Canon BJC-50-Not Working With Gutenprint in OS X 10.6.8 Anymore

Had worked passably (slow and used too much ink but print quality was
OK) for most of the past seven years on a MacBook Pro originally running
OS X 10.4.11. Still worked when I upgraded to Snow Leopard and
Gutenprint 5.2.9. All of a sudden, however, it won't print in color.
When I try I get only a black-and-white image that's way too dark and
pictures that almost look like photo negatives.

Among the things I've tried are completely uninstalling and reinstalling
Gutenprint, resetting the printing system, trying both ColorSync and
Vendor Matching under Color Matching, changing Color Model between RGB,
CMYK, KCMY, Republican, Democrat, Indepenedent or whatever else is in
there. In short, I've played around with anything that looks like it
might help.

I've got several other printers that still work fine with OS X and the
BJC-50 works just as great as ever with Windows (95, Vista and 7) so my
guess is we're looking at a software problem such as a setting that
somehow got changed. Any ideas where to start?

"Jonathan L. Parker" writes:

Had worked passably (slow and used too much ink but print quality was
OK) for most of the past seven years on a MacBook Pro originally
running OS X 10.4.11. Still worked when I upgraded to Snow Leopard
and Gutenprint 5.2.9. All of a sudden, however, it won't print in
color. When I try I get only a black-and-white image that's way too
dark and pictures that almost look like photo negatives.

Among the things I've tried are completely uninstalling and
reinstalling Gutenprint, resetting the printing system, trying both
ColorSync and Vendor Matching under Color Matching, changing Color
Model between RGB, CMYK, KCMY, Republican, Democrat, Indepenedent or
whatever else is in there. In short, I've played around with anything
that looks like it might help.

I've got several other printers that still work fine with OS X and the
BJC-50 works just as great as ever with Windows (95, Vista and 7) so
my guess is we're looking at a software problem such as a setting that
somehow got changed. Any ideas where to start?

1. In your CUPS interface make sure you are using RGB for color, not
CMYK (gutenprint expects RGB and converts any other input to RGB
anyway---but CMYK is a much smaller color space so you would be losing
quality before you even began to print).

2. Make sure the resolution mode you are using is compatible with the
media, and with color. I.e., if you are using a monochrome mode it will
not matter what color options you are asking for, the specified mode
takes precedence.

3. Set CUPS debug option on in the admin panel.

4. Do a print and look at the debug log, also available from the admin
panel. Maybe you can see what the gutenprint output was specified as.

BTW, since I am current maintainer of the canon backend in gutenprint, I
would welcome any testing you could to. Pre-release of 5.2.10 is out too
(but for MacOSX it is missing the intelligent back-end required for the
various dye-sub photo-printers).

Regards,
Gernot Hassnepflug
--
NNTP on Emacs 24.3 from Windows 7

On 2/17/14 8:10 PM, Gernot Hassenpflug wrote:
"Jonathan L. Parker" writes:

...All of a sudden, however, it won't print in
color. When I try I get only a black-and-white image that's way too
dark and pictures that almost look like photo negatives.
Any ideas where to start?

1. In your CUPS interface make sure you are using RGB for color, not
CMYK...
2. Make sure the resolution mode you are using is compatible with the
media, and with color...
3. Set CUPS debug option on in the admin panel.

Thanks for trying to help, Gernot.

I managed to find an easier resolution. I went back and checked the
list of available drivers for Canon printers and it appears that from
somewhere I've picked up one that appears to be from Canon itself-or the
result of a really good reverse-engineering job-for the BJC-85 printer,
which is very similar to the BJC-50 and uses the same cartridges.
Feeling I had nothing to lose, I went ahead and selected the driver and
after tweaking a few more settings I'm getting color quality about as
good as I get in Windows-and print speed to match. For a 15-year-old
printer only being used as a backup, that's more than enough.

For anyone facing this same problem, the driver I selected was the one
labeled simply "Canon BJC-85," not the one with "CUPS+Gutenprint 5.2.9"
behind it. If anyone wants to try the other driver and let us know how
you make out, that's fine. I'm quitting while I'm ahead.

"Jonathan L. Parker" writes:

On 2/17/14 8:10 PM, Gernot Hassenpflug wrote:
"Jonathan L. Parker" writes:

...All of a sudden, however, it won't print in
color. When I try I get only a black-and-white image that's way too
dark and pictures that almost look like photo negatives.
Any ideas where to start?

1. In your CUPS interface make sure you are using RGB for color, not
CMYK...
2. Make sure the resolution mode you are using is compatible with the
media, and with color...
3. Set CUPS debug option on in the admin panel.

Thanks for trying to help, Gernot.

I managed to find an easier resolution. I went back and checked the
list of available drivers for Canon printers and it appears that from
somewhere I've picked up one that appears to be from Canon itself-or
the result of a really good reverse-engineering job-for the BJC-85
printer, which is very similar to the BJC-50 and uses the same
cartridges. Feeling I had nothing to lose, I went ahead and selected
the driver and after tweaking a few more settings I'm getting color
quality about as good as I get in Windows-and print speed to match.
For a 15-year-old printer only being used as a backup, that's more
than enough.

