Does Tiger require ownership (and sharing) of wired printers on a wireless LAN? My G4 (Tiger) is also wired to the LAN, and can access all wired printers through the router. Wireless Macs cannot even find the printers.

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Level 1

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Does Tiger require ownership (and sharing) of wired printers on a wireless LAN? My G4 (Tiger) is also wired to the LAN, and can access all wired printers through the router. Wireless Macs cannot even find the printers.

Does Tiger require ownership (and sharing) of wired printers on a wireless LAN? My G4 (Tiger) and all printers are wired to the LAN, and the G4 can access all printers through the router. Additional wireless Macs (Snow Leopard and Mountain Lion) cannot even find the printers. Yet, if the G4 shares the printers, then ALL computers on the LAN can access them. However, this requires the G4 to remain powered. Is there a workaround that would allow me to shut down the G4 and still use the printers?

G4 Quicksilver (1.2 Ghz), Mac OS X (10.4.11), 2009 Intel Macbook Pro, 2.5 Ghz, Mac OS X (10.5.6)

Posted on Nov 10, 2013 12:46 AM

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Answer 1

BDAqua

Level 10

239,333 points

Nov 10, 2013 9:15 AM in response to wecolburn

Are the wired & Wifi networks differnt IP ranges?

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Answer 2

wecolburn Author

Level 1

4 points

Nov 11, 2013 5:59 PM in response to BDAqua

No. All five devices (2 wired printers, 1 wired G4, and 2 wireless MB Pros) have dynamically assigned IP addresses in a single range from 192.168.1.100 through 149 and have been functioning well without too many "collisions". Now, however, the laptops see the printers, but they always find them "offline".

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Answer 3

BDAqua

Level 10

239,333 points

Nov 11, 2013 6:20 PM in response to wecolburn

Turn off Printer Sharing on the G4, reboot it, then on the MBPs...

Resetting the printing system in Mac OS X 10.5.x+++

1. To use the Reset Printing System feature in Mac OS X 10.5.x, follow these steps:

2. Choose System Preferences from the Apple menu.

3. Choose Print & Fax from the View menu.

4. Control-click on list of printers on the left side of the window, then choose "Reset printing system" from the contextual menu. If you don't see a list of printers, Control-click on the text "Click + to add a printer or fax" and select "Reset printing system..."     As an alternative, if you currently have one or more printers listed, you can Option-click the "-" (Remove printer) button.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1341

Reboot.

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Answer 4

wecolburn Author

Level 1

4 points

Nov 12, 2013 3:15 PM in response to BDAqua

Hello BDAqua!

Well, I am halfway there. Following your steps on the Snow Leopard MBP, the newer printer (a Canon MX860 inkjet) appeared automatically under the "default" icon on the ADD printer window. I used the IP icon with the HP Jetdirect-Socket protocol to find and add the older printer, (an HP 4000N). That required running a configuration page from the printer to locate its IP address. I printed to both printers through this laptop with success!

I then followed exactly the same procedure with the Mountain Lion MBP. For both installation attempts, I got an error message window: Unable to verify the printer on your network. "192.168.111" may not exist or is unavailable at this time. Would you still like to create the printer? If I click Continue, it creates the icon and name in the printer list. However when I attempt to print from an app. the next message says, 'Printer is unavailable.'

Why one laptop finds and uses both printers, and the newer laptop does not, just floors me!

Thank you for your ongoing assistance.

Bill

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Answer 5

BDAqua

Level 10

239,333 points

Nov 12, 2013 3:52 PM in response to wecolburn

Bill, does the first MBP still print to it/them? Wondering if the Printer has a Static IP or DHCP assigned?

Is Printer Sharing disabled on the Lion MBP? I don't remember later OSX versions having this problem, but 10.4 would not look past directly connected Printers if Printer Sharing was on.

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Answer 6

rccharles

Level 6

12,957 points

Nov 12, 2013 7:57 PM in response to wecolburn

This seems to be a problem with network topology which I know enough to be dangerous.

.

All devices must be connected to the same wifi router.

Of course, you can buy office routers and configure them to route printer data around the network. This is more expensive and take time and knowledge.

Do you have more than one router?

Robert

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