You need to install software to use this printer error

[g1za]

Geeze!

I'm having some issues on rebuilt clients installing the drivers for Sharp MX-4012n. There are two policies running. One that installs the drivers and another that has the following script to change permissions:Sudo chmod 775 "/Library/Printers/PPDs/Contents/Resources/SHARP MX-4112N.PPD.gz"

I can see that the PPD is installed and yet i get the You need to install software to use this printer error each time we try and send a print job.

Can anyone help me please????

[damienbarrett]

I've seen similar behavior with some Epson printer drivers. A restart of the computer after installing the drivers made this error message go away (for us). I have no knowledge or experience with Sharp printers...

[g1za]

Unfortunately not, wish it would :)

[stevewood]

Is the driver you are installing a package from Sharp? Or did you do a capture using Composer of what you need?

Anytime I've had this issue, a re-install of the driver has typically fixed it. However, I use the vendor provided installer and do not do a capture for most of my printers.

[bentoms]

@g1za.. We've many Sharp printers, & have found their drivers to be trouble free.

How are you packaging them? Or are you deploying the Sharp pkg?

[g1za]

Hi guys,

We've used the package from Sharp and can see that the SHARP MX-4112N.PPD.gz is installed. I've also tried logging in locally to the client and installing the drivers via admin login.

[g1za]

Can anyone add to this? Still having the issue ;(

[Chris_Hafner]

Perhaps this isn't what you're interested in, but we've had enough issues with dealing with this and other CUPS/privilege issues. So, after borrowing several one liners I run the following script at firstboot (or via self-service):

#!/bin/sh #!/bin/bash dseditgroup -o edit -n /Local/Default -a everyone -t group lpadmin /usr/bin/security authorizationdb write system.print.operator allow defaults write /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.printuitool.agent.plist Disabled -bool YES defaults write /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.printuitool.agent.plist EnableTransactions -bool NO exit 0

I'm sure that there's a much slicker way to accomplish this, but this adds all users to the lpadmin group and further allows them to install printer drivers via apples integrated utility. I'll admit, I took the easy way out on this one.

[Rice]

I see the same on Xerox printers.

[Chris_Hafner]

That's funny. (well, almost) I found the Xerox units we have are the simplest to deal with. In any event, this works for all.

[tomt]

Running into this same exact issue with the latest Xerox Fiery drivers. With the older ones I could go into the package and extract the core installer (bypassing their oh so helpful wizard) and then install via script.

The latest drivers are using flat packages so I'm having trouble getting the installer out of it. I've tried capturing the install with Composer but using that is what is giving me the "You need to install software" error once installed.

I'm open to any ideas.

Thanks,
Tom

[Chris_Hafner]

Hrm... I haven't had to deal with Fiery controllers in a while.

[alan_trewartha]

I get this with everything, including Papercut "Follow Me" printer. We only ever set up to print postscript and load in the right PPD. Is it something to worry about? If it's not, how can you stop it popping up little warning triangles next to the printer name?

[alan_trewartha]

In case it helps anyone, the solution for us was to comb through the used PPD for references to all other installed elements (usually in /Library/Printers/etc) and comment out the ones we know we don't care to install.

So eg these lines in a EFI-sourced PPD…

*cupsFilter: "application/vnd.cups-postscript 0 /Library/Printers/Toshiba/Filters/fierycupsfilter"
*APDialogExtension: "/Library/Printers/Toshiba/PDEs/EF542970 (FJN).plugin"
*APDialogExtension: "/Library/Printers/Toshiba/PDEs/EF542970 (CW).plugin"

we knew to remove the cupsfilter line already but the DialogExtensions are mostly cruft we removed from the install (and anyway don't work with the OSX sandbox yet!) so I just commented them out

*% cupsFilter: "application/vnd.cups-postscript 0 /Library/Printers/Toshiba/Filters/fierycupsfilter"
*% APDialogExtension: "/Library/Printers/Toshiba/PDEs/EF542970 (FJN).plugin"
*% APDialogExtension: "/Library/Printers/Toshiba/PDEs/EF542970 (CW).plugin"

viola, no more warning triangles

[RalfH]

Alan's solution to comment out the cupsFilter and APDialog-lines did the trick for our (old) Xerox machines.