For anyone facing this same problem, the driver I selected was the one
labeled simply "Canon BJC-85," not the one with "CUPS+Gutenprint
5.2.9" behind it. If anyone wants to try the other driver and let us
know how you make out, that's fine. I'm quitting while I'm ahead.

Hi Jonathan,

Since I'm the maintainer of the gutenprint Canon backend, but did not
write and of the support code for the BJC printers, I want to ask a few
more questions:

1. It appears you are using 5.2.9, but the BJC-50 printer driver in
gutenprint 5.2.9 did not work for color, nor does it produce good B/W
prints?

2. The BJC-85 driver you are now using is not the gutenprint one, but a
different one? What is the exact URL of the print queue now that the
driver is installed?

3. I seem to remember that there is a BJC driver in Ghostscript, but not
sure right now what models it supports.

4. I would be very happy to do some checks of the various modes and
options in the gutenprint code, and modify/correct things if you
would be willing to test. In fact, if I were to send you some raw
print jobs that you could directly send to your printer, that would
be easiest, no need for you to install the driver. Would you be up
for that? It is much better to fix the problem for other people as
well, than to rely on a substitution solution (not that there is
anything wrong with a good alternative).

Regards,
Gernot Hassenpflug
--
NNTP on Emacs 24.3 from Windows 7

On 2/24/14 1:34 AM, Gernot Hassenpflug wrote
Hi Jonathan,

Since I'm the maintainer of the gutenprint Canon backend, but did not
write and of the support code for the BJC printers, I want to ask a few
more questions:

1. It appears you are using 5.2.9, but the BJC-50 printer driver in
gutenprint 5.2.9 did not work for color, nor does it produce good B/W
prints?

That's right. It worked when I first installed it but quit for some reason.


2. The BJC-85 driver you are now using is not the gutenprint one, but a
different one? What is the exact URL of the print queue now that the
driver is installed?

Not quite sure what you mean. Maybe I should remind here that I'm
running Mac OS X 10.6.8 and not Linux.

3. I seem to remember that there is a BJC driver in Ghostscript, but not
sure right now what models it supports.

4. I would be very happy to do some checks of the various modes and
options in the gutenprint code, and modify/correct things if you
would be willing to test. In fact, if I were to send you some raw
print jobs that you could directly send to your printer, that would
be easiest, no need for you to install the driver. Would you be up
for that?
No, not really. As I mentioned, I don't use this printer much anymore
with OS X except as a backup. Also, the BJC-85 driver works way better
than the BJC-50 one ever did.

But thanks again for trying to help.

"Jonathan L. Parker" writes:

On 2/24/14 1:34 AM, Gernot Hassenpflug wrote
Hi Jonathan,

Since I'm the maintainer of the gutenprint Canon backend, but did not
write and of the support code for the BJC printers, I want to ask a few
more questions:

1. It appears you are using 5.2.9, but the BJC-50 printer driver in
gutenprint 5.2.9 did not work for color, nor does it produce good B/W
prints?

That's right. It worked when I first installed it but quit for some
reason.

"Worked": does that mean it printed in color also?


2. The BJC-85 driver you are now using is not the gutenprint one, but a
different one? What is the exact URL of the print queue now that the
driver is installed?

Not quite sure what you mean. Maybe I should remind here that I'm
running Mac OS X 10.6.8 and not Linux.

Sorry, I meant URI.
The URI has nothing to do with linux, it is determined by CUPS.
Basically, where the heck does the driver come from you are using? The
URI will tell us.

Gernot
--
NNTP on Emacs 24.3 from Windows 7

I really doubt this will be of interest to many; there probably aren't a
lot more BJC-50s or BJC-85s still out there. Just in case anyone comes
across this thread, however, I thought I'd help by clarifying where you
can get the BJC-85 driver I referred to in my original post.

Last week I had to reformat my hard drive and reinstall Snow Leopard
from a backup; it just got too corrupted to use anymore with all the
hanging and freezing. I suspect now that creeping corruption is what
did in the original BJC-50 Gutenprint driver installation, because after
finishing the reinstall and getting around to trying to use the printer
I discovered the original driver was working again-if you can call its
glacial several-minutes-per-page pace and ink-drinking performance
"working." But it had never worked any better than that before so
things were back to normal.

I went into the settings to find that BJC-85 driver and lo and behold,
it had disappeared. Frightened, I went to Gutenprint's Soureceforge
page and quickly downloaded and installed the latest version (5.2.10, by
the way), but the driver was still nowhere to be found. There is a
BJC-85 driver incorporated into Gutenprint but I already knew from prior
experience that it doesn't work any better than the one for the BJC-50.
Now thoroughly panicked, I decided to take a longshot bet and go to
Canon's website, and guess what? That driver is there. Search on
"BJC-85" and in the drivers and software section you'll find a .dmg file
that will install it on (I believe) Leopard or later.

