After installing the software for a Samsung CLP-610 color laser printer, we started having issues with the machine (a PowerMac) crashing at random times. It turns out the hard drive was being filled to capacity with files named 49?????????? in /private/var/tmp. Through a process of elimination, I finally determined the culprit was a Samsung application called SPanel. Renaming this application (located at /Library » Printers » SPanel » Samsung » SPanel.app) resolved the problem.

Hope this helps someone save the very frustrating amount of time I spent tracking this down.

Mac OS X 10.5 requires you to enter an administrator's password to pause/resume a print queue, where no previous version of OS X has done so. This is extremely annoying in a lab setting -- if there's a paper jam or something, the queues on all the computers need to be restarted by an administrator, instead of the user just clicking Resume. I haven't seen a solution to this elsewhere, so here's what I came up with:

1. As root, or in a Terminal session with su privileges, edit /etc/cups/cupsd.conf.
2. Find this section:

   <Limit Pause-Printer Resume-Printer Enable-Printer Disable-Printer Pause-Printer-After-Current-Job Hold-New-Jobs Release-Held-New-Jobs Deactivate-Printer Activate-Printer Res
   tart-Printer Shutdown-Printer Startup-Printer Promote-Job Schedule-Job-After CUPS-Accept-Jobs CUPS-Reject-Jobs>
       AuthType Default
       Require user @AUTHKEY(system.print.admin) @admin @lpadmin
       Order deny,allow
   </Limit>
   
   

3. Remove the items you don't want limited: Pause-Printer, Resume-Printer, Pause-Printer-After-Current-Job, etc.
4. Save the file, quit the editor, and restart your computer.

After restarting, you should be able to pause/resume the print queue as any user. Hope this helps, it was annoying the heck out of me.

I have tried adding an HP LaserJet 6L printer via Printer Setup Utility many times, and I always got the USB device to show under the default browser, but I could not add the printer. So I went to More Printers (holding down the Option key), clicked Advanced, and tried selecting USB Printer. This brought up usb://, but I could not find address using System Profiler or USB Prober.

Anyway, my grandson comes in, and asks "what's that Unknown button right at the bottom of the Advanced panel?" So I click it, and it comes up with a URL: usb://Unknown/Unknown?serial=0. I tried this, using the Gutenprint HP 6L driver -- and it works perfectly, even waking the printer if necessary.

This works with OS X 10.4.11; hope it helps others -- I googled for help on this, but didn't find anything on the subject.

Some of us, including me, still use old but cheap and reliable LaserWriters (I have the LaserWriter 4/600). Others use serial or USB printers. Not all work hassle free under OS X. But there's a simple solution. You need:

1. An old Mac with a working (serial) printer (StyleWriters, LaserWriter, USB-printer -- no QuickDraw printers).
2. A network connection (wired or wireless) from your new Mac to your old Mac, which will soon become a print server.
3. The free software Print66, which is a print server / spooler.

Here's a bit more detail on the problem and solution...from time to time (i.e. from system version to system version), there may be problems (or not) printing via AppleTalk. Leopard 10.5.2 and/or AirPort, for example, do not find any LocalTalk printers at the moment (perhaps Apple will address this issue, but nobody knows). Furthermore, you must now use OS 9 on the elder machine, which allows "File Sharing via TCP/IP." But there's a simple and free solution (which was time consuming and difficulat to find): Print66, a free print server for the classic Mac OS. As far as I see, it addresses all printing issues and will work forever reliably (as long as your new Mac's got a suitable printer description file and your old Mac does, too).

Here's how I managed to get my HP 5510xi all-in-one printer working wirelessly when connected to a Time Capsule. First, you need download the open-source Linux drivers for HP printers from this page. Make sure you download the hpijs package, but also download the Foomatic-RIP and ESP Ghostscript packages from that same page.

Install the Footmatic and Ghostscript packages, then restart your Mac. You will not be prompted to restart, but it is necessary before you can install the hpijs package. After the restart, install the hpijs package, and restart again. Now go to System Preferences » Print and Fax » Add Printer (click the '+' sign).

