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General discussion

Help! Tiger doesn't recognize my printer!

Sep 5, 2007 8:44AM PDT

I have searched many of the older threads about printers not being recognized but haven't found one (I admit that I didn't read all twenty-odd pages) that is just like my problem.

My LaserJet 4ML was working fine with my laptop, which still has OS 9 on it. I brought it to my G4 (Sawtooth), attached power cord, Ethernet (with AsanteTalk connector). I had downloaded updated drivers from Hewlett-Packard previously, but I haven't gone back recently, because Tiger distinctly notes that it includes the driver for my printer.

AsanteTalk is on (and various of its lights are lit), and the printer goes on. too. I've checked all the connections. AppleTalk is on. Still no printer appears anywhere, and though I've gone through the directions Apple gives and done what David Pogue (Missing Manuals guy and New York Times Circuits columnist) says in his Tiger manual, not only can't I find my printer anywhere, nor get it to show up, but many other kinds of options in the various menus?including "Apply Now" for AppleTalk?are greyed out.

I'm leaving on a trip in two days, and the airline says that I may have to have a printout of my itinerary in order to get myself recognized as legit and a ticket printed. Unlikely, since Continental undoubtedly has it on their computers (and I have photo IDs galore), but I'd rather not have to deal with that if I don't have to. If there is any problem, it is bound to irritate greatly the airline reps and the passengers behind me in the line?not to speak of your humble correspondent.

I am open to suggestions of all kinds. I'd rather not have to take the time to find an Internet cafe where I can print out my itinerary. I'm short enough on time as it is, and there's nobody around at the moment who has a Mac-compatible printer. Bad, bad timing, but whaddya gonna do?

Thanks in advance for any help.

As always,

jenny

Discussion is locked

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Printer
Sep 5, 2007 10:14AM PDT

While you may have downloaded updated drivers for your printer recently, I doubt you have been able to do the same for the AsanteTalk connector.
I have one of those sitting in the drawer, having been unable to find a driver for it even in System 9.

It did, very occasionally, work but generally did not.

Yours, I fear, did not like being disconnected from the laptop where it was happy to talk with the mother ship via the drivers that you installed on there, years ago.

The Apply Now button will be grey, it will only go black again when you make a change. Currently AppleTalk is ON. Remove the check mark and the Apply Now button will be usable. However, that's not what you want to do.

I know none of the above helped, but unless you can find the OS X drivers for that Asante device, I think the only recourse is a different printer. Sorry. Sad

I'm sure Continental will give you the ticket, enjoy the trip.

P

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Point taken
Sep 6, 2007 12:57AM PDT

Thanks from your humble disciple. Clearly, it will keep until I get back.

Of course, Continental will have to give me my ticket! Just late-in-the-day jitters, compounded by all that I still have to do.

Thanks again,

jenny

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PPDs and where to put them (Tiger)
Oct 23, 2007 7:57AM PDT

OK, it's been a while, but I came back from Scotland (and soon after, briefly, Vermont with my mother, one sister and her husband) ready to find out what I could do to make my old printer and its AssanteTalk work with Tiger (10.4.10). Here's what I found out and what I did.

Tiger definitely is supposed to have a driver for LaserJet 4ML on the install disk, but it didn't install when I installed Tiger, the first time. In fact, the PPD no longer shows up in the HP folder that holds other PPDs, even though it was there before I installed Tiger. I don't even know whether any of the printer software that is supposed to install with Tiger actually was installed. Certainly, it wasn't installed in the right place(s) or completely.

Apple says they got the driver for 4ML from Hewlett-Packard, so I downloaded the latest drivers from HP first, including (according to HP) 4ML. I then tried installing that software in OSX, but the only option I was given for the place to install the software was, again, my old Macintosh HD (with OS 9.2.2), not anyplace such as Applications or any other OS X category. Well, I did it, anyway, but 4ML still doesn't appear in the HP folder that holds the PPDs. I also downloaded what Apple had at its Web site. No better result.

