Jaguar Printer Driver Incompatibility

[amk285nyu]

My friend upgraded me to Jaguar 10.2.4 over Spring Break, and told me to install the new driver for my printer when I got back to school (now I'm on 10.2.5, if that makes any difference).

I'm have an Epson Stylus Photo 820, and I downloaded the newest driver available from their website, but the disclaimer on the website says, "This file is for use with Macintosh OS X (v10.1.3 to 10.1.5) only."

So you guys can check to see if I'm doing anything wrong, I'm at this page:
Epson  Stylus Photo 820 Printer Driver Download Page

My friend said it should work anyway, but it isn't. Before, when I went to add my printer in Print Center, I get an error message. So I dumped it and reinstalled it. Now, all it says when I go to add it is "Printer Driver Not Installed."

Is there anything I can do? If I can't, would someone kindly commiserate with me that this is horrible business management.

[kps]

I don't have your printer, so it there's a driver issue I can't confirm that for you...but your printer is not a new model and I doubt the OS update killed it.

The printer drivers are stored in /Library/Printers/Epson. In that list I found SP820Series.plugin at version 1.29, which is your driver in question.

If you have it installed in that directory, then there might be other issues. You could try CUPS and see if you can add and configure the printer. CUPS (Common unix Printing System) is built into OS X and is accessed via any web browser.

If you want to give it a try, type this into the browser address field:

http://127.0.0.1:631

Then choose either Admin Tasks-->Printers or go directly to Printers. You may also read the documentation. Once there, your printer may show up, if not, try to add it through this interface.

[kps]

Forgot to mention this:

Your prefs may be corrupted, before you try adding the printer through CUPS trash the PrintCenter preference file.

Location:

/Users/your_user_name/Library/Preferences/com.apple.print.PrintCenter.plist

Try again with PrintCenter...

[Bruce_F]

kps,

That's a very    link!

While I was on the CUPS site, I decided to give it a try. My laser writer is connected through my network. I had to turn on my older computer and the printer. When all that was done, I picked the laser writer and printed out a test page.

I can't say the same for my Stylus Photo 1280.    

I have no problem printing to the 1280 directly, but the test page printout from the CUPS site doesn't work, darn it!    

I wan't to see how it looked!

[kps]

Bruce

In case there's a misunderstanding, it is not an external site on the internet. It's an internal address which connects you to the CUPS interface. It's like configuring a network router through your browser, except in this case you're configuring the printing system. The address 127.0.0 is what's called a local loopback address all unix systems have this. The 631 is the assigned CUPS port.

FWIW, I tried printing a test page through my Epson 5200 and also got "nada"...and the job didn't show either. One cool feature is the completed jobs listing with the option to restart the old jobs. I don't know for how long it keeps the olds jobs in the log. If I have a little bit of time, I'll look into that.

[Bruce_F]

Oh, I understand it's monitoring an internal address, even though it has links to outside.

I checked the log and it appears to go back to the first of this year. I liked seeing that too!    

My experience was the same when I sent the test page to my 1280. It looked like it went, but nothing happened. I wonder if it would be different if the printer was connected to my other computer? Maybe I'll try it some time.

[amk285nyu]

kps,

I tried trashing that file from my user library preferences, but when I went to printcenter, instead of the Epson coming up with "No Driver Installed" next to it, nothing came up at all.

So I went to your internal CUPS site, and clicked on "Printer", then on the only option for me there, "Add New Printer." Three fields popped up on the next page: 1) Name, 2) Location, 3) Description

What do I enter in these fields?

[kps]

Are the drivers installed?

Connect the printer directly to the USB port of the Mac if you're using a USB hub.

In PrintCenter, when you click ADD you get a window with a pulldown menu...make sure you have the proper type selected USB, IP, AppleTalk...etc.

If the printer still does not show up, it could be that you need to reinstall the Epson drivers (although they should already be installed.

Before you do anything, try reinstalling the original Epson drivers from the Jaguar Install Disc 2. Then try again and see if PrintCenter will recognise the printer.

Also consider checking around the internet for similar  problems. This could be know issue.

RE: CUPS

I was hoping the printer would show up automatically, configuring the printer in CUPS from scratch is not exactly intuitive when you have never done it, but it may be done.

There is a series of things you need to do, the last being to choose a CUPS driver.

