Problem with Cannon i9900 Printer on Mavericks

Question

Level 1

10 points

Problem with Cannon i9900 Printer on Mavericks

Printer stops and returns the message, "Filter failed".

The printer was working fine under 10.8 AND under 10.9 ( (mavericks) until I tried to update the Cannon i9900 printer driver!

I've reset the printer system with hope of starting fresh. I've fixed disk permissions (which did find problems and corrected). I've also tried restoring the Cannon i9900 driver I used in 10.8 from time machine. I ensure the supplies where full. I did mutliple restarts.

Nothing works, Cannon jobs stop and return the dreaded " Filter failed" message ....

What is odd, is that I can communicate with the printer and do test sheets, head cleaning, and printer utility functions. This all runs fine and the printer ink level are good. Leads me to beleive the printer is fine, but someting in my OS/cups is whacked for the Cannon. My other printer (lexmark 250dn) works fine on 10.9 and I can successfully reinstall it after a printer system reset.

I later dug into the printer update on the apple site (Yes I should have check this first), and subsequently discovered the i9900 wasn't in the supported list. http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3669#canon-inkjet This is why I'm wondering if its a maverick driver problem. The driver I've currently got installed is version 10.67.1.0, it looks like all supported cannon drivers are now at 10.72.1.0.

Thanks in advance for any help that can restore my printer!

Bon

iMac, OS X Mavericks (10.9)

Posted on Nov 7, 2013 7:14 AM

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Answer 1

Bonsterg Author

Level 1

10 points

Nov 7, 2013 6:45 PM in response to Bonsterg

Problem solved. The Canon i9900 does indeed work again in Marvericks!

Had to remove the new apple drivers and use the older Cannon drivers. Did the following:

1.) Downloaded the Snow Leopard 10.6 Canon drivers (newest on the Canon website).

http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/support/consumer/printers_multifunction/i_series/i 9900#DriversAndSoftware

2.) Reset my printer system. This removes most of the files in the /Library/Printers folder; however, there were still hidden files in the folder that had stuff that I think contributed to the driver "confusion". Likely why my earlier resets of the printer system were not successful.

3.) Set FInder so I could see hide files. Opened Terminal and entered:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE

killall Finder

4.) Removed the (now unhidden) canon folder from /Library/Printers

5.) Installed new driver obtained in step 1. In my case this installed the printer in the Printers & Scanner System Pereferences, and my printer was back up and running!

6.) Reset my finder to hide hidden files from Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE

killall Finder

Bon

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Answer 2

Nov 20, 2013 2:49 PM in response to Bonsterg

Bon,

You are my best friend in the world right now. I've been struggling with this for weeks, and was almost ready to sell my trusty i9900 and buy a new printer. This is NOT what I wanted to do, since I have this printer calibrated and producing great prints, cards, etc.

I tried installing the old drivers but ran into the same problems you did. I tried the Gutenberg generic drivers, but they did not work well. So, I downloaded the Canon Pro9000 driver and got it to work, but not in Photoshop. And it would not give me ink level info.

Tonite, I found your post, and it works brilliantly! Thank you for posting the solution. I was fortunate to find someone who took the time to share their solution with others.

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Answer 3

Dec 6, 2013 6:31 PM in response to Bonsterg

Unfortunately, I keep getting the same error after following Bon's solution.

My i9900 is connected to a PC on my network and not connected directly to my iMac. Would that matter?

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Answer 4

Dec 7, 2013 4:16 AM in response to Bonsterg

FWIW, it seems that Canon themselves is dropping support

for the i9900. There are no supported drivers for Win8, as

I recently found out, and apparently there seems to have support

dropped for 10.9. (There were some nastygrams in the Canon

forums over this fact). It seems that Canon, though no official

statement made, has deemed this great printer to be obsolete.

FWIW, my i9900 is working quite well in Mavericks with driver

@ 10.67.1.0. However, I did not, nor was I informed via Software

Update, to update to the driver that was released circa October 15.

Did not do anything special either.

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Answer 5

Bonsterg Author

Level 1

10 points

Dec 7, 2013 5:13 AM in response to heinkel_guy

heinkel_guy,

Subsequent to my last post, I stopped using Canon's crappy driver. I'm now using the Print_Fab driver http://www.printfab.net/. This definitely solved Canon's poor driver-support problem!

You've got to pay for it (49 Eur), but I think it's well worth it ( and cheaper than tossing your i9900). It fully supports the i9900 printer and offers much more control over printing than the Canon driver ever did. You can try it for free.

Bon

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Answer 6

Dec 7, 2013 6:24 AM in response to Bonsterg

Bon,

I verified that my printer continued to work ust fine when connected directly to the iMac, but fails with the 306 error when connected to my PC running XP.

Is that what you saw as well?

Mike

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Answer 7

Bonsterg Author

Level 1

10 points

Dec 7, 2013 7:43 AM in response to heinkel_guy

Mike,

Sorry I can't confirm this as I don't have a PC to try printer sharing. Looking at the forum, other are seem to be having problem with both network printers and windows shared printers. Found this rather long thread which seems to sort the problem. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5480881

Bon

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Answer 8

Dec 7, 2013 7:59 AM in response to Bonsterg

Hi Bon,

Thank you for the follow-up emails. I will look at that solution. I installed the PrintFab driver in demo mode, but could not get those to print either. I believe I saw authentication errors.

I'll keep plugging away.

Mike

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Answer 9

Jan 25, 2014 8:00 AM in response to Bonsterg

This solution worked perfect for me, many thanks for sharing !!

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Answer 10

jbii

Level 1

0 points

Feb 6, 2014 9:46 PM in response to Bonsterg

Bon,

I owe you big time. Opened Library, Printers, nuked Canon folder, then (same level in Finder) opened PPD, Resources, and nuked every file with Canon prefix.

Then I downloaded Canon drivers for 10.6 Os but had to open the .dmg file by holding down Control key first, while then clicking 'mcpd-mac-i9900-10_51_2-ea11.dmg'. It then installed and my Canon i9900 works now!

Jim

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Answer 11

Feb 14, 2014 9:09 PM in response to Bonsterg

Bonsterg! I had almost given up and actually considered the ultimate aweful fate of of having to buy TWO new printers (i9900 and MP830). Your workaround rocks. SO MANY THANKS!

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Answer 12

serpino

Level 1

0 points

Feb 17, 2014 11:10 AM in response to Bonsterg

I am just new to the IMac, and your instructions seem very complicated. I have not intalled any printer drivers for the Cannon I9900 since it is new. Will the Snow Leopard driver working without deleting the cannon files?

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Answer 13

Dee C

Level 1

29 points

Mar 5, 2014 11:10 PM in response to Bonsterg

Thanks so much Bon!

I was having the same problem on OSX 10.8. Your info solved my problem.

Dee

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Answer 14

srb8521

Level 1

0 points

Apr 2, 2014 4:57 PM in response to Bonsterg

I followed your thread re the Canon i9900. Problem I have is that I also use other Canon printers that are supported by Mavericks so I can't nuke all Canon drivers. Do you have a suggestion for how to selectively disable the Mavericks i9900 drivers? I downloaded the ML driver successfully but I can't get Mavericks to see the printer at all. Thanks.

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Answer 15

Jun 21, 2014 10:24 PM in response to Bonsterg

Thanks Bon. Your process worked great on 10.9.3

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