Canon iR7105, iR-ADV9065 with GX300 server, and Mountain Lion

Question

I am having no luck setting up two relatively recent, large and expensive Canon printers in Mountain Lion. The situations are different so there are two chapters to this wall of text.
This is a fresh Mac, so it didn't have any 'old' Canon driver trash on it. I have installed UFRII 2.43 and PS 3.60 from Canon and restarted.
The iR7105
The iR7105 doesn't show up automatically in the Print & Scan add-printer menus. No problem; I go to IP, using LPD, and set it up there. (LPD access is enabled in the printer.) After that, I have tried setting it up with each of three drivers: a nondescript Canon iR7086-7105, Canon iR7086-7105 PS (US), and Canon iR7086-7105 UFR II (US).
The nondescript driver results in no setup options for the printer, so I know there's  a problem. This is, however, the closest to a successful setup I have so far. In the print dialog I get finishing options that seem promising, including for our saddle finisher. However, the saddle finisher doesn't engage when I send the print job -- I have to assume this is because the print driver doesn't have a setup where I can tell it what model of  finisher it needs to talk to? Further, there are no options for printing to the printer's Mail Boxes, so I can't just send a file there and fix up the saddle stitch on the printer directly (a workaround we've used with various jobs in the past). However, after the job has run, I CAN go into Command Workstation 5.4.1.25 and adjust the settings on the job there, and then get it to run through the saddle finisher (or to the Mail Boxes). This is the best I have so far, but it's not very good.
So I try to set up the PS driver. Now I get setup options and I can select the saddle finisher model. I also get a popup asking about unidirectional or bidirectional; I choose bidirectional because the printer is on a network. Also, setting it to unidirectional doesn't change what happens next:  when I do send the print job, the printer cheerfully spits out a dozen or more pages of single-line garbage instead of what I sent to print.
On to the UFR II driver. Again I get setup options as expected when I set up the printer. Again, the print options are exactly what I expect as well. Unfortunately, the print job doesn't go through: I get an error that says, "Canon UFR II Printer Driver / Cannot communicate with the printer, or the printer is not supported. If the printer is supported, check the printer connection and add it again, then start Printer Utility to get the printer information." Well, the printer is pretty certainly connected, based on the performances above. It's also supported, if Canon's suggesting I should download and use this driver is any indication. Finally, Printer Utility gets printer information that looks quite accurate. Nevertheless, after all of that, actual attempts to print still get the UFR II Printer Driver error message, and no prints.
The iR-ADV9065 and its GX300V2.0US server
After installing all the Canon drivers mentioned above, the print server (Canon iR-ADV C9000s GX300V2.0US) shows up in the '+' drop-down in Print & Scan. Great, right?! I can configure the server directly and control the printer that way! Yay!
Nope. I get a warning: "Some of the software for the printer is missing. You may have to reinstall the software to be able to successfully print." I click Continue, since that's an option, and then I get "Setting up 'Canon iR-ADV C9000s GX300V2.0US...' The software for the printer was installed incorrectly. Please reinstall the software from the manufacturer." This time there is no option except Cancel.
What would be awesome now would be to know what software I need to reinstall. Since I just installed the UFRII and the PS software on a fresh Mac, I'm not sure what's missing.
So, back to manually installing with the IP address. From this point forward the results mimic those above, with variations for the printer's specific capabilities. The best driver option is still the non-PS, non-UFR version, and that 'best' option still won't control the finishing units. I must go through Command WorkStation to accomplish that.
Bottom Line
Because I am so close to having these set up properly, but not quite, I feel like I must be doing something wrong. Something small and subtle, probably, but hey, maybe it's something big and glaring! Can anyone help?

Answer 1

mapinoregon wrote:
The iR7105
The iR7105 doesn't show up automatically in the Print & Scan add-printer menus.
The Canon print controllers do not support Bonjour, so using IP > LPD as you have done is the correct procedure.
mapinoregon wrote:
The iR7105
The nondescript driver results in no setup options for the printer, so I know there's  a problem.
There's no problem. This is how the PPD works on 10.8. For older versions of PPD it was necessary to configure the options. But with the latest versions of PPD, it is assumed that all options are available, even when the machine may not have them or supports them.
mapinoregon wrote:
The iR7105
In the print dialog I get finishing options that seem promising, including for our saddle finisher. However, the saddle finisher doesn't engage when I send the print job -- I have to assume this is because the print driver doesn't have a setup where I can tell it what model of  finisher it needs to talk to?
It is not a lack of being able to set what finisher you have installed. You just cannot saddle-finish with the PPD. This is only supported with the full driver, such as the UFR2 or PS, because you need the additional plugins that are included with these full drivers to get the additional functions.
mapinoregon wrote:
The iR7105
Further, there are no options for printing to the printer's Mail Boxes, so I can't just send a file there and fix up the saddle stitch on the printer directly (a workaround we've used with various jobs in the past).
Again, this is due to the lack of a plugin to support the submission to the mailbox. So it is another limitation of the PPD.
And with you sending the print job to the mailbox in the past, you would have been using a full driver - not the PPD - to achieve this.
mapinoregon wrote:
The iR7105
However, after the job has run, I CAN go into Command Workstation 5.4.1.25 and adjust the settings on the job there, and then get it to run through the saddle finisher (or to the Mail Boxes). This is the best I have so far, but it's not very good.
If you can connect to the iR7105 with Command Workstation, then you must have a Fiery connected to it, such as the imagePASS-S2. So this would explain why the UFR2 and Canon PS v3.60 driver did not work. The Fiery does not support either driver. They are for the iR7105 that is using its internal Canon controller. Not the optional imagePASS (Fiery).
Now the issue for you with the imagePASS-S2 is that no 10.8 driver exists - the iR7105 was released in mid 2006. So you will have to use the Fiery Express driver, which has limited functions but it is better than using the Generic Postscript driver.
mapinoregon wrote:
The iR-ADV9065 and its GX300V2.0US server
After installing all the Canon drivers mentioned above, the print server (Canon iR-ADV C9000s GX300V2.0US) shows up in the '+' drop-down in Print & Scan. Great, right?! I can configure the server directly and control the printer that way! Yay!
Nope. I get a warning: "Some of the software for the printer is missing. You may have to reinstall the software to be able to successfully print." I click Continue, since that's an option, and then I get "Setting up 'Canon iR-ADV C9000s GX300V2.0US...' The software for the printer was installed incorrectly. Please reinstall the software from the manufacturer." This time there is no option except Cancel.
Like the iR7105 with the Fiery attached, the GX300 connected to the ADV C9065 does not support the UFR2 or PS v3.60 driver. But at least there is a 10.8 driver available for this model. Here is a link to the GX300 page from Canon USA.
Now with this driver installed you can add it by selecting the "Canon iR-ADV C9000s GX300V2.0US" that appears in the Default Add Printer view (and the Nearby Printers window). The driver should be automatically found by the Mac, meaning the Use menu will be set to the correct driver. This will let you print and use most finishing features of the iR ADV C9065.
Hope the above helps you. Reply if you need more info.