Canon Pixma MX7220 seen, but won't print

[Frank616]

Just bought a Canon Pixma MX722 printer for the trailer. I checked, and it has LInux support from Canon. I did not use the driver that I just linked to, as the Canon USA site, when it detects my Linux system, tells me that the driver may be included with my distro. It is -- on my 14.04 machine. A somewhat lesser numbered driver is included with this netbook that I am using now, which has 12.10 on it.

Both machines see the wirelessly connected Canon printer. Both recommend a driver. Both allow me to install the driver, and both allow me to try to print a test page. Both show the progress of the print, to the 100% mark. Neither machine will actually cause the Canon to actually output a page, however. The data stream appears to go to 'bit heaven', and the printer applet reports that it is waiting for the printer to finish. The printer never finishes. It doesn't even start.

Suggestions?

Frank.

PS: The attached screenshot is from my 14.04 machine.

PPS: The canon prints fine wirelessly from my Android phone using the PrinterShare app. No network issues here. Everything works except my Linux boxes.

[woodsmoke]

Hi Frank.
You say "both" machines...right...........two machines trying to print wirelessly?

That would seem to indicate that the situation is with the printer.

Don't suppose that in the rather complex menu system on the printer itself you missed some kind of "enable access" or something? I ran into that on my a new Cannon HP6600 that I bought. Not that I print wirelessly but I just wanted to see if it could be done and it had to get a driver from the provided cd. So maybe the printer is not handshaking because of a missed command in that little interface on the printer.

Just a thought.

woodsmoke

[Frank616]

Woodsmoke:

Just added a PPS to my original post. You got to it first.

The Canon prints fine wirelessly from my Android phone. No network or printer issues here. I do have an issue getting the data stream from my Linux boxes - one of them wired, and the other wireless - to the printer.

Frank.

[woodsmoke]

Dunno, I didn't mention that my Android prints also, not that I NEED to print from my phone dozens of times a day!

But android has commercial backing behind it and the companies probably work together to present a seamless interface. Dunno.

I'm still thinking some kind of menu thingy on the printer. dunno

woodsmoke

[Frank616]

Woodsmoke:

I'm still thinking some kind of menu thingy on the printer. dunno

If it were a menu item that was turned off, then I would expect it to fail to print wirelessly altogether, not just from a Linux machine. What could be turned off on the printer that would accept one, but not the other?

Thanks.

Frank.

[Frank616]

Woodsmoke:

In any case, I don't see anything in the menus that would turn off print reception. I went through all the menus. There isn't even a switch to select 'printer'. The only buttons are for fax, scan, menu, and the default - copy. The menu button seems to be for setup print density, web access (remote printing) and so on.

Frank.

[Snowhog]

Have you gone into CUPS and checked if the printer is set to be shared?

[Frank616]

Snowhog:

Have you gone into CUPS and checked if the printer is set to be shared?

No, I haven't checked. But I know that when setting it up, I specifically did NOT share it, as I often get duplicate instances of it on the network if I do. Is this wrong?

OK, apparently, it is wrong....

I used CUPS to set sharing to 'on', and now it works.

So, what is that all about? I have had issues with sharing printers. It shows up as a network printer, and it also shows up as a printer connected to whatever machine I shared it from, or at least, that is what I thought was happening years ago when I stopped 'sharing' printers.

What does this setting do, and how did not sharing it 'break' things?

Thanks.

Frank.

[Frank616]

Snowhog:

Well, it works, so I am marking this 'solved'.

It works as it should on my 14.04 machine with the correct MX722 driver selected from the list that Kubuntu offers when setting up the printer. I didn't have to install anything extra.

The driver is amazingly complete, and it offers a plethora of settings that can be tweaked in the 'options' section of the print dialogs, from resolution to color model to saturation, to individual color intensities. There is a LOT there. Kudos to Canon for the Linux support.

It still does not work on my 12.10 machine, which only has the MX710 driver available, even after enabling sharing in CUPS. I could probably download and install the updated driver from Canon at the link I put in the first message, but this machine is due for a system upgrade anyway, so I'll just do that. 14.04 has more advantages than just newer printer drivers. I'm just waiting for the first point release before rolling it out onto my other machines.

My thanks to you all for your help.

Frank.