It was also suggested, somewhere, to do a custom install of the printer software from the Tiger Install disk, but when I tried to do that, I got a window saying that I couldn't do it, because I had a later version of Tiger on my computer than was on the install disk. (And the only place I was offered to place any downloaded files was the same old hard disk.) I had hoped that by using an OS X disk, the download would be installed in the right places ? even though that didn't happen when I first installed Tiger. I was asked whether I wanted to Archive and Install. If I did, I still wouldn't know where to put the installed printer stuff.

Now, with several installers hanging around on my desktop, I am wondering how, if at all, I can (1) get all the proper printer components of Tiger and (2) get them installed in the right place(s). I was hoping that if I could, I would then be able to use my printer. I am convinced that not having the printer stuff in the right places and missing my own printer's PPD in the list that gets installed just might explain my not being able to choose or add any printer, that possibly. AssanteTalk is not the problem. (David Pogue, the "Missing Manuals" guy seems to think that AppleTalk should be on for my kind of printer, a laser, but he doesn't mention AssanteTalk, per se.) AsanteTalk has been mentioned in several places I've found as being OK for connecting the printer to my Mac with an Ethernet cable. No distinction was made, though, for any particular version of the Mac OS.

I would think that if Apple included the LaserJet 4ML driver on their Tiger install disk, they'd know that you can't connect that printer, or any of the older LaserJets directly to the Ethernet port with an Ethernet cable. Since AssanteTalk was a standard way to connect Ethernet cables to such printers in the past, I would find it odd if Apple didn't note somewhere that there was a change with Tiger. It has always worked well for me with OS 9.

If I can't get around this, I may just have to ditch the old HP and find another printer (if that will solve the problems). I hate to do it, but I can't keep on trying to find solutions if there are none. What bothers me most, I must confess, is the strange stuff about where I can and cannot install software and where the 4ML driver went, when all indications from HP and Apple are that it is meant to be included with Tiger. I also wonder whether there's something crucial missing from my printer software besides that driver. Maybe I could attach the printer to my old PowerBook (G3) and use it only with that computer, but then I'd be back at square one, pre-Tiger. Unfortunately, I can't reinstall the software that came with the printer and upgrade that on my big computer. It was on floppies (and not HD floppies). I managed, at one point long ago, to make a copy of the set on HD floppies, but one of those no longer works and can't be revived.

Well, any help is welcome. To repeat, I have OS 10.4.10 on the computer, which is a G4 Sawtooth tower. The printer is a Hewlett-Packard 4ML.

Sorry, I babble. This just feels like a puzzle that should be readily solved, yet there are roadblocks all along the way.

Best,

jenny

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Printer
Oct 23, 2007 8:38AM PDT

I just downloaded the HP LaserJet Mac OS X Universal Binary Generic Print Driver from the HP site and it installed just fine. It downloads as a .dmg file. Is that what yours did?

However, it did NOT give me a choice of which drive I wanted to put it on.

So, a question for you: Do you have two drives in your G4?

You mentioned, a couple of times, OS 9.2.2. What is that about?

If you only have one drive in your machine, it will only put it there. It does not give you a choice of where it should put this stuff, it has to go somewhere specific.

After the install, you will find an HP Installation log on the root of the HD. Just open the drive and you will see it. It tells you exactly where the stuff went and the readme that comes up on completion of the install tells you how to connect to it.

This Driver

The installation should take place on the drive that has OS X installed on it.

Asante Talk is just a name given to the networking products that were produced by the Asante company. It is not real, like AppleTalk. Is this the device that converts the Apple serial connector into Ethernet?
Remember that you have to have AppleTalk turned on in OS X.

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Briefly. . . .
Oct 23, 2007 10:09AM PDT

I have only one drive on my Mac. It has both Tiger and OS 9 (that is, I assume, Classic?though not all OS 9 programs that I have will work with Classic). I probably meant "Classic" when I wrote "9.2.2," but I meant that some of the files, including some programs, were created with 9.2.2.

