Networking Printing Question from a Nooby Switcher :P

[EvidenceOfLlama]

Whatsup everyone, i just wanted to say that this is the second day i've been using my imac after many years of windows. I love how centralized and efficient everything is, my imac connects the windows network in my home better than the other xp's in my house do :P.

Anyhow, i havnt had any problems up untill now. There is a desktop in the living room that is hooked up to a router and a printer. After "adding" that printer to my laptop, i never had any issues. My imac can find the printer in "Network Neighboorhood". When i try to actually print, the printer lv icon that goes in the dock and shows the print que gives me " unable to connect to SAMBA host, will retry in 60 seconds...ERROR: Connection Failed with Error.
Also, i have no problems with network connecting my imac to my desktop an laptop and pulling shared files, only to the printer.

i have seen somewhat similear threads on other forums, but all of the suggestions are different and i wanted to ask what you guys think of it.

i appreciate any help/support/suggestions, and hope you guys can solve this for me because although i do have appecare, i'd rather ask here then have to call them. thanks a lot

[gsahli]

There are several things that could cause the Samba errors (Samba = server message block, or Windows Sharing).

To get around this, go to Accounts Control Panel on the PC and enable the Guest account (bottom of dialog window).
Back on OS X, Add the printer by clicking Add, then holding the option key down while clicking More Printers. Select Advanced from the bottom of the first menu, then Windows Printer via Samba. Fill in the URI like this:
smb://[IP of PC]/[printer shared name]

You can guess that if the PC ever changes IP address, you'll have to delete and re-ADD on OS X.

There are driver issues with non-postscript printers. What model printer?

[EvidenceOfLlama]

thanks for the response gsahli.

i did what you said and got the same error

the model of the printer is HP Photosmart C3180, and i also tried a HP Deskjet 5150, and it gave me the same error message. Another error message i sometimes get is NT_STATUS_ACCES_DENIED.

What drivers should i get for my imac?

thanks.

[gsahli]

Before downloading drivers, try these that are already on your Mac - for the Photosmart, try HP Photosmart 1100, Gimp-Print; for the Deskjet, try HP Deskjet 900 Series, Gimp-Print.

Are you sure the printer is shared on the PC? Can you turn off the firewall to try printing?

[EvidenceOfLlama]

i tried the photosmart p1100 gimp print 5.0 beta [only one i had close to your driver name], and the status said printing page 1 18% at first, then it went back to NT status access denied. also, im sure the printer is shared, and like i said i print perfectly fine off of my laptop. the firewall on the pc is off, and i'm having difficulty accessing the controls for my wireless router so that can shut that firewall off too. i wont be able to turn off that firewall untill my dad finds the firmwear disk.

[gsahli]

Let's do some lower-level troubleshooting. On OS X start the Terminal (utilities) and type this command:
smbclient -NL [put PC IP address here] (then RETURN)
(this says check for shares without login, so you'll get an error about not logging in - that's OK - we want to see the shares) Please paste the output back here.

(and - I think the deskjet 900 isn't in the right numerical order among the HP drivers)

[kombatkarl1942]

Hello, I too am a new mac user with the same problems when printing to my Networked printers, I have the same HP Photosmart C3180 and a Brother HL-1440 Laserjet on my roomates PC. I get the same error messages and I have tried the above solutions to no avail.
Here is the info from the Terminal:

Sharename Type Comment
--------- ---- -------
E$ Disk Default share
DiscImages Disk
My Documents Disk
IPC$ IPC Remote IPC
D$ Disk Default share
print$ Disk Printer Drivers
Wallpapers Disk
Data Disk
carls art Disk
C3180 Printer HP Photosmart C3100 series
G$ Disk Default share
Downloads Disk
F$ Disk Default share
ADMIN$ Disk Remote Admin
C$ Disk Default share
Printer Printer Microsoft Office Document Image Writer

Let me know what you are thinking and thanks in advance for your help.

[gsahli]

kombatkarl,
The HP is shared, the Brother isn't. The Brother will be the easier one to print to if you get it shared from the PC. This is because Brother provides CUPS drivers, HP doesn't. CUPS drivers are required for standard network protocol printing (Windows or IP printing). Look at these sources for CUPS drivers for the HP:
www.linuxprinting.org/macosx/hpijs/
www.printfab.net