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missing printers in chooser

M

maverik_john

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 17, 2003
5
0
I'm at a total loss and hoping someone on this forum might have a direction they can send me in :)

I've been fighting with a lab of 19 imacs for two months now... (indigo and snow versions)..... they have stopped seeing printers in the chooser, or they will pick printers at random... there are about fifteen printers that should show up, including the two in the lab... but at most three will show randomly and they will never be the two in the lab that I need.....
I've tried:

a clean install of the imac
updating the imac from 9.1 to 9.2.2
using desktop printer utility to add printers both using appletalk and the LDR where you enter the printer IP address... this second option lets me choose the drivers and put in the IP and save the new printer to the desktop giving it a name... or so it leads me to belive... but after I click save and the window goes away I'm back to the desktop printer utility window... so I try to close that and it asks me to save changes to the printer I just added... so i do (or don't depending on the attempt) and look for the printer it "just made" and there's nothing... if I open a program to try printing it hissy fits and declares I need to open chooser and choose a printer....
I've switched the printers on their ports on the switch....
switched cables....
norton defragged the macs
rebuilt desktop

and right now I've run out of ideas....

these are all in a room with the printers (hp color laserjet 4550 and hp laserjet 4050 both networked versions) and worked fine up until a few months ago.... the switches they were on in the room were cabletron switches but now they are cisco catalyst 2950 and 3560 switches.... which then fiber run right to the main closet.... but the printers are on the switches in the room, one on a drop that goes to the switch and one plugged directly into the switch... computers are all on drops that go to the switch...

so I'm out of ideas and could use any ideas... can it be something with the 9 level OS not liking the cisco switches? has that happened to anyone? and it's so random... with four or five computers seeing the printers and actually printing... the most stable ones anyhow... but they still loose it now and then... the rest are just plain unstable for finding printers....
 
Hi Jonny.

Sounds like the swith you are using is auto sensing the speed of the network (100mps/1000mps) & your printers are not liking this...

Scitex Brisque suffer from the same problem.

Suggest dialing into the switch & forcing the port to run at a static speed, should give you the stability you need & if the macs that cannot see the printer are 100mbs only, set it to that.
 
missing printers in chooser

MisterMe said:
Have you considered stepping through the connectivity options of each printer's walk-up menu?
Click to expand...

Doing what? where would that be?

I'll check the speed on the switch again, I think I might have tried the speed setting....
 
The ports the computers are on are set to 10 for speed and half for the duplex... the ones the printers are on are auto for both... the switch was on auto for all of them, I moved the speed back to see if that helped a few weeks back... thinking the macs were getting out and about on the network before they had a chance to see the printers?


andy.barron said:
Hi Jonny.

Sounds like the swith you are using is auto sensing the speed of the network (100mps/1000mps) & your printers are not liking this...

Scitex Brisque suffer from the same problem.

Suggest dialing into the switch & forcing the port to run at a static speed, should give you the stability you need & if the macs that cannot see the printer are 100mbs only, set it to that.
Click to expand...
 
This is something from my distant OS9 memory: what is seeding the Appletalk zones of the network? Do you have an AppleshareIP or OSX Server defining the appletalk zone? And do you have file servers that drop off the network as well? Does peer-to-peer sharing work?
I'm trying to think of what does work, to see if it is an physical network/infrastructure issue.
 
I haven't specifially set up apple talk zones... it's just active....

all servers are windows 2k advanced but all three servers show up in the chooser without fail, as well as some macs that have shares turned on here and there around the building...

I have been able to turn sharing on with one of the macs in question and go to another one in the same room and pull files over...



binky2033 said:
This is something from my distant OS9 memory: what is seeding the Appletalk zones of the network? Do you have an AppleshareIP or OSX Server defining the appletalk zone? And do you have file servers that drop off the network as well? Does peer-to-peer sharing work?
I'm trying to think of what does work, to see if it is an physical network/infrastructure issue.
Click to expand...
 
I can remember having issues somewhat similar to this, but don't have ready access to an OS9 enviro to jog my memory. Sorry :-(

I may be thinking too far back, about limitations of ad-hoc networking, and when it was advisable to have an appletalk-savvy router seed at least one appletalk zone in larger labs. But if there are no connectivity issues when file sharing, then that discounts this scenario (and many hardwiring/bad switch concerns).
 
similar but different

now solved - simple double check...took all ethernet cables out and reseated them in hub etc and hey presto..
it's not always the complicated probs that sometimes take the longest...



can I continue this thread with a similar but different problem?
(it might help someone in future)

I have a small network with a g4 silver/g4 graphite/g4 powerbook and an 8200 on 100ethernet to a couple of xerox 7750's

- my prefered work routine is the 8200 for floppies (Yes I still get them! lol)
the silver runs 9.2 with lots of work in quark which is very important...the graphite is OS X for newer word /photoshop,acrobat and scanning..the powerbook is just portable...

all worked fine and printed fine - on the silver the one hard drive has OS X the other has 9.2

the power supply has probably failed on the silver and I wanted to do some jobs over the holiday period while I decided/got the PS repaired

so i moved the harddrives over from the silver to the graphite and everything works..except that I cant see any printers in chooser to set up ppd using laserwriter8/psprinter/etc - if I reselect one of the drivers it tells me to change the setting in application so that's working

setting up jobs in quark and acrobat and sending down results in errors either printer not found or waiting for printer and fail or error 2 in quark

printer utility doesn't work and I have trashed printing prefs etc.

I took the ethernets out of network and just did a direct cable link between computer and one printer. edit ?? "this should have worked as when I put them all back there it was"

I have one option left to try today...make pdf's of work and send down via the powerbook...(not ideal) hope it works!! edit..."yes it did"

I suspect that there is something that I can't remember that I should have done..but I just can't think - it's such a long time since I had probs - edit..." mmm...however boring and unlikely, double check all the simple things like connections" -"trouble is that that is way too easy and we don't always do it!"

help???? thanks
 
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