# No Bonjour Printers are available



## Silks (Aug 24, 2008)

Just installed Airport Extreme.  Went beautifully:
- iMac (OSX 10.5) can connect wirelessly to Internet, 
- IBM ThinkPad (XP, SP-2) can connect wirelessly to Internet, 
- iMac can print to printer connected to the USB port of the AE.

Problem comes when I need to print from the Windows-based ThinkPad.  Directions just say to install Bonjour on the Windows machine and "follow the instructions in the Wizard."

When I do that, I get the simple message that "no Bonjour Printers are available."   And there are no other instructions.  No help whatsoever.  ("configureless printing?"  not hardly...)

The printer is shared on the Mac's Print and Fax setup.

I have absolutely no idea what else to do.  

Any help or ideas?  Please

...VERY frustrated Bonjour non-user


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## gsahli (Aug 24, 2008)

First, it isn't appropriate to turn on printer sharing on the Mac, bacause the printer isn't on it.
It is possible to print via standard Windows TCP/IP protocol, too. (called TCP/IP raw port 9100 in Windows-centric manuals)


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## Silks (Aug 24, 2008)

OK, Great.  Thanks for the info.  I'm not sophisticated enough to connect to a printer on a distant router through Port 9100 on my own, but I'll go surfing and see what guidance I can come up with.  I'm not exactly a fan of Bonjour right now, so this may be my way around it.
Thanks again!


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## Satcomer (Aug 25, 2008)

Did you use the Airport Utility (/Applications/Utilities/Airport Utility) to turn on Bonjour? To do so is to launch Airport Utility and then select it in the right hand column. There select 'Manual Setup' and when it comes up in manual mode click the printer icon in the top. That is where you can check mark to "Advertise Printers globally using Bonjour".


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## Silks (Aug 25, 2008)

I saw that, and it sounded like something I should want to do.  But when I try to "advertise" my printers, the Airport Utility tells me: 
"Advertising a service globally using Bonjour requires a wide-area hostname.  You can configure your Bonjour settings by clicking the &#8220;Edit&#8230;&#8221; button in the Airport Extreme pane of Airport settings."  No clue what that means.
Then it won't let me proceed.  And I can find no Edit button anywhere, and if you search on "wide-area hostname" in AE's help or the documents provided, you get absolutely nothing. 
So any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks for chiming in!


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## Sparky9292 (Aug 23, 2009)

Silks said:


> Just installed Airport Extreme.  Went beautifully:
> - iMac (OSX 10.5) can connect wirelessly to Internet,
> - IBM ThinkPad (XP, SP-2) can connect wirelessly to Internet,
> - iMac can print to printer connected to the USB port of the AE.
> ...



I know this is a very old thread, but this problem killed a couple of my hours today.  I have a Windows XP SP3 laptop.  I downloaded Bonjour and didn't see my Airport Express USB connected printer.  I can print to it fine from all three of my OSX laptops of course.

After fracking around with various firewall settings, and waving a chicken around, this fixed it for me.  It's not really a hack.  This is how we used to set up printing to printer servers BEFORE Bonjour was around...

http://www.ifelix.co.uk/tech/1004.html

Let me know if this helps someone....


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## Steve Parker (Feb 6, 2010)

I realize it has been awhile since you posted your advice on setting up a Windows printer before Bonjour.  I hope that you are continuing to monitor the thread and receive my post.  

I installed Bonjour for Windows and was not able to connect to my printer running off of the USB port on my new Time Capsule.  I am running Snow Leopard, VMfusion and XP on a MacBook Air.  Everything went perfectly first time.  I am very grateful for your advice.  Steve


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## whoisbotsman (Jul 6, 2010)

Hello all,

I have been experiencing this same issue on one of my laptops at home for several months now, and I nearly drove myself mad trying to find a solution on the Web, all to no avail.

Well, I am happy to report that I just managed to fix the issue, and I registered on this forum specifically to post my solution here in the hopes that it will help someone.

First, a small description of my situation:

I have 2 laptops, Dell Inspiron 1470 and Asus UL30VT, both running Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit. A Canon MP460 printer is connected to the AirPort Express' USB port. The Dell has always been able to view the printer via Bonjour, but on the Asus I was getting the dreaded "No Bonjour printers are available" message. Early in the course of my troubleshooting, I installed the AirPort Utility for Windows on both laptops, and found out that the Asus was not able to discover the AirPort Express device. On the Dell, the AirPort Utility was able to see the device just fine.

For a while, I gave up on the issue, but today I decided to give it another go, and just started messing with AE settings via the AirPort Utility installed on the Dell. Here's what worked:

1. I started the AirPort Utility, right-clicked on the AE device and chose "Manual Setup"
2. Under the "AirPort" icon, I chose the "Wireless" tab and clicked the "Wireless Options..." button
3. In here, my multicast rate was set to 2 Mbps. I will not go into what the multicast rate is, it is not important and you can Google it if you want, but basically...
4. I changed it to 5.5 Mbps, hit "OK", then hit "Update" and...
5. Voila! The Bonjour utility on the Asus was instantly able to see the printer! Well, not exactly instantly... After I hit "Update", AE had to restart, which took a minute or so.

Based on my limited knowledge of networking, it appears that my original multicast rate was not fully compatible with the wireless adapter of the Asus. The multicast rate options available in the AirPort Utility are 1 Mbps, 2 Mbps, 5.5 Mbps and 11 Mbps, so you may have to play around with these until you find one that works for you. Of course, the tricky part is, I have a second laptop that was initially able to recognize the AE via the AirPort Utility, which allowed me to do what I did. You may need to borrow a laptop from a friend.

Anyway, good luck! Cheers!


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