Wireless printing via AE - "Device in use, waiting", but device is not in use!

I've got a Brother DCP 7010 printer plugged into my Airport Express. My PB (10.5.2) and two other computers (PB, Tiger and iMac, 10.5.2) were all printing wirelessly without problems until recently.

Suddenly, the printer would not do anything if the file was more than a couple pages. I "solved" that by only printing 2-3 pages at a time, figuring it was memory somewhere in the system (my PB has 2 GB, so the problem can't be there).

Then, it started only to print out half pages.

Now, it won't print at all. I've got the latest CUP driver, the printer shows up fine in Systemprefs, and I can add it to all three computers via Bonjour. But anytime we try to print something, the message "device in use, waiting..." comes up. But the device is NOT in use, and there are no documents in the queue on any of the computers. I can see that the computers and the printer see each other, and that the process sort of starts, but something is blocking it somewhere along the way.

I've tried uninstalling, reinstalling, turning AE off and on again - no luck.

Any ideas? I'm about to go back in disgust to having to carry the computers over to the printer and plug them directly in every time we need to print. Sheesh.

techound1 said:

I have a brother laser that gives me similar fits. A reboot of the printer and AE clears it up for no earthly reason.

If that's not working, try troubleshooting by working backwards. Turn everything off (all the pieces of the network, all the computers attached to it, etc) and bring one piece back on line at a time, starting with the printer/AE/one computer. This should help track down what seems to be taking up your spool or the ram that runs the spool.

Click to expand...

I'll try this. I've turned the printer and AE off and on, but haven't shut the whole system - with computers - down first.