Print Center problems

[Powerbook G5]

For the past few days my girlfriend has been trying to set up a printer for her iMac but with no success. Everytime she goes to add it to Print Center, it unexpectedly quits.

She has a 15" Flat Panel iMac with OS X 10.1.5 installed with an HP printer. I personally cannot look at it because guys and girls cannot go into each other's dorms so I can only tell you what she's told me. We've gone to CompUSA and all they said was that she has to buy 10.2 because 10.1 always had problems with Print Center and will never work until she gets 10.2. At Staples they told her to update (she had 10.1.4 originally) and go online to get the latest drivers for her printer. She did both and neither made any difference. I told her maybe she had to reinstall OS X but she doesn't know much about computers so she is too scared to try that. Is there anything else that we could try? I refuse to believe that 10.1 was so bad that not a single person could install a printer like CompUSA told us.

 

[doctorhook]

If You ReInstall

All I can say is that it is always best to have the latest upgrades to the OS as well as the print driver. IF she does do an archive and install BE SURE to select to have the current computer and internet settings saved or you will loose all your prefs and mailboxes and addresses etc. You can get them back from the Previous Systems folder but it is a BIG hassle.

 

[bousozoku]

I'm not sure of the age of the printer, but are you or she certain that it even works with 10.1.x? Many printers either work under 10.0.x and 10.1.x or 10.2.x but not all three because of massive changes Apple made to 10.2.

As far as installing 10.2, that would be a good idea anyway. I had no problem with the Archive and Install method--everything remained but it's always a good idea to back up the Home directory.

 

[Powerbook G5]

Thanks for the replies. The Printer is brand new, she got it last month and it says in the install book it runs under 10.1.x-10.2. I know it'd be better to run 10.2, but with Panther coming out within a month or so, it seems an awful waste of money to spend on Jaguar if we'd trash it a month later for Panther. If it really is as bad as they say and 10.1 just sucked with printing, then we'll just deal with printing at the library until Panther comes out. She had a similar problem where it wouldn't let her install because the Epson she had before was OS 9 only and either she emailed me her papers to print for her or she went to the library to print them herself. According to people on Apple's support forums, 10.1 just sucked in general when it came to printing so I guess this is not just an issue with her, but with 10.1 in general.

 

[bousozoku]

Well 10.1.x wasn't bad but it had a lot of gaping holes. I consider that it was still a developer's release but I still used it as much as possible, re-booting into Mac OS 9.x to run certain applications and access various hardware.

I understand about waiting for panther. I expect that several things will be better (again).

By the way, in your signature you show "rm *" shouldn't that be "rm -r *" to recursively delete every below the root directory?

 

[Powerbook G5]

Originally posted by bousozoku
By the way, in your signature you show "rm *" shouldn't that be "rm -r *" to recursively delete every below the root directory?

Perhaps! I'm still an Unix virgin since I've just begun teaching myself over the summer by reading a few books on it and spending time in the Unix section of Barnes and Noble. I'm still on OS 9 until I get a new PowerBook running Panther later this year, so we'll see how much I can do with the command line once I am in terminal.

As far as OS 10.1, it does seem to have a few holes. Most programs my girlfriend has tried to run either refuse to install or say "10.2 is required to run this version". I came close to buying 10.2 for her, but I'd rather save the $100, wait until Panther, and use that extra $100 I save for something more useful.

 

[Farside161]

i had this problem as well, i check apple support and it said it was a problem with the cannon print drivers, just remove them and you will be fine.

 

[Powerbook G5]

Originally posted by Farside161
i had this problem as well, i check apple support and it said it was a problem with the cannon print drivers, just emove them and you will be fine.

Really? So they were conflicting with the printer you were installing? I might have to suggest that to my girlfriend, she just cannot get Print Center to stop crashing whenever she clicks on Add no matter what she tries. Thanks for the suggestion!

 

[Farside161]

no it dosent matter what kind of printer your using, it just when ever print center tries to bring up all the drivers installed it crashes when it gets to the canon ones, i dont know if this was fixed in 10.2

 

[bousozoku]

There's a freeware application called Print Center Repair, I believe. I used it when it was first released for 10.1.x but it didn't help me. I think it's up to version 3.0.x now. Maybe that would help.

 

[Powerbook G5]

I'll try that, thanks for the suggestion.