Forgive me. but I'm confused. I thought that in OS X everything was supposed to go into places like "Applications" and "Documents" and so on that appear in the Finder window. Is that not so? Am I conflating two different things?

I did find my PPD, at last, by searching in "Computer." It's several layers down in the Library folder on the hard drive. It must have gotten there when I installed the same download as the one for which you gave me the link. I had that version of the drivers already and had installed it, but thank you very much. And yes, it was a .dmg (disk image) file.

I followed the instructions in the read me but have had no luck so far. (You probably are going to ask, so yes, the printer was on at the time, and AppleTalk was, too.)

Yes, AssanteTalk, is he little beige box with flashing lights that connects to both the printer and (by Ethernet cable) the Mac. I've used it for years, and it was altogether successful for me until I left OS 9.

Maybe I should just try again. I'll do that tomorrow, so don't trouble yourself answering this unless you have some blinding insight or instruction for me. I really don't want to come back and say, "Million thanks, P, but I have it in hand now." I'll report on my progress, or lack thereof, as soon as I am able.

Thanks so much for all your efforts on my behalf. Most kind, as always.

jenny

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My thought.
Sep 5, 2007 11:32AM PDT
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Much obliged
Sep 6, 2007 1:04AM PDT

Thanks for the two articles, Bob. Not at all sure that I can do the parallel thing, and the second bit seems to indicate (a few messages into the thread) that AppleTalk still should work with Asante AppleTalk, but when I get back, I'll look into all this. Those people were writing about earlier versions of OS X, of course, so maybe (like much of the rest of what I have?software CDs, for example), Tiger just doesn't *do* the kind of connection I have.

As I said to Peter, my panic was out of proportion to the problem. I do not appreciate his and your solicitude (and research) any the less for that, though.

As always, in admiration and respect,

jenny

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Oh, frabjous day (printer)!
Nov 13, 2007 1:56AM PST

Well, clever old me! After getting in touch with Asante (makers of the connector, AsanteTalk, for my Ethernet/AppleTalk printer connection) and trying everything under the sun to figure out how to get my LaserJet 4ML to appear in the printer list (there were no printers at all on the list, of course), I decided to do something really odd and try to add the printer through the Chooser in OS 9 (Classic). The Asante trouble shooting tips all talked about extensions and the Chooser, even though I was looking for the tips about OS X. It was a leap of faith, but I went into Classic, did the Chooser thing, got a window asking me to choose a printer, added the LJ 4ML and printed something. It printed in Word 2004 without a hitch.

Then, presto change-o, I went to my email messages and printed a page from there. No problems.

I haven't yet tried anything else (I scarcely dare to breathe, lest it be a dream), but I don't seem to be in Classic anymore, Toto. Next time I boot up, I'll try to print something directly in OS X.

So, if I did the right thing, it would appear that my problem wasn't AsanteTalk, after all. Well, crazier things have happened. . . .

Thanks to the deservedly esteemed mrmacfixit and Bob Profitt for all earlier efforts. With luck I can just proceed without further ado.

And thanks for my fellow forum members for your patience on this and every subject I've wrangled with, to date.

jenny

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Good Luck and
Nov 15, 2007 1:28AM PST

let us know if it worked in OS X


P

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It's alive!
Nov 16, 2007 11:51AM PST

Yes, blessedly, it does work. I still am tempted to hold my breath each time I ask it to print, but so far the dear little thing just chugs along, genteelly ejecting printed copy. I still don't know why I was able to do the end run around the problem by using Classic's Chooser (the result seems a little like Frankenstein's monster to me?whence the reference in my message title) or somwehat schizophrenic. Nevertheless, I wouldn't dream of doing anything but sigh my relief.

Thanks for the good wishes. Always appreciated!

jenny