When I print large pictures with Canon iP1500 using Airport Express, the printing stops in the middle of the job about 90% of time. The progress bar halts and the printer blinks green light which is supposed to mean that it's waiting for data. The printer seems to work fine when it's connected directly to the computer. Does this happen to others or is there something I can do to make it work better? I have Mac OS X 10.4.2 and the latest Airport and Canon printer drivers.
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Airport Express printing unreliable
- Thread starter Helmut Kool
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This might be the Airport Express dropping out. I have had two Airport Expresses. The first one did drop outs where it would vanish from the network. It got increasingly bad until finally the unit died. The second one, a replacement under warrantee, is doing the same thing it appears but not yet dead. 
My Airport Express works very well otherwise. iTunes music streaming plays without skipping and using Internet seems completely stable.
I found this Macworld article:
http://www.macworld.com/2005/05/secrets/julymobilemac/index1.php
"AirPort is unique among print servers in that it doesnt care whether the attached printer is host-based or network-ready. Apples Remote I/O USB Printing protocol simply extends the USB data stream over the network. But network traffic tends to flow in bursts, not the steady and predictable stream of a USB connection. Therefore, if the printers hardware isnt capable of queuing and buffering incoming data, it may be unreliable when used in a network setting."
So maybe this problem is caused just by the lack of buffer in the printer and Airport Express. Which is pretty bad design for a product that is supposed to work with any printer.
I found this Macworld article:
http://www.macworld.com/2005/05/secrets/julymobilemac/index1.php
"AirPort is unique among print servers in that it doesnt care whether the attached printer is host-based or network-ready. Apples Remote I/O USB Printing protocol simply extends the USB data stream over the network. But network traffic tends to flow in bursts, not the steady and predictable stream of a USB connection. Therefore, if the printers hardware isnt capable of queuing and buffering incoming data, it may be unreliable when used in a network setting."
So maybe this problem is caused just by the lack of buffer in the printer and Airport Express. Which is pretty bad design for a product that is supposed to work with any printer.
Yeah, I have this problem with the regular Airport Extreme unit. Its usually only with large graphics files. This is a major flaw that needs fixing if possible on Apple's part.