Apparently I'd done this before at some point and had forgotten since I
don't think Canon would have countenanced someone incorporating their
code into Gutenprint. Sorry if I led anyone still trying to get a
little more use out of one of these printers astray.

On 2/23/14 6:55 AM, Jonathan L. Parker wrote:


I managed to find an easier resolution. I went back and checked the
list of available drivers for Canon printers and it appears that from
somewhere I've picked up one that appears to be from Canon itself-or the
result of a really good reverse-engineering job-for the BJC-85 printer,
which is very similar to the BJC-50 and uses the same cartridges.
Feeling I had nothing to lose, I went ahead and selected the driver and
after tweaking a few more settings I'm getting color quality about as
good as I get in Windows-and print speed to match. For a 15-year-old
printer only being used as a backup, that's more than enough.

For anyone facing this same problem, the driver I selected was the one
labeled simply "Canon BJC-85," not the one with "CUPS+Gutenprint 5.2.9"
behind it. If anyone wants to try the other driver and let us know how
you make out, that's fine. I'm quitting while I'm ahead.

"Jonathan L. Parker" writes:

I really doubt this will be of interest to many; there probably aren't
a lot more BJC-50s or BJC-85s still out there. Just in case anyone
comes across this thread, however, I thought I'd help by clarifying
where you can get the BJC-85 driver I referred to in my original post.

Hello Jonathan,

I am really glad to hear you could get your printer working again using
the Canon drivers.
You are correct, they have nothing to do with the gutenprint drivers,
which are entirely written from scratch.
The BJC-85 is most certainl in gutenprint, including in 5.2.10, as can
be seen in the printers.xml file (excerpt below):

printer translate="name" name="Canon BJC-85"
deviceid="MFG:Canon;MDL:BJC-85;" driver="bjc-85" manufacturer="Canon"
model="85" parameters="gamma_5_density_800_params"
foomaticid="Canon-BJC-85" /

Why you cannot find it is probably something to do with your personal
settings in your OS, definitely not to do with gutenprint. Unless you
were speaking of the Canon driver, which would not be affected by the
installation or deinstallation of gutenprint in the least.

Last week I had to reformat my hard drive and reinstall Snow Leopard
from a backup; it just got too corrupted to use anymore with all the
hanging and freezing. I suspect now that creeping corruption is what
did in the original BJC-50 Gutenprint driver installation, because
after finishing the reinstall and getting around to trying to use the
printer I discovered the original driver was working again-if you can
call its glacial several-minutes-per-page pace and ink-drinking
performance "working." But it had never worked any better than that
before so things were back to normal.

What is this "original driver", is thath the gutenprint BJC-50? Or
something else?

I went into the settings to find that BJC-85 driver and lo and behold,
it had disappeared. Frightened, I went to Gutenprint's Soureceforge
page and quickly downloaded and installed the latest version (5.2.10,
by the way), but the driver was still nowhere to be found. There is a
BJC-85 driver incorporated into Gutenprint but I already knew from
prior experience that it doesn't work any better than the one for the
BJC-50. Now thoroughly panicked, I decided to take a longshot bet and
go to Canon's website, and guess what? That driver is there. Search
on "BJC-85" and in the drivers and software section you'll find a .dmg
file that will install it on (I believe) Leopard or later.

The fact that the BJC-50 and BJC-85 do not implement the full capability
of the printers is well known to me, but on the other hand, without any
testing system, I have not indulged in adding capabilities
(resolutions). If you have some feedback on the gutenprint driver, I
would be happy to hear it, as I am the volunteer maintaining support for
Canon inkjets on the gutenprint project.

Naturally, the BJC series is pretty old and has been there from long
before my time as a maintainer, so I am not very familiar with how the
BJC series performs. Any improvements I could implement I will certainly
do my best to do so.

Apparently I'd done this before at some point and had forgotten since
I don't think Canon would have countenanced someone incorporating
their code into Gutenprint. Sorry if I led anyone still trying to get
a little more use out of one of these printers astray.

OK, that is good news, Canon often drops new OS support for older
printers, as is common with other manufacturers also.

Feel free to drop me a line by email, or on the gutenprint mailing list
also.

Best regards,
Gernot Hassenpflug

On 2/23/14 6:55 AM, Jonathan L. Parker wrote:


I managed to find an easier resolution. I went back and checked the
list of available drivers for Canon printers and it appears that from
somewhere I've picked up one that appears to be from Canon itself-or the
result of a really good reverse-engineering job-for the BJC-85 printer,
which is very similar to the BJC-50 and uses the same cartridges.
Feeling I had nothing to lose, I went ahead and selected the driver and
after tweaking a few more settings I'm getting color quality about as
good as I get in Windows-and print speed to match. For a 15-year-old
printer only being used as a backup, that's more than enough.

For anyone facing this same problem, the driver I selected was the one
labeled simply "Canon BJC-85," not the one with "CUPS+Gutenprint 5.2.9"
behind it. If anyone wants to try the other driver and let us know how
you make out, that's fine. I'm quitting while I'm ahead.



--
NNTP on Emacs 24.3 from Windows 7