After nearly six months Canon has finally given us a 10.5 Leopard Driver for the ipf ImageProGraph Printers. In true Canon IPF Support fashion, this driver is also broken. I have been on the phone with tech support and invested nearly 10 more hours trying to figure this out. I have faxed them numerous logs, they have their software engineers on it, and still nothing (if you’re wondering, the firmware updater works, the ps print plugin works, and the UI works, so this is not a problem with my “setup” or network. Their driver is junk). I am going to leave all my posts criticizing Cannon’s support of the products on my website, because I believe the people who are considering buying an Canon Large Format Printer should know what type of service to expect from Canon. Honestly, if I were going to purchase a large format printer I would look to Epson and HP (not just because of this but because of my nearly two years of experience with Canon support). Here is a link to the IPF8000 Leopard 10.5 driver that is broken….
If you have been following the Canon ipf Leopard Driver snafu on this website you know I have been patient. I have posted the workaround for it. I have called Canon Customer Service multiple times for information about when the drivers and software for Leopard 10.5 will be released. I have even given Canon the benefit of the doubt on it.
I am sorry to say that I have officially lost my patience with the company and its ability to support any imagePROGRAF Printers (ipf8000, ipf9000, ipf5000, ipf5100, ipf6100, ipf8100, ipf9100). It has been months since Leopard was released and the software people at Canon can’t even get us a driver that will work under Apple Leopard. Really, how hard is this ?
So because of this, my advice to you, as a person who owns a Canon ipf8000, is to purchase an Epson or HP Wide-Format Printer and avoid this company all together. I would say the same thing even if you are running Windows. The failure of Canon to provide us with software in a timely manner is a direct reflection of they way the support all their products.
I am sorry to arrive at this conclusion, but I can no longer in good faith let people think they should buy a Canon ipf printer.
Tags: Canon, drivers, epson, ipf8000, Leopard, purchase advice, wide format printer
John wrote,
While I understand your frustration with Canon (and agree that there is no excuse for such shoddy support), I think you are going a bit far in advising Windows users not to buy the Canon printers. After the initial iPF5000 kinks were worked out, I have had zero problems with my iPF5000 or iPF6100–which is not something I could say for the HP Designjet and Epson 9600 printers I owned in the past.
–John
Link | May 17th, 2008 at 9:31 pm
jon wrote,
Hi John,
I understand and appreciate your perspective. I think you are seeing the proverbial glass a full and I am seeing it a empty (along with my wallet). I do believe that support goes both ways. If you have a Canon ipf8000 and are using windows, you are lucky. Things could be different. The rate at which a company solves problems in one area is indicative of they way it solves them in other areas. Really, how long should it take a company to write a driver for ANY OS? We are not talking about a “buy-a-computer-get-a-free-printer” printer here. This is a 5500 dollar printer that I have had to use a work around for almost six months. I have invested hundreds of hours troubleshooting problems with this printer, have had major service calls, banding problems, huge ink wastage as a result of it, and wasted hundreds of hours trying to get it to preform at even the basic level.
I have been patient and given Canon the benefit of the doubt, but I have lost to much money and productivity to recommend Canon ipf printers. I realize that others feel differently and that is what makes discussion like this worth while. Perhaps I was a bit harsh, but I still think that people should consider issues like these when they make a purchasing decision.
Link | May 17th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
Scott Martin wrote,
It sounds like you have had a bad experience with what’s probably a small pool of machines and printers. Your case is isolated and doesn’t reflect what other users are experiencing. Have you tried printing from more than one machine? I work with a large client base using x000 and x100 printers on many flavors of Mac and Windows. I have many users with the 8000 and Leopard. Not only have the x000 printers been working just fine on Leopard since it was announced there have been people at the Canon wiki discussing it.
Your article sounds like you are seeking vengeance rather than trying to help the general public. Feel free to ask for help on getting your setup running but I don’t think it’s responsible to publish articles saying its “broken” without doing more homework.
Link | May 19th, 2008 at 9:27 am
jon wrote,
“Your article sounds like you are seeking vengeance rather than trying to help the general public. Feel free to ask for help on getting your setup running but I don’t think it’s responsible to publish articles saying its “broken” without doing more homework.”
I am now up to 12 hours of “homework” since the release of THIS driver (in addition to dozenes and dozens of hours of workarounds I have spent printing to the ipf8000, when canon ADMITTED they did not have a driver for x000 machines under Leopard). So calling Canon 4 different times, faxing and emailing logs, having their higher level “engineers” look into the problem, etc doesn’t count as doing my homework? We seem to have a different definition of “homework”. My article was a fair and responsible (actually, it was rather tame) account of my ipf8000 experience. Believe me, I wish I were in your shoes, but I won’t speak for your experiences. They are not mine. It is quite possible and plausible that we have very different experiences although we may own the same printer. Nevertheless hearing that some people are getting their ipf machines to print with Leopard makes me think this is a resolvable problem. Either the driver is broken or Canon can’t tell me how to get their driver to work. I have been on the phone with them between 3-4 hours.
