Solving a Printer Problem When Updating Mac to Lion or Mountain Lion

I recently replaced my old, good, but huge Mac Pro tower, which weighs 50 pounds, with a Mac Mini (i7 processor running at 2.6 Ghz) that is faster and does just about everything I need.  The Mac Mini weighs about 2 pounds.  I have been pretty impressed with the Mac Mini. 



I ran into a problem when trying to print to my Canon MF4370dn laser printer.  All my other Macs, running OS 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard) can print to this networked printer just fine.  My Mac Mini steadfastly refused to print to the printer.  I did a lot of research on forums to find the solution. 

Here's the solution that worked for me in case you run into this problem.  Farther down in this post, I discuss other things that I tried that did not work, but might work for other folks with printer problems. 

I fixed the problem by doing a "reset the printer system"!  Thanks to the poster who wrote:

I then tried Apple.  What seemed to do the trick was to reset the printing system. (For others in the same boat, here is info on how to do this: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1341?viewlocale=en_us&locale=en_us )

Mac OS X: How to reset the printing system

This article explains how to reset the printing system in Mac OS X.

Mac OS X includes a Reset Printing System troubleshooting function that you might want to use after you try all other printing troubleshooting steps for Mac OS X 10.6 or later, or Mac OS X 10.5.8 or earlier.

What does Reset Printing System do?

• Deletes all queues and jobs.
• Resets all printer settings to their default by deleting configuration files.
• Performs a permissions check on the /tmp directory.

Any printers, scanners, or fax modems that previously appeared in System Preferences will need to be added again after resetting the printing system.

Resetting the printing system in OS X Lion

To use the Reset Printing System function in Lion, follow these steps:

1. Choose System Preferences from the Apple menu.
2. Choose Print & Scan from the View menu.
3. Hold down the Option key while clicking the "-" (Remove printer) button. If no printers are currently added, hold down the Control key while clicking in the box that appears above the "+" (Add printer) button, then choose Reset printing system… from the contextual menu.

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Here's a description of the problem that I had:

I have a Canon MF4370dn printer.  It is connected to my network via Ethernet, and it works fine with all my older Macs, all running 10.4.11 to 10.6.8. 

I have a new Mac Mini running 10.8.4.  I can't print to this Canon printer.  I've downloaded the new drivers, removed the old drivers, and done just about all the things suggested in other posts.  I am stuck at this message:

"printed output may be incorrect because the printer information has not been acquired
Start Printer Utility to get the printer information"

I will click the Printer Information button, and get the error message:

May not have been able to get the printer information.
If the contents in the [Printer Information] dialog differs from the actual printer configuration, check that the printer is functioning correctly, then try again to get the printer information.

The printer works fine if I print to it using another Mac.  I can't get past this error message in my Mac Mini running OS 10.8.4. 

The Printer Information window does pop up showing a picture of the printer. 
It says:

Canon MF4360-4390 UFRII LT (US)
Configuration:

Communication Method Unidirectional
Duplex United Available. 

I can hit OK on that window, which takes me back to the previous window, but I can't "Save Settings" on that window (which has the printer Information button on it). 

Here's my printer information:

Canon MF4360-4390(0B:8F:A7):

  Status:    Idle
  Print Server:    Local
  Driver Version:    2.0
  Default:    Yes
  Shared:    No
  URI:    dnssd://Canon%20MF4360-4390(0B%3A8F%3AA7)._printer._tcp.local.
  PPD:    Canon MF4360-4390 UFRII LT (UK)
  PPD File Version:    2.0
  PostScript Version:    (3010.000) 550
(3010.000) 651
  CUPS Version:    1.6.2 (cups-327.6)
  Scanning support:    No
  Printer Commands:    AutoConfigure Clean PrintSelfTestPage
  CUPS filters:
cupstomcdufr2:
  Path:    /Library/Printers/Canon/UFR2/Cores/cupstomcdufr2/Contents/MacOS/cupstomcdufr2
  Permissions:    rwxr-xr-x
  Version:    2.43
commandfilefilter:
  Path:    /Library/Printers/Canon/UFR2/Cores/commandfilefilter
  Permissions:    rwxr-xr-x
  Fax support:    No
  Printer utility:    /Library/Printers/Canon/UFR2/Utilities/Canon UFRII Printer Utility.app
  Printer utility version:    2.43
  PDEs:
FinishingPDE.plugin:
  Sandbox compliant:    Yes

 Here are the various solutions that were suggested on forums and which I tried:

1.  From https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4154521?start=0&tstart=0: remove the old printer drivers and install the latest printer drivers:

So you need to get your setup using the latest versions available for both. The first step is to remove the Canon printers from your Print & Scan pane. Then you need to open Finder and navigate to HD > Library > Printers > Canon and trash the UFR2 folder. Then navigate to HD > Library > LaunchAgents and trash the file "jp.co.canon.UFR2.BG.plist".

With that completed, you need to stop the UFR2 Backgrounder service and you do this via Activity Monitor. With the monitor open, scroll through UFR II Backgrounder and then press the Quit Process button and then press Force Quit when the next window appears and exit Activity Monitor.

With this service stopped it would be ideal if you can empty the Trash before installing the v2.43 driver again.

Now install the v2.43 driver and add your printer and then check the System Information screen again. It should show 2.43 in both sections where mine shows 2.41. If it does, then try to print and see if this stops the message from appearing.

2.  The above did not work for me. 
The very great user PAHU on Apple's forums has several posts on printer problems.  He wrote this:
It sounds like an application or other process is stopping the UFRII Backgrounder process from opening. To check, open the Console application (Applications > Utilities) and with the All Messages selected, click in the Filter box and enter UFR. This should change the view so that only entries with UFR are listed and you should now see if the UFRII Backgrounder is attempting to open and hopefully what is stopping it from doing so.

So I checked my Console and saw this message repeating every minute:
9/20/13 11:29:43.855 AM com.apple.launchd.peruser.501[284]: (jp.co.canon.UFR2.BackGrounder) Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds






Some process or activity was preventing the Canon  UFRII Backgrounder from running. 

Doing the printer reset as described above finally got the printer to work.