experimented with manually setting the printer proxy icon to stay in the Dock or removing it from the Dock and letting it close automatically. During the testing, I would print jobs and take another look at the listing of the Preference files and paying attention to the date modified stamp. I noticed two other entries that would normally be considered outside of the printing system. I kept finding that the ByHost folder was being touched but nothing permanent was being kept. The more likely candidate was the com.apple.dock.plist.

When I permanently had the printer proxy in the Dock, I found the following entry in com.apple.dock.plist listed under the persistent-apps key--

<dict>

<key>GUID</key>

<integer>-765038777</integer>

<key>tile-data</key>

<dict>

<key>bundle-identifier</key>

<string>com.apple.print.PrinterProxy</string>

<key>dock-extra</key>

<false/>

<key>file-data</key>

<dict>

<key>_CFURLAliasData</key>

<data>

AAAAAADgAAMAAQAAzCef9AAASCsAAAAAAAZ6

7AAZkBcAAMwK5cMAAAAACSD//gAAAAAAAAAA

/////wABABAABnrsAAZ6uAAGercAAJlGAA4A

MgAYAEUAUABTAE8ATgAgAFcAbwByAGsARgBv

AHIAYwBlACAAMQAxADAAMAAuAGEAcABwAA8A

EAAHAFMAYQBuAGQAYgBvAHgAEgA0VXNlcnMv

bWF0dC9MaWJyYXJ5L1ByaW50ZXJzL0VQU09O

IFdvcmtGb3JjZSAxMTAwLmFwcAATAAEvAAAV

AAIAC///AAA=

</data>

<key>_CFURLString</key>

<string>file://localhost/Users/matt/Library/Printers/E PSON%20WorkForce%201100.app/</string>

<key>_CFURLStringType</key>

<integer>15</integer>

</dict>

<key>file-label</key>

<string>EPSON WorkForce 1100</string>

<key>file-mod-date</key>

<integer>3423266243</integer>

<key>file-type</key>

<integer>41</integer>

<key>parent-mod-date</key>

<integer>3426697666</integer>

</dict>

When the printer proxy was not in the Dock, this entry was not in the .plist. With this in mind, you might want to check that .plist to see if your printer proxy is listed in there. You can check after you manually remove the icon from the Dock and again when it is stuck in the Dock. I am wondering if there is some sort of corruption in the com.apple.dock.plist that is preventing the printer proxy from disappearing.

You could also take a screen shot of your Dock for reference and store a backup copy of the .plist on Desktop or somewhere, the delete your com.apple.dock.plist and any com.apple.dock.plist.lockfile. Then log out and log back in. You will have to reconstruct your Dock.Does that solve the printer proxy problem? If that solves the problem, you will have to repopulate your Dock as you want it. If it does not solve your problem, put the backup copy of the Dock's .plist back in place, log out, and then log back in again.

I think I went through all the other files as PAHU and John have done to try and find some key or setting that might otherwise control the printer proxy remaining in the Dock.

Thanks for your input on this Matt. I was also seeing the changes made to the ByHost folder but missed the Docks plist so that sounds promising.

I did some more testing after some an idea came to me. I think the collective "we" are getting confused by terminology. We keep talking about Auto Quit function of the printer proxy. My additional thought was that the printer proxy application is indeed quitting. It is just the icon in the Dock that is not disappearing like other applications do when they quit. I think it can more properly be considered an annoying appearance issue.

Try this test. Open Activity Monitor and have it show All Processes. In the Search or Filter box, enter "printer" (without the quotes). Now print a job or two. You should see the application "PrinterProxy" appear in the list of processes and then disappear when it is finished or quit running.

Matt Broughton wrote:

We keep talking about Auto Quit function of the printer proxy. My additional thought was that the printer proxy application is indeed quitting. It is just the icon in the Dock that is not disappearing like other applications do when they quit. I think it can more properly be considered an annoying appearance issue.

I agree with your train of thought. I was also thinking along these lines and made the suggestion above re the icon in the dock and the blue light. I felt that if the proxy was closing but just staying in the dock then the blue light should turn off. But then I also thought that if this was the case then the proxy window should not be visible on the desktop. Anyway, I think your action of using the Activity Monitor is a better test.