Can see Dell 1710 in Bonjour but cannot print wirelessly

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Can see Dell 1710 in Bonjour but cannot print wirelessly

I received a Dell laser printer (1710) as a gift, and I am trying to set up wireless printing form my laptop. I currently have the printer connect via USB to my Airport Extreme, with no luck.

A direct USB connection from printer to iBook works fine. When I try to connect wirelessly, however, I get an error message: "The process 'pstopsprinter1' stopped unexpectedly with status 2."

I cannot seem to find out what this error means. Dell customer support was useless, and Apple CS said it was a driver issue. Hence, why I am here.

My iBook recognizes the printer in Bonjour, I have downloaded and installed the drivers from Dell.com, yet cannot get past that error.

Looking through the posts, I see that my problem is not unique, but I have struggled all day with this. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

iBook G4 14" Mac OS X (10.4.7) Airport Extreme, iPod 3G

Posted on Aug 15, 2006 12:05 PM

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Answer 1

iFelix

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35,167 points

Aug 15, 2006 2:02 PM in response to acelini

Can you print with the 1710 connected directly to the Mac?

iFelix

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Answer 2

acelini Author

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Aug 16, 2006 7:02 AM in response to iFelix

Yes, a direct connection over USB works fine.

When I spoke to Apple tech support, he said it probably was a driver issue (from Dell). Of course, when I spoke to Dell earlier, they said they had never encountered my particular problem (hard to believe).

Are there any "driver workarounds" that will let the printer (Dell 1710) talk to the AEX?

Thanks

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Answer 3

iFelix

Level 8

35,167 points

Aug 16, 2006 7:06 AM in response to acelini

You could try the generic postscript driver and see if that works.

You might also want to try the Dell 1710n driver.

iFelix

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Answer 4

acelini Author

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Aug 21, 2006 8:59 AM in response to iFelix

I reset everything (that I could find), did a hard resest on the AEX, deleted all printers...an attempt to start over.

The driver switch doesn't seem to make a difference: I get the same error with both Dell drivers, and a "non-error" with the Generic driver. In all three cases, all print jobs stop.

That error, with the Dell drivers, reads, "The process "pstopsprinter1" stopped unexpectedly with status 2."

During my "clean-up" of my iBook, I found a Dell folder in the Library, and inside that folder was a Terminal file named "pstopsprinter1." I don't know a thing about Terminal, and I know less about the purpose of this command, but on double-clicking it, it reads some sort of error message.

I did try deleting it from that folder and then printing, but to no avail. Even without that file there, I got the same message.

I am going to call Dell now and see if they know what this file is. Wish me luck.

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Answer 5

acelini Author

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Aug 28, 2006 5:35 AM in response to acelini

Well, I spoke to Dell, and the answer they provided was that, under no circumstances, can they provide a solution. They defense was, understandably, that they manufacture and support Windows-based machines. MY point of complaint with Dell's customer service, however, was that they created drivers for the printer for the Mac, and these drivers are available for download from their website. Dell, however, offers absolutely NO support for this software on the Mac platform.

Lesson learned: Don't buy a Dell for use with a Mac.

I have the printer set up with a direct connection to my laptop (when I need to print). But, of course, I would love to hear that somebody else in the wide world of computing has had a similar problem (with Dell or not -- hey, we can commiserate) and if this person has found a wireless workaround.

Until then, thank you for all your help and suggestions on these boards.

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