Re: Canon ImageCLASS Color Lasers won't print

On 2025-12-14, Lars Poulsen wrote:

> On 2025-12-13, Nuno Silva <[email protected]> wrote:
> NS> So it's failing for all systems, despite having been triggered by the
> NS> Windows 11 update?
>
> NS> Is it feasible to try to use it without Windows 11 just to see if the
> NS> problem re-appears?
>
> You ask a set of very good questions.
>
> Troubleshooting is very much complicated by the intermittent qualities
> of the problems. But each of the clients has issues that are mystifying.
>
> If the problem is client-side, you would expect that some client that
> shares no code with the others would behave better. For this, I have
> been experimenting with the iPhone clients: iOS AirPrint and Canon Print
> for iPhone. When I tried that yesterday, the iOS "share" function did
> not work: It lets me select the printer, then seemingly accepts the
> printout, but nothing prints, and when I try again, the Canon is no
> longer a selectable printer. But the Canon Print app works.

To make matters more complicated, there's always the chance one driver
is confusing the device to the extent another driver cannot use it.

Also, I suppose it's always possible this is caused by something in the
driver that interacts with the printer even when it's not printing
(e.g. some status query?), and so it's always possible such a Windows 11
system with the printer configured, but not in use, is enough to confuse
the printer.

(The joys of troubleshooting!)

> The Windows and Linux dvers have the same name, so they may have some
> code shared.
>
> NS> Can any of the other systems be used as a printer server 24/7 (or at
> NS> least when needed) to avoid printing directly from Windows 11?
>
> That is why the Linux system is in the mix. If it worked reliably, I
> would have everybody else go through it. But it flakes out similarly to
> the Windows systems. And Canon explicitly disclaims support for the
> Linux driver, which is supplied "as a courtesy", but cannot be supported
> due to the great variety of Linux distributions.

They're just making excuses. The same could be said of Windows, for
example, at least as soon as you venture out of making just a driver,
and start adding tools around it?

Was the Linux driver also updated meanwhile, or it used to work before
with no related software change in between?

As much as I'd prefer Ethernet with 8P8C (or perhaps Wireless LAN as a
fallback) as opposed to a connection to a computer, does the printer
have that as an option you can use with the Linux system, connecting it
directly to that computer over e.g. USB?

That way, it'd perhaps allow testing in a scenario where it'd be harder
for other drivers to confuse the printer. (On top of that, for this you
may want to temporarily try a Postscript driver when printing via IPP to
CUPS from Windows, just in case there's also something in the generated
printer content from the driver that is causing trouble.)

> NS> Another one: does the Windows 11 Canon driver have any configuration
> NS> options?
>
> Not that I have found. You run the self-extracting install-kit, then
> configure it with "Add Printer". Choice of letting Windows search for
> it and auto configure it, or manually set it up as "IPP", "HTTP" or use
> a designated TCP port. I have tried most variations there, but MS's
> attempts to make it user friendly makes it hard to figure out what goes
> wrong, when the setup times out, either in querying the printer for
> information or when sending a test page.

I'm thinking of stuff that'd be available both in printer settings (for
defaults) and in advanced settings when printing.

For example, "MS Publisher Color Printer" (available at least in NT
6.1), one of the Postscript drivers available with Windows, has a small
number of Postscript options in the advanced settings.

See [1] for screenshots of this, albeit these seem to be for a HP
Laserjet driver. (Also, the first screenshot in that section shows
another place where there might be settings?)

[1] http://pig.made-it.com/printing.html#4936

No idea whether the Canon driver has anything like this, but it's worth
checking it out, in case there's some option that could improve
compatibility.

-- 
Nuno Silva