Brand new iMac (Lion) w/ printer problems.... GRRRR!

Just bought a brand spanking new iMac. Tried connecting my 5 year old Canon MP600 to it and I did so by downloading the drivers from the Canon website. It seemed a little TOO easy. Worked perfectly for a week, now the printer is offline and refuses to print anything. I've read a lot of different info on this same problem, but nothing has helped.

Yes, I have already:
(1) reinstalled drivers
(2) checked all cords and plugs
(3) done test printing pages to make sure the printer is fully functional.. and it is
(4) reinstalled drivers for a 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6TH time
(5) checked ink, checked everything

I am brand new to Mac, so maybe I didn't delete the drivers correctly before reinstalling? I've opened System Prefs and looked in the scan/print section. I've tried ADDING a new printer and my Canon shows up nowhere.

If it never worked with my new Mac to begin with, I would just say it's not compatible.. but since it JUST worked PERFECTLY, I'm convinced it's something stupid I have to do.. I hope. I can always use an SD card to print, but that's sucky.

ANY and ALL help would be much appreciated

First, determine if your Canon MP 600 might have died. Do you have another computer at home? Even a PC that you can test it with?

It does seem strange that a printer which was working for a week would just quit. I'm not at all impressed with Canon drivers especially for wireless as I have had some difficulty with a newer wireless model. But if the printer worked for a week, the drivers must have been OK.

I wouldn't even begin to try to do a wireless printer. I'd probably never get it to work.

It copies and prints normally from SD cards, and test print pages are all A-okay.

OK... That means the Canon is working. The best suggestion I can offer is to try to completely remove it from the system and reinstall.

Open System Preferences, Print & Scan. Highlight the Canon and press the small minus button at the bottom of the dialog. Next, do a Spotlight search for the Canon drivers. If you can find them, delete them. If not, don't worry about it.

Reboot the iMac. Attach the Canon via USB and open System Preferences, Print & Scan and see if it's detected. If so, reinstall the drivers you downloaded from Canon. Make sure the drivers are for 10.7 Lion. Let's see if that gets it working again.

Before you do the above:

Something just occurred to me.... you stated the printer was off line? Can you open the print queue? System Preferences, Print & Scan. Highlight the printer and select "Open Print Queue" from the dialog option on the right side. Tell us what it says. If it says the printer is paused, click on it and tell it to start. Let us know.

After I saw that the Canon was offline, I completely deleted it from the Printer ops in System Preferences. I also deleted the drivers. I've rebooted and reinstalled a few times in the last few days. Now the iMac will not "find" it or recognize it. It isn't listed in the printer options. I'm starting to get bummed.

It was never paused, it was saying "offline...printer is not connected"

Did you happen to notice if Apple Software Update ran at some point and downloaded drivers? I guess I'm just wondering "what changed"? It really does seem like a software issue of some sort.

If it helps, I have a Canon MP500 that's about a year older than your MP600 - it still works fine with all of my machines, including my Mac. My guess is that it's just a case of switching drivers.

Try this:

Open System Preferences => Print & Fax

Select the MP600 from the list.

Click 'Options and Supplies'

Click the 'Driver' tab

In the 'Print Using' field, switch to 'Select Printer Software'

Scroll through the list and be sure to choose a driver that matches up to the printer model. You should see at least one driver with the appropriate model there - there may also be multiple versions, be sure to select the latest one.

I just checked the Canon site. The MP 600 is fully supported in Lion as both the CUPS driver and Scan software are dated after Lion was released.

Try what cwa107 suggested and let us know.

There is no longer a printer to select in preferences. After I deleted it, the computer now won't even acknowledge its connection.

There are only two options for the Canon MP600 with OS X Lion. One is the scanner and one is the printer. The first time I downloaded both and installed them, it worked perfectly. The computer might have done updates, but wouldn't reinstalling the drivers work? If there were new drivers released, they'd be on the Canon site.

This makes no sense.

I've downloaded those two files numerous times. I download, click on them, there's a setup process to follow, and it says installation successful.

Then when I go to the Print/Scan preferences, there is no printer to be found. When I try to print something, there is no printer to be found. Am I missing a step? This was all I did to get it working the first time. I thought it seemed too easy at the time.

I'm trying to install the printer driver from OS 10.5

Have you tried switching out USB cables, by chance? And (just to be sure), is the printer powered on when you're attaching it?

RauschIt said:

I'm trying to install the printer driver from OS 10.5

Click to expand...

I wouldn't do that. There are significant differences in the underlying OS between 10.5 and 10.6, much more so than between 10.6 and 10.7.

I agree. It makes no sense, but don't trash the Canon just yet. Let me dig around and see if I can find out what's going on. Also, as far as I can tell there are no update drivers on the Canon site, just the ones I mentioned which you no doubt have downloaded several times.

One more thing for you to try: Reset the SMC and PRAM.

1. Reset SMC: Shut the iMac down. Unplug it from AC for about 5 minutes, plug it back in and reboot.

2. Reset PRAM: Follow these instructions: LINK

After doing both, connect the Canon and let's see if the iMac recognizes it.

Again, I would strongly advise against installing the 10.5 version - if it even allows you to do so. There were major changes in hardware drivers from 10.5 to 10.6 and introducing a driver like that could cause stability issues.

10.5 installed "successfully," but still didn't work. OMG! I didn't read the message not to do that until after I did :-(

You're going to get frustrated with me, but SMC and PRAM are foreign words to me. I'll google them!

Ok. Those things are way complicated and surely I'll mess something up. This is a brand new machine and I don't want to mess around with whatever that is. What if I take it back to the Apple Store and ask a Genius??

Resetting the SMC (System Management Controller) and PRAM will not harm your machine or cause a loss of data. It's safe to do so. If you take the machine into an Apple store to solve a printer problem, they may charge you as that is not covered under the warranty.

Okay. Is it important to do the SMC first? I have no idea how to do either one. I'll follow your link for the PRAM one.

Yes, do the SMC first as that is easy - just a matter of unplugging the iMac for 5 minutes. Then do the PRAM reset.

:-o :-o :-o Unbelievable!!

So I'm sitting here wondering what the **** SMC and PRAM are, and thinking whether or not to do it myself or take it to my friend's shop (a major pain in the bum), and I just happened to try to do another print, and of course it didn't work.. but with the print window open, I shut off my printer and UNPLUGGED IT (something I wouldn't have done unless you mentioned shutting off my computer) and when I plugged it back in, an APPLE SOFTWARE UPDATE window popped up and asked if I wanted it to find updates for me. I said yes, it downloaded for 5 minutes, installed effortlessly, and when I tried to print... IT WORKED!!!!!! I didn't even have to install 2 separate drivers... APPLE did it all for me!! I am starting to love Mac.

Thank you sooooooooooooooo much!!!!!!! Although, I still don't understand why it went through all this rigamarole. And will it happen again????????

THANKS SO MUCH!!! Problem solved, but we don't know how or why!!

Great! Glad to hear it's working again. Hang on to this thread.. just in case. ;D

And have fun with that new iMac. It's a great machine.