Network Mystery and Canon puzzle

I'm aware this isn't strictly a mac security issue, but it's still annoying the hell out of me! I'm a recent convert to mac and have a brand new imac. But whilst the rest of my network can see and access the mac, it can't see any PC on the ethernet network, all it picks up is the wireless connection to my laptop.

I'm at a loss to think why this could be and would welcome any suggestions.

Secondly I upgraded my Canon Printer and now for some strange reason, it refuses to share with the other PCs on the network. The older 4200 had no such issues, but the Canon IP4500 just will not work over the network, even though I ticked "share this printer". The colour laser printer which is set up as a print server is freely accessed so I can print from each PC, but it annoys me that I can only use the Canon if I'm working on the mac.

I don't have too much experience with Macs... but do you have the workgroup set? I could definitely be mistaken, but I think you have to set the workgroup name for the Mac to be the same as the Windows workgroup you want to join. This should be under system prefs, then network, and then click the advanced button for your connection. I think you can change the workgroup under WINS. I could be way off, or you may have already done this, but I figure it is worth a shot.

Good luck, and merry Christmas!

MAC file and prints services for windows running on the windows boxes?

westin, yes all the PCs are on the same network, called MSHOME. Remember too that the network works in one direction. ie I can access the mac and all the files, folders etc from both the lapatop and the PC running Vista Ultimate, it can only see the laptop on the wireless connection and not this PC on the ethernet connection.

dinowuff, I'm afraid I don't really understand what you mean. There's a mac file and print service among windows services?

Do you have any kind of firewall running on the PC? You might try disabling that to see if it makes a difference. Can you ping the PC?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Moira

dinowuff, I'm afraid I don't really understand what you mean. There's a mac file and print service among windows services?

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Yea, add remove windows programs

here's a link to the server instructions. pretty much the same for workstations, just need to browse the install CD for the service.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/323421

By "seeing" do you mean ping or browse? Or either/both? I remember having some issues with my mixed network at first and having to go through a few things.

Under the Mac settings, do you have the Windows Workgroup set?

Under the Mac Sharing Settings there's Windows File Sharing and Personal File Sharing, I think I have both turned on on my Macs(Not home right now).

Can you ping any Windows boxes from the Mac?

Do you have any shares set up on the Windows PCs?

I can ping, but only the IP address of the PC and laptop, whereas from the PC, I can ping the mac either by name or IP address. In fact the situation seems to be getting worse not better. When I try to add the printer to the laptop or here, everything goes fine until I try to print a test page. Then I'm told I don't have "permission" to access the Canon Printer. And now I can't even get the mac to see the laptop - at least it used to do that before I fiddled around with network properties and WINS etc.

dinowuff, thanks for that suggeston, but I think it's meant more for mac users who are trying to connect to windows print servers. My mac has no problem. It happily accesses the colour laser which is a network printer, and uses the canon printer which is attahed to it. I have come across reports of people who have had issues with this printer actually - apparently there's a patch you can apply, and written somewhere in the instructions is a warning that it won't connect to a windows machine. However, someone else tried this patch (whatever it is) and had no luck.

Slartarama, I have masses of shares set up on each PC. I have the same workgroup name but I can't find any Windows File Sharing and Personal File Sharing - there are frustratingly few options to play around with.

The only firewall on the PCs is the built in Vista firewall. But printer and file sharing is turned on etc, I actually consider myself quite good with networks lol, or did before this! Now I feel a complete n00b. I'm sure when I first got the mac, me and a friend got everything networked properly and of course I had the Canon IP4200 printer which was no problem at all. Then my Dad was giving his away, so I upgraded to the Canon IP4500 and things don't work any more. I suppose it doesn't matter, in that every computer has access to a printer, and if I print photos it's generally from the mac as their IPhoto software is good, free and generally makes a better job of my photos.

I was about to say that Bluetooth actually works, but the last time I connected from my phone, I got to the image folder and it couldn't seem to "see" the photos inside.

This seems like a good step by step. (I'm not in front of my Mac)

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1812?viewlocale=en_US

But I have 10.4, whatever giant cat that is, if you have 10.5 try this:

http://www.ehow.com/video_4442412_se...ng-mac-os.html

It looks different from mine, but I figured this might help. I just rremember having a pain setting up the two to talk to one another when I first got Macs.

Thank you Slartarama :) I will bookmark these pages and try tomorrow, as I've just got back from watching Blyth Spartans play Blackburn and have to be up at 4.45 am for work and I've been here before :D ended up not even getting to bed thanks to starting something that looked simple and ended up getting personal between me and the equipment involved.

The strange thing is, it used to work better than it does now! I'm sure I had two way networking at the beginning and I definitely know the laptop was picked up by the mac's wireless connection. Could I be causing problem having both the ethernet and wireless networking active on the mac?

Another thing I could try is boot into the other OS, Windows XP and see if that works both ways - in fact I don't know why I haven't done that before :)

Many thanks for your continued help and I'll let you know how I get on tomorrow night.

Hi, sorry I have neglected this thread for a while, but I've had a heap of urgent personal stuff to take care of plus I'm currently off work sick with an eye ulcer so I've had to keep computer monitor viewing to a more moderate number of hours so it doesn't aggravate my eye.

I did boot into the XP partition on the mac. And guess what? Networking is no problem in either direction! The XP partition can see both the laptop and the PC here. The only difference I can think of is I have the mac connecting both wirelessly and by ethernet - it does so by default. I tried turning one off then the other, but it makes no difference at all. I wonder if letting DHCP set the IP address would help? I just don't want it taking one of the static internal addresses I reserve for particular PCs for the purpose of port forwarding. Like, if the laptop was switched off, I don't want the mac to grab 10.0.0.8, plus I don't see why the mac should mind having a manual configuration - the Windows XP partition does, and that networks perfectly.

I haven't tried adding a network printer to the Windows PCs while in the XP partition to see if I can get the Canon to share .... that would be something to try, but I believe it is a compatibility problem with this particular printer and mac. Just seems strange that a newer model of printer should raise an issue with imacs that didn't exist on the previous model.

Anyway, I will now try Slartarama's links and see how I get on. Thanks again.