This is where I currenlty am with this problem.
Firmware is updated to 1.32 using the canon firmware updater (seems like my network setup is fine)
Photoshop Plugin can export file and it will print properly on ipf8000 (seems like my network works fine).
Browser UI works fine (seems like my network works fine).
Have installed and reinstalled the driver multiple times (seems like their driver is broken).
I have installed the driver on a ppc and an intel running Leopard (seems like the driver is broken).
Printed fine under Tiger (seems like my network was fine and seem like the Leopard driver is broken).
Have reset print settings.
The Canon customer service people have walked me through these steps with identical outcomes (seems like even Canon can’t tell me how to get their driver to work).
The driver installs, apparently as an ipf5000 driver, because the print driver shows a picture of an ipf5000 in the interface and the only media selectable is Plain Paper (seems like the driver is broken).
The most recent MCT from canon crashes when I attempt to upload media to the printer (seems like something is broken).
I have installed and uninstalled the drivers, tried multiple downloads of the driver and Media Configuration Tool.
It is good to know that people here have ipf8000s that work under Leopard. I am going to call Canon Support later and see what they can tell me.
Link | May 19th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
jay wrote,
UGGGGH…alllll morning on phone with tech support
their answer…reinstall leopard (AGAIN)…
My 8100 worked great under tiger…under leopard…wont work..
The plugin doesnt want to use the profiles…
HELP
Link | June 25th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
jay wrote,
SAME problems
8100 ..leopard upgrade
HOURS of tech support
NO answer
the plugin wont use the profiles!
Link | June 25th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
arnold henri wrote,
Wouldn’t it be wiser to buy a windows PC, and be happy ?
Leave the Leopard for those people that are no pros and want the new OS.
Already heard from pros that use Windows Vista ? They stick to XP for the time being.
Our 9100 works to full satisfaction. Service is splendid.
(we bought a 5 year maintenance contract when we bought the printer)
We had 2 problems which were solved by a Canon technician the next day !!
Link | July 18th, 2008 at 9:18 am
jon wrote,
On May 19th I called Canon again to get information about what their higher level software engineers said.
The (lower level) support representative, lets call him Paul, said that the problem was with my installation of Leopard and that I needed to reinstall my entire operating system.
To me this was evidence that the Canon representatives had no idea what was wrong or how to fix the problem. So I called Paul on it and the conversation went something like this.
Paul, do you realize that it takes hours and hours to reinstall and reconfigure a computer like this one. Did the “software engineers” say what they thought was wrong, and exactly how this would remedy the problem? He said they did not know what was wrong. This is a clear indication that the fix they suggested, reinstalling Leopard, was likely not the proper one. I said, basically it sounds like you’re giving me the b.s. copout that all software support people give when they don’t know what else to do; they tell the customer to reinstall the operating system. He agreed, believe it or not.
There was simply nothing, nothing, that reinstalling my operating system was going to do to fix this problem.
And in the end I was right. After all the time I had already wasted on the phone with Canon, I suggested that we run through everything again. Download new driver, reset printing, blah blah blah, nothing worked. Then I thought, we’ll maybe this time I will chose LDP instead of IP Printing when I set up the printer (it ran under IP Printing in Tiger). And bang, it worked.
So after dozens of hours on the phone with Canon, faxing them my logs (including NETWORK logs), having their software engineers look at everything, and being on the verge of telling me to spend hours wiping and rebuilding my whole computer for the operation of ONE SINGLE DRIVER, the problem was fixed by simply the way the printer was specified in the network. There really is no excuse for Canon not knowing this (especially since it was escalated) and for this to have been the first thing they suggested checking. Yes I’m glad that my ipf8000 will now print with Leopard. And yes, I am tired of this type of support from Canon regarding this printer.
Link | August 1st, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Mark wrote,
In addition to using LDP, my office was able to add the printer under the Bonjour setting. All the paper types are there, and it looks and acts just like the Tiger (Mac OSX 10.4) version. We were having loads of trouble with only one paper type showing up and the illustration of the printer being wrong. Here’s a few of the settings from our Print & Fax window in System Preferences.
Options & Supplies… > General tab:
Queue Name: Canon_iPF8000 ***IMPORTANT NOTE BELOW***
Host Name: localhost
Driver Version: 1.30
URL: garobe://Canon%20iPF8000%20286AF793%29/_printer._tcp.local./?bon
Options & Supplies… > Driver tab:
Print Using: Canon iPF8000(CUPS)
*** We’ve found that if leave the default queue name as is, you get a bad URL address like the one listed below. Try renaming the default queue name when you add the printer if your “URL” keeps displaying as:
socket://192.168.X.X:9100/?bidi
Link | August 18th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
maroello wrote,
“Don’t Buy a Canon IPF cause of drivers for OSx 10.5″
Do you think it’s better with other’s brands ? Do you know situation ?
Link | August 26th, 2008 at 12:56 am
Duncan Staples wrote,
You need to know who to call at Canon. Shoot me an email for a good support contact.
duncan
Link | January 18th, 2009 at 12:12 am