Wifi Printing on a Mac
Discussion
I've posted this on Apple Discussions forums as well but PistonHeads is also a great place for help, so any advice would be gratefully received 'cos this is driving me nuts. Here goes:
Firstly, apologies for the long post but I’m really struggling with this one.
I live in France and am trying to get wifi printing working on a friend’s Intel iMac (OSX Tiger 10.4.11) connected to a Lexmark X4875 printer. She’s connecting to the internet via Airport using a Livebox router, no problems. I’ve set up the printer to work wifi and that all 'appears' to be successful with the wifi light going to green as it should. I’ve also ‘associated’ the printer with the router by pressing the association button on the Livebox at the time of set-up and the printer is registered with the Livebox with correct MAC id.
So far everything looks like it should work until I go ‘Add Printer’ and the wifi printer is never seen (no problems if connected via USB). I’ve reset the printer erasing all print settings and starting again, done numerous restarts of all devices and still no go.
I should add that I have set up many wifi printers previously and even had this one working previously for over a year - it’s just that she had to get a new Livebox recently and now I can’t get it to work.
I realise that not everybody will be familiar with the Livebox although they are common anywhere Orange operates as an ISP but I’m hoping that someone will have some nugget of information that will help me get this sorted.
Thanks in advance for any advice, Paul.
Firstly, apologies for the long post but I’m really struggling with this one.
I live in France and am trying to get wifi printing working on a friend’s Intel iMac (OSX Tiger 10.4.11) connected to a Lexmark X4875 printer. She’s connecting to the internet via Airport using a Livebox router, no problems. I’ve set up the printer to work wifi and that all 'appears' to be successful with the wifi light going to green as it should. I’ve also ‘associated’ the printer with the router by pressing the association button on the Livebox at the time of set-up and the printer is registered with the Livebox with correct MAC id.
So far everything looks like it should work until I go ‘Add Printer’ and the wifi printer is never seen (no problems if connected via USB). I’ve reset the printer erasing all print settings and starting again, done numerous restarts of all devices and still no go.
I should add that I have set up many wifi printers previously and even had this one working previously for over a year - it’s just that she had to get a new Livebox recently and now I can’t get it to work.
I realise that not everybody will be familiar with the Livebox although they are common anywhere Orange operates as an ISP but I’m hoping that someone will have some nugget of information that will help me get this sorted.
Thanks in advance for any advice, Paul.
Can you press any buttons on the printer to print out a test page? If it's an IP-network printer then the test page should also display the IP address of the printer. This should be on the same subnet as your router and Mac.
If the router hasn't been set up to act as a DHCP server, and the printer is waiting for someone to give it an IP address, then you'll get some 169.whatever 'self-assigned' IP address and the Mac (and anything else on the Wifi network) won't be able to talk to it.
You basically either need to set the printer to have a static IP address on the same subnet as the router / Mac, or get the router to hand out IP addresses (i.e. act as a DHCP server) and get the printer to use DHCP to pick up its IP address.
Sounds to me like the printer simply isn't on the network with the Mac and the router - if the Mac can access the internet then it's definitely 'on the network' - but the printer may not be.
There's usually a 'test page' option - try that and see whether it gives you any network diagnostics info.
If the router hasn't been set up to act as a DHCP server, and the printer is waiting for someone to give it an IP address, then you'll get some 169.whatever 'self-assigned' IP address and the Mac (and anything else on the Wifi network) won't be able to talk to it.
You basically either need to set the printer to have a static IP address on the same subnet as the router / Mac, or get the router to hand out IP addresses (i.e. act as a DHCP server) and get the printer to use DHCP to pick up its IP address.
Sounds to me like the printer simply isn't on the network with the Mac and the router - if the Mac can access the internet then it's definitely 'on the network' - but the printer may not be.
There's usually a 'test page' option - try that and see whether it gives you any network diagnostics info.
cyberface said:
Can you press any buttons on the printer to print out a test page? If it's an IP-network printer then the test page should also display the IP address of the printer. This should be on the same subnet as your router and Mac.
If the router hasn't been set up to act as a DHCP server, and the printer is waiting for someone to give it an IP address, then you'll get some 169.whatever 'self-assigned' IP address and the Mac (and anything else on the Wifi network) won't be able to talk to it.
You basically either need to set the printer to have a static IP address on the same subnet as the router / Mac, or get the router to hand out IP addresses (i.e. act as a DHCP server) and get the printer to use DHCP to pick up its IP address.
Sounds to me like the printer simply isn't on the network with the Mac and the router - if the Mac can access the internet then it's definitely 'on the network' - but the printer may not be.
There's usually a 'test page' option - try that and see whether it gives you any network diagnostics info.
Yes, the IP address of the printer is 192.168.1.13 (from memory, unfortunately my friend's place is about 20 mins away). In Printer set-up I created a printer with that IP address but the Mac can't find the location of the printer - hmm. DHCP is turned on on the router and printer.If the router hasn't been set up to act as a DHCP server, and the printer is waiting for someone to give it an IP address, then you'll get some 169.whatever 'self-assigned' IP address and the Mac (and anything else on the Wifi network) won't be able to talk to it.
You basically either need to set the printer to have a static IP address on the same subnet as the router / Mac, or get the router to hand out IP addresses (i.e. act as a DHCP server) and get the printer to use DHCP to pick up its IP address.
Sounds to me like the printer simply isn't on the network with the Mac and the router - if the Mac can access the internet then it's definitely 'on the network' - but the printer may not be.
There's usually a 'test page' option - try that and see whether it gives you any network diagnostics info.
I'd drop to a shell on the Mac and try ping, traceroute, mtr (you'll need MacPorts for that, or compile it yourself) and see if the Mac can route packets to the printer. If so, then you need to make sure you're using the IP printing protocol on the Mac... set it up using LPD, and you'll probably need the Gimp-print opensource drivers.
I've got a similar situation with a Brother laser fax/copier/printer - though I'm using an external network print server box for that and it's wired, not wireless - but the same principles apply to both.
If you're using Tiger, then Unix IP printing requires a bit of messing around, IIRC.... was it Tiger where you had to press the option key whilst clicking 'Add Printer' in the system preferences in order to allow printing to an IP address? Leopard and SL support IP printing natively and have all the Gutenberg print drivers installed as part of the OS - I do remember having to jump through hoops with earlier cats but can't remember whether it was Tiger or Panther...
I've got a similar situation with a Brother laser fax/copier/printer - though I'm using an external network print server box for that and it's wired, not wireless - but the same principles apply to both.
If you're using Tiger, then Unix IP printing requires a bit of messing around, IIRC.... was it Tiger where you had to press the option key whilst clicking 'Add Printer' in the system preferences in order to allow printing to an IP address? Leopard and SL support IP printing natively and have all the Gutenberg print drivers installed as part of the OS - I do remember having to jump through hoops with earlier cats but can't remember whether it was Tiger or Panther...
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