Keep in mind that there could be a different problem and this may not work either, but it's worth a try. Also keep in mind you may lose some functionality using the CUPS driver over the Epson driver. The following will describe the method to add your printer, if it still doesn't work, just delete the printer from CUPS.

Name: Type a name using underscores as separators, any mame is ok. ie Epson_Stylus_820

Location: type in your computer name in all-caps as it appears in the file sharing preference panel, although I think for a local printer it may be left blank.

Description: You may leave this field blank

click continue

Choose the protocol from the pulldown menu, LPR, USB, etc... It's a USB printer, correct? Choose USB then.

click continue

Device URI: enter this:  /dev/null

click continue

From the next panel choose EPSON

click continue

Now choose the driver, this is the hard part as I don't know which CUPS driver will work with that printer. A good quess would be one of the Epson Stylus series drivers.

click continue

A message will appear telling you the printer has been added. If you can't get it to work, go to Printers and click 'Modify Printer', re-enter the information but choose a different driver at the end.

[amk285nyu]

I DID install the drivers, but that was my problem: in print center, it shows the Epson Photo Stylus 820 (so it knows it's there), but it says next to it, "Driver Not Installed." So I can't add the printer. Even when it did recognize the driver was installed, and it won't do taht anymore, I would get a strange error when I tried to add it.

I entered Epson_Stylus_820 at CUPS, but it said, "The request is too large for this server to process."

I also don't have the Jaguar CD's on me. My friend has them in California.

It is a local printer, I believe (it's right there), and it is through USB, but the print center WILL NOT register that the driver is installed. I've reinstalled it several times, but nothing changes.  

What do I do?

[Al]

Not really helpful here, but wanted to chime in and say that I have the same printer and hook it directly to the USB port in the back of my B&W (not a hub).

I have no problems with the Epson driver and the operation of my printer.

I am not at home now, but when I get home, I know I have the downloaded driver image in storage somewhere, let me check it and see if it is also the latest one that you probably already have.

Will get back to this later tonight my time.
 
 [ 04-29-2003, 10:25 PM: Message edited by: Al ]

[kps]

Let's see, 'puter sees the printer, drivers are installed, you trashed the PrintCenter prefs, tried Cups, you say they are the right drivers...

I dunno, I'm out of ideas... maybe Al can come up with something.

[amk285nyu]

quote:Originally posted by kps:
Let's see, 'puter sees the printer, drivers are installed, you trashed the PrintCenter prefs, tried Cups, you say they are the right drivers...

I dunno, I'm out of ideas... maybe Al can come up with something.

Just so we're not confused: I installed the driver, and the computer recognizes the printer, but says "Driver Not Installed". I know, it's whack.

This is driving me nuts.

[Al]

Not sure how much help I will be, kps, but I will try my best.      

Hi Andrew,

In your Library folder look for the Printers folder, in there find the Epson folder and see if the SP820Series.plugin is in there and also check to see if there is a utility folder there to.

If the utility folder is there, try and start the utility program and see if it will recognize that the printer is there.  Then if recognized, try and see if it will do a nozzle check.  what I'm trying to do is see if you can communicate with your printer at all.  

Also, go to Printer Center and under Printers, go to Printer List and see if your printer is seen.  If not try and add your printer.

lastly or maybe firstly, how ever you feel you want to try this, get another USB cable and see if maybe you have a bum cable.  It happens.

If none of the above helps, I have an older driver you might want to try.  It is version 10071 (latest is 10252).  I think 10071 is still the one that I am using.  Let me know and I can get it to you.

****Edited to say "Oops, some of the stuff I wrote is repetitive from what kps and Bruce wrote"****

Here's a link to get the older driver.

http://www.hawaiianflavor.com/epson/epson10071.sea
 
 [ 04-30-2003, 06:23 AM: Message edited by: Al ]

[william]

Hi Andrew,

Have you tried Gimp Print ?
This is a very usefull program for my epson stylus color 580.
There is also a driver available for the epson 820 you have.
I'm using 10.2.5 now and found out that epson isn't updating a lot of drivers for there printers. So my printer wouldn't work either under 10.2. With Gimp print no problems anymore. I'm not sure where to find it, perhaps you can try "Gimp print" with google?
Hopefully it will work for you also.
bye, william.

[william]

hey Andrew,
here the link to Gimp print.
http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/MacOSX.php3.

good luck !