Problem printing from Mac OS X Lion to Officejet 5610 shared on Vista PC

[rsnorton61]

Hi,

Please help. I have an OfficeJet 5610 connected by USB to a desktop PC running Windows Vista. The printer works fine on the PC. It is shared on the desktop PC and works fine when printing from a laptop PC with the same workgroup name also running Vista. The printer also worked fine when I connected it directly with the USB cable to a 2011 iMac running OSX Lion. But, when I have the Officejet shared on the desktop PC and try to print from the iMac, the print job shows up in the print queue on the PC, the printer power light starts flashing, and the printer lcd screen says "Printing...", but the job never finishes. The network browser in the "Add Printer" dialog box saw the Windows workgroup OK, and the printer, too. At some point I was prompted for credentials for the Vista PC, and that seemed to go perfectly smoothly, too.

Does anyone know what I am doing wrong, or know how I can find out what the problem is?

Thanks,

Ron

[stix4]

Hello,

Thanks for the post.  This is an interesting one, I've attached a link below that may assist with this issue.  Good Luck!

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c02205477&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&product=441125&tmp_...

[ShlomiL]

Hi Ron,

Please try installing the HP Printer Drivers 2.8:

http://support.apple.com/downloads/DL907/en_US/HPPrinterDrivers2.8.dmg

Once the installation completed and the driver installed on your system, try adding the printer and check for any change:

1. Enter System Preferences > Print & Scan.
2. Click the Plus sign to add the printer.
3. Click the Windows tab and select the listed printer.

Now try printing and check for any change.

Hope it helps,

Shlomi

[rsnorton61]

Hi Shlomi,

Thanks for your reply. I did re-install the HP version 2.8 drivers (they were the same version that Software Update had originally installed when I had the printer connected directly to the Mac), and added the printer from the Windows tab of the Add Printer dialog again as you suggested. Unfortunately, I get exactly the same result as before. The print queue on the Mac says "Waiting for job to complete...", and the print queue on the Vista PC says the job is printing too (it lists the size of the job as 11.3 KB/9.02 MB at the point it seems to get stuck). The printer power light was flashing and the LCD said "Printing...". But the printer never actually started printing.

Please see additional information in a subsequent post.

Ron

[rsnorton61]

Hi stix4,

Thanks for your reply. The article you linked to did provide another clue, perhaps. Step 5 of the section on checking the "Wired (Ethernet) or wireless network" connection to the printer (for "Mac OS X 10.6 and OS X 10.7") says:

Click the Utility tab, and then click the Open Printer Utility button. The Printer Utility opens.

• If the product does not display in the device list, and no options for the product display, there is no network connectivity . Discontinue the troubleshooting steps in this document, and search for a document related to network connectivity rather than "print jobs are stuck in the print queue."

• If the product displays in the device list, and options for the product display, the product is connected to the network . Continue to the next solution.

When I open the printer utility, the Officejet does display in the device list, but instead of showing options for it, the right hand pane displays the message "Selected device is not currently available. Please select another device."

When I do try to print to the Officejet device, the print job does get to the right print queue on the Vista PC, but the job size gets stuck at 11.3 KB/9.02 MB. The printer power light flashes and the LCD displays "Printing...", but the printer never actually starts printing. I eventually have to delete the job from the queue and cycle the power on the printer.

It seems that there is at least some degree of network connectivity between the Mac and Vista, but something is not quite right yet.

Does anyone know how to tell where the process is getting stuck?

Thanks,

Ron

[ShlomiL]

Hi Ron,

Please clarify your exact Mac OS X version,

As i aware that 10.7.3 fixes some issues with both File Sharing and SMB communication

■ Address compatibility issues with Microsoft Windows file sharing 
■ Fix a potential issue authenticating to an SMB DFS share

Therefore i believe it may be related as Windows sharing uses SMB if your are using any previous OS X version.

If you did not install the 10.7.3 update, you may download it below:

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1484

Additional settings i would recommend you verify from Windows:

Verify the shared name contain less than 12 charachters and the correct login data been provided:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1404

From Vista, I would suggest you to double check any of the following:

1. Enter the Network and Sharing Center.
2. Verify that Network Discovery is turned On.
3. Try to turn Password Protected Sharing Off.
4. And I assume that Printer Sharing should be already On as you were able to successfully share to other PC.

Additionally, you may try to manually add the printer and check for any change:

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3049

Hope it helps,

Shlomi

[rsnorton61]

Shlomi, I appreciate you trying to help me, but one of my brothers gave me an OfficeJet 7410 he was no longer using, and configuring it to connect wirelessly to my home router, I was able to access it from all the computers, including the Mac.

Just FYI though, I did already have OS X 10.7.3, and even after I changed the printer share name in Vista to be 

less than 12 characters in length, it gave me the same exact results as before.

Anyway, thanks again for your help.

Ron