Background Story: I accidentally ripped out the Ethernet port of my wife’s iBookG4. So, I purchased the USB 2.0 -> Ethernet 2.0 Adapter (AX88772A), so she can still surf the Internet via our Ethernet router. (She refuses to use Airport).
Connecting to the Internet: Success.
Printing to the Shared USB EPSON RX680 Printer (that’s shared from a different Mac on the network): Failure.
It will see the printer as a shared printer, but the drivers, etc., to choose from in the Print Utility are all greyed out on her iBookG4, ever since we’ve used this Plugable adapter. (My MacBook, still on regular Ethernet, sees and prints to the shared USB printer just fine). It will try to print when the job makes it to the shared USB printer’s Mac, then it will stop all the jobs with no printing done. (Probably because I can’t choose the drivers on her iBookG4 - all greyed out).
Advice? Thanks.
Hi!
Thanks for contacting us and sorry to hear you’ve been having printing problems after using the Plugable Fast Ethernet Adapter !
Since you can surf the internet with no problem this must be a software issue.
First thing we’d like to check is , what happens if you completely remove the printer entry from the Mac and re-add it ? Can you also do the same for the drivers? Completely remove them and re-install them ?
What version of Mac OS X are you running?
Are you using the Epson drivers or Gutenberg?
Once we have this information we’ll be able to suggest next steps!
Regards,
Lampros
Thanks for the reply. Still facing this issue.
Printer plugged directly to USB: fine.
Printer over network, printing via USB->Ethernet: still failures. (still greyed out)
Checked other Mac, and the print job makes it over, but when it starts, it stops the printer queue each time without letting it print. So, the print job *is* going over the USB->Ethernet, but for some reason, it won’t allow the queue to go to the printer itself.
You asked for specs, here it is:
iBookG4 running OS 10.4.11, PowerPC 1.42GHz, 1GB RAM
Used both official EPSON print drivers and Gutenberg drivers (both are greyed out in the Printer Utility)
EPSON Stylux Photo RX680
the USB 2.0 to Ethernet jack from plugable.
any more specs you need, let me know.
Again, thanks for the reply and thanks for looking into the issue.
Hi!
Thanks for that information!
So to make sure we got it right: the iBook G4 is running 10.4.11 - this is the one where you wish to access the shared printer on a different Mac. This is also the one where you use the Plugable USB-Ethernet adapter.
The other Mac - where you wish the USB printer to be connected permanently and then shared - what Mac OS X version is this running?
* On the Mac that acts as print server - can you double check the sharing options are all enabled?
* How do those computers get their IP addresses? Is there a router in the picture assigning out DHCP addresses?
* Can those Macs ping each other?
For OS X 10.4.11 this might help. This will reset the printer queues and reset the permissions. Can you try this and see if it helps?
Also in this thread (4th post) they mention the Network Diagnostics in the Printer Menu. Can you try this and see if we can get some more info on the problem?
Thanks for your patience while we’re trying to troubleshoot this!
Regards,
Lampros