OT: IP Printing Using DNS Host Name in Mountain Lion

ernstcs
Contributor III

I have been unable to add IP printers via DNS host names with Mountain Lion, but this appears to work in Lion and Snow Leopard. The host name does resolve properly elsewhere, it just appears to be a problem in the printers interface. Anyone else seeing this or know of a why?

15 REPLIES 15

talkingmoose
Moderator
Moderator

Are you using just the printer's host name or its fully qualified domain name? Does FQDN work?

ernstcs
Contributor III

We're using FQDN.

Kevin
Contributor II

Seeing that here too… We get feedback that the name is "Invalid or Incomplete Address" unless we use the FQDN. 10.8.2 did not resolve the issue.

jarednichols
Honored Contributor

What happens if you nslookup your printer?

mpermann
Valued Contributor II

Craig,
I'm seeing the same odd behavior that you are seeing. If I type in the FDQN of the printer I will get "Incomplete and invalid address". Here is where it gets strange though, if I type in the IP address of the printer first I will get "Complete and valid address" and if I delete out the IP address and type in the FDQN I then will get it to say "Complete and valid address" for the FQDN of the printer. I can even quit out of system preferences and open it back up and just type in the FDQN of the printer and it will say "Complete and valid address". I have verified this behavior with a brand new MacBook Pro 13" Mid 2012 using the version of the OS that shipped with the computer which was 10.8 by the way. I'm experiencing the same behavior with a 10.8.2 image I created. Is anyone else besides Craig and I seeing this sort of behavior and know what is causing it and how to fix it?
Mike

nkalister
Valued Contributor

yep, i'm seeing it too.
Seems to just be a UI bug- I ignored the error, and my HP printer driver was auto-selected and and the printer installed without any issues.

andrewseago
Contributor

We are seeing this issue too.

tkimpton
Valued Contributor II

Yep me too. Never mind though ive always just added printers via a script.

Kevin
Contributor II

We have 1,200 printers. Our users add and remove them all of the time. Or at least they could until now. As Michael stated previously, we too can add by IP address and then swap the IP for the FQDN and it will still work, including auto-detect the printer type and location information.

There is definitely some kind of OS bug here. We had the problem with 10.8 and now 10.8.2.

mpermann
Valued Contributor II

I filed a bug report with Apple on this issue. They requested some additional information, which I provided, and now I am waiting for a response from them. I will update my post as soon as I hear back from them. But feel free to lodge a complaint/bug report with Apple. Maybe they will fix the bug faster if more people complain. ;-)

mconners
Valued Contributor

Just yesterday, we added a new printer using the FQDN and it came back with the same message you all have seen. I let it show the error and completed the setup and the printing is just fine. I suggest it is a visual error as the printer printed just fine.

mpermann
Valued Contributor II

@mconnors, yeah, if you complete the adding of the printer and ignore the message you can specify the print driver and other parameters and the printer will work properly. I think it's a bit more than a visual error though as the computer never communicates with the printer like it should to properly choose the printer driver. So not only does the end user have to assume they didn't make a typo when they typed in the address they must also know how to properly choose the model of the printer. For my staff, those are two things I'd rather not leave to chance. This "issue" has never been a problem in any of the previous versions of the Mac OS. We've been adding printers using this method since the first release of Mac OS X. Hopefully Apple will identify and fix the issue.

nkalister
Valued Contributor

@mpermann- in my testing the printer driver selection DID take place despite the error.

mpermann
Valued Contributor II

@nkalister - That's interesting. It seems to be very inconsistent as to what does and doesn't work for people. My test system is a 13" MacBook Pro 9,2 that I did a manual install using Mac OS 10.8.2 downloaded from the App Store and driver installs from Apple's download site. I didn't want to use a system that was imaged using Casper in case the problem was being caused by Casper. Do you know what you're running your DNS servers on? Ours is hosted on Windows 2003 server.

mpermann
Valued Contributor II

I received an email from Apple on 10-22-2013 stating they believe this bug is fixed in the latest release of Mavericks. I installed a fresh Mac OS 10.9 on the test box and was able to successfully add printers using the FQDN without the oddities that I had experienced under Mac OS 10.8.x. I guess this means they have no plans to actually fix the issue under 10.8.x.