In the Add Printer window, select IP at the top of the window, and use the following settings:

• PROTOCOL: HP JetDirect-Socket
• ADDRESS: Obtain and enter the IP of the Time Capsule: 192.168.1.100, or whatever it actually is.
• QUEUE: leave blank
• NAME: HP 5510xi
• LOCATION: Put whatever you'd like here.
• PRINT USING: HP OfficeJet 5500 hpijs (the driver you installed)

Finally, click Add to add the new printer. Essentially, you've tricked the HP printer into thinking the Time Capsule is an HP JetDirect Print Server by setting it up this way. This should work for other similar printers that are supported by the Linux drivers.

[robg adds: I haven't tested this one...]

My partner is a Windows guy. I am a Mac guy. He was on site with a customer trying to get a new MacBook Pro (MBP) to print to a shared HP PhotoSmart 7960 which was connected to a WinXP Pro SP2 PC. Should have been a five minute job.

The printer works just fine when directly connected to the PC or to the MBP using the HP drivers. It simply would not work via the shared printer queue. We tried everything! Reviewed all of the online literature, etc. After an hour of this, we finally decided to try the Gutenprint drivers (the new name of Gimp-Print) that come with Leopard. Worked like a charm!

I have been trying to get my iMac (Intel, 10.5) with both of my printers attached to share them since I installed Leopard. My two PowerBooks and my Linux box lost remote printing capability after the 10.5 upgrade.

My firewall was setup correctly, the printers were shared, and the laptops (now installed with 10.5) had CUPS browsing turned on like every other hint and discussion board posting.

After trying many things and reading many man pages, I found an old copy of cupsd.conf in /etc/cups/.

This is an update to my previous hint regarding printing to PCL printers that don't support PostScript (such as the Ricoh Aficio 2035e).

The good news is that 10.5 has essentially made the previous hint irrelevant. There is no need to install 'hpijs' or any other printer drivers. 10.5 comes with Generic PCL drivers built-in. Simply locate your printer after clicking '+' in the System Preferences Print & Fax pane. From the pop-up menu next to Print Using, choose 'Select a driver to use...' and type in PCL. You'll see a list of generic PCL drivers -- just choose the one appropriate for your printer (PCL 6 works with the Aficio 2035e). That's it; you're printer should now work in 10.5.

Canon's LBP2900 is a small, yet fast and efficient printer. And it is for Windows only, due to usage of so-called CAPT technology. The Japanese drivers for CAPT printing can be obtained from the Canon site and they work fine, but the LBP2900 is not detected by them and can't be used. As this printer is made with almost the same hardware as the LBP3000 (which is supported by the driver), it turned out to be quite an easy task to support it. So here's how -- note that these instructions are for OS X 10.4.8 and later, but not for 10.5.

1. Obtain latest Universal Canon Driver from the Canon Japan site and install it -- this will require a reboot.
2. Download (4KB) additional printer definitions from my site.
3. Ungzip this file (it should be done automatically by Safari) and place it into the /Library » Printers » Canon » CAPT » Profile » Device directory.
4. Connect and power-on your printer
5. Launch Printer Setup Utility in the Applications » Utilities folder. Click on Add, and the LBP2900 should be visible. Click on it and see whether OS X picks up CAPT Printer as its driver. If it does, you're done.

If you don't see CAPT Printer for the driver (and this may happen due to caches), you will need to do a complete reset of your printing system. WARNING! This will essentially uninstall all your printers! From the Printer Setup Utility menu, select Reset Printing System, confirm everything (enter credentials if needed), then again press the Add button. Check whether OS X picked up CAPT Printer as the driver. If it is still a no-go, click on the More Printers button. This time you should see a warning about the new driver's addition, and the necessity to restart the printer browsers. Press OK and close the utility completely. Repeat the previous step -- this time you should definitely get CAPT Printer as the selected driver.

From my observations, everything works correctly including finishing effects, toner economy mode, etc. Hope you will enjoy this small piece of hardware as much as I do, now in OS X.

As you may know, you can auto-quit the printer driver when printing is over, so that the icon won't remain in your Dock.

However, in my case, this never worked. At least until now, when (for independent reasons) I changed the Default Printer pop-up in the Print & Fax panel of System Preferences to Last Printer Used. Bingo! My printer icon now quits the Dock when printing is finished!