Self-Service and Printers

[makander]

've noticed an odd issue with self-service and printers.

It seems to work intermittently but the logs in Capser tells me that they installed, but when checking the printer configuration in Mac OS X it's blank. Resetting the printing system and then running SS again doesn't help either.

On some units however it works just fine.

Do you have any thoughts on how to resolve this?

[vadanx]

Just checking but do printers deploy fine through a JSS set policy? Are you also installing a PPD package before the printers are deployed?

Andrew

[makander]

I've never deployed printers with a policy before. What I did though was to package the drivers / ppds with composer or packages into the right folder. Then created a printer in Casper Admin. After this I created a self-service with ppds / drives and the printer ip address.

Which seems to work in most cases, but there are some machines that don't display the printer in Printing & Scanning under System Preferences.

[vadanx]

After you run the printer policy, what does 'lpc status all' return on the computers with this issue?

Andrew

[makander]

You're going to have to excuse me now because I'm translating from swedish to english, so some of the words maybe off. This is what I get though.

PRINTERNAME: printer exsists on device "lpd" speed -1 queue is activated printing is activated no posts daemon available

[vadanx]

No problem at all! And do you not see PRINTERNAME in your printer list in System Preferences?

This is a copy of one of mine and I see the printer in System Preferences...

PRINTERNAME: printer is on device 'lpd' speed -1 queuing is enabled printing is enabled no entries daemon present

[makander]

Alright! Not to far off then.

Thats right, the printer list is completely blank. Even though the lpd status says that it's there.

[makander]

Another weird thing is that I can choose the printer as an option if I want to print something, I guess it's just sys pref that's acting up.

[vadanx]

The fact it;s showing in lpc status all implies it's a functional printer on the system.

Unfortunately there's not much more I can do to help, is this just on one computer or many?

[makander]

Well, so far 3 systems so not that many.

I've tried flushing caches, I've tried repair permissions as well. The permissions check found a couple of issue with groups on printers and ppds and stuff but didn't seem to help either. Also tried flushing caches to see if that would help. Oh, and deleted the system preference.plist. None of the steps above made the printer show up in Printing and Scanning.

[makander]

Edit: Double post. Going to contact Jamf to have it deleted.

[vadanx]

What happens when you try to add a printer manually from System Preferences? Does that one show?

[makander]

That was a good suggestion, I just tried it but it doesn't display any printer at all.

[vadanx]

What sort of things go in to your build? I recommend taking a managed base build with no additions and then trying to add printers.

(in my environment we install a CUPS replacement for auditing purposes and it creates a few issues here and there)

[donmontalvo]

Is there a reason you can't use lpadmin?

x-man-page://lpadmin

(JAMF Nation doesn't seem to like the URL...copy/paste into a browser)

Don

[mscottblake]

Do you have any MCX or Configuration Profiles on these machines? lf you have the "Only show managed printers" option enabled as a Config Profile (I haven't looked to see what plist that affects), it will hide all printers in the GUI.

[makander]

I went through all the MCXs and then the Configuration Profiles. There it was, a printer was configured as a payload for a group of machines. But it should be seen in Printing & Scanning anyway right?

Edit: Now I feel stupid. It was the Configuration Profile all along. Allow user to modify printer list Allow printers that connect directly to user's computer
Seems like it worked fine once I enabled these two.

[makander]

Double post again, aargh. Sorry.