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Printer Google

Google Cloud Print Is Turning Off Epson Printers (pcmag.com) 73

Posted by msmash from the printer-woes dept.
When Google launched Cloud Print, it removed a lot of the hassle from using a printer. Instead of a printer only printing documents from the PC it was connected to, Cloud Print allowed any device, be it a Windows PC, Mac, Chromebook, smartphone, tablet, etc. to print to any printer either locally or remotely. However, Google Cloud Print has gone awry this week, as reports PCMag, and Epson printer owners are suffering because of it. From the article: A thread appeared on the Chromebook Central Help Forum explaining a problem where an Epson XP-410$185.00 at Amazon printer was turning itself off after 30 seconds. The printer worked without issue for two years, but now it wouldn't stay powered on. At first, this seems like a printer hardware problem, but the printer started working again once it was disconnected from the Internet. However, as soon as Google Print Cloud was enabled, the automatic power down happened again. Later in the support thread an Epson WF-4630 owner reports the same issue, as do XP-215, XP-415, XP-610, WF-545, WF-845, and WF-7610 owners.A change in Google's API for its cloud service triggered the issue, reports ArsTechnica. The change has caused a conflict between Cloud Print and printers' firmware.

Update: Epson has responded to Slashdot, pointing us to its support page that has instructions on how to fix the issue on many of Epson printers.
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Google Cloud Print Is Turning Off Epson Printers More

Google Cloud Print Is Turning Off Epson Printers

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  • I'm ok with that (Score:4, Interesting)

    by eneville ( 745111 ) on Thursday December 08, 2016 @12:31PM (#53447011) Homepage

    Printers spend a lot of their time performing idle cycles. Seems ok to me if the device is powered off automatically so long as it has WOL.

    • That ain't what happened. What happens is the printer is turned off and won't print because of the bug in the firmware that shuts it down because of the CloudPrint API. The problem now is things are so complex, and there are so many API endpoints involved in printing a document. Do people really need to print to their printer when they are outside their LAN?

      • Re:I'm ok with that (Score:4, Interesting)

        by ADRA ( 37398 ) on Thursday December 08, 2016 @12:44PM (#53447065)

        They do when their native printing device (phones/tablets anyone?) don't have every print driver known to man pre-installed ready to go.

        • Ah I see...good point. Didn't think of that. I learn something new every day. I didn't know people printed from phones/tablets. I'm a 1980s guy.

          • Re:I'm ok with that (Score:5, Funny)

            by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Thursday December 08, 2016 @01:06PM (#53447193)

            I didn't know people printed from phones/tablets. I'm a 1980s guy.

            Me too. So I asked my millennial daughter if she uses a printer from her phone, and she said "What's a ``printer``?"

            • As someone who is in charge of printer services, and google cloud print and such for 15000 users, I can assure you that my goal is to be "Paper Less" as fast as possible. It is an ongoing goal, and hence it isn't "paperless". There are times people still need hard copies, but getting people to print less has to be a sustained effort to educate people on alternatives.

              That being said, most teachers still want hard copy versions of student work, because it is faster and easier to grade 30 assignments on paper

              • most teachers still want hard copy versions of student work, because it is faster and easier to grade 30 assignments on paper than it is to do so on digital

                This seems backwards to me. Digital docs can be automatically scanned for spelling, grammar errors, run-on sentences, and even poor paragraph structure. Then the human grader can just focus on the quality of the points being made.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Yet somehow Apple's AirPrint handles this gracefully. Oh, that's right, it's just local CUPS over ethernet, an amazingly simple solution that doesn't involve sending your documents to Google's NSAPrint service to be sent back to you from Google's CUPS server over ethernet.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by anegg ( 1390659 )
            I agree strongly that using a cloud-based service to print from a phone/tablet to a local printer is all kinds of stupid, but I'd be a bit happier with Apple's AirPrint if they would just provide the AirPrint service as part of the Mac OS. Having to buy a special printer OR paying a third party $$ to add an AirPrint service to my local Mac server is undesirable to me.

            • apple does not have Mac servers any more and the mini and mac pro are very poor fits.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by anegg ( 1390659 )
                Any Macintosh computer can be turned into a lightweight server for $20. Its not an enterprise-class, but it works well for a home environment. My need is for a local calendar and contacts and some file services so that I can host my own and not dump all my family's personal data out on Google. Add in a VPN on my home router so that I can get to it securely from anyplace with Internet access, and Bob's your uncle. I picked up a refurbished iMac with a 27" screen, 3.4GHz Quad Core i5, 8 GB of RAM, 802.11a

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by jrumney ( 197329 )
              It's a very small configuration change in the CUPS config to enable AirPrint. I've done it on a Linux server years ago, but I thought it came preconfigured that way on Macs (at least back then).

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Redfriar ( 85415 )
        Exactly, this condition means you cannot use your printer. Eventually, I found I had about 20 seconds from power-on before the forcible power off. It turns out this is just enough time to get into the configuration menu and initiate a factory reset. After the configuration is clear, the printer behaves once again. >>Do people really need to print to their printer when they are outside their LAN? I didn't need to print outside my LAN, but I did use the feature to allow the kids' chromebooks access to

  • Only apps can app apps! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Google's App Print is turning off LUDDITE Epson printers because they're LUDDITE printers. Modern app appers only use appy app apps to app APPS, NOT LUDDITE printers!

    Apps!
  • My Epson printer went in the trash earlier this week because it became non-responsive and went into a boot loop. Sounds very much like symptoms described here. It never occurred to me that Google Cloud Print would be the culprit. What a waste!

  • People use this? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Thursday December 08, 2016 @12:47PM (#53447095) Homepage Journal
    I can't believe people willingly send their documents to Google where they will be processed by their systems and stored for however long.

    • Re:People use this? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by 110010001000 ( 697113 ) on Thursday December 08, 2016 @12:48PM (#53447099) Homepage Journal
      Perhaps you missed the Google "Do No Evil" pledge. They wouldn't do anything like that.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by grub ( 11606 )
        Anyone who defends this convenience-over-privacy should download and print Jihadi-type information, nuke plans, bio-weapons info, etc. through this service and see how long it is before there is a knock on their door.

        • Anyone who defends this convenience-over-privacy should download and print Jihadi-type information, nuke plans, bio-weapons info, etc. through this service and see how long it is before there is a knock on their door.

          Sure. Got a link? I have absolutely zero concern about any sort of problem like that.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        It's "don't be evil"! That does not preclude DOING evil if you can do it without actually BEING evil ;)

    • I can't believe people willingly send their documents to Google where they will be processed by their systems and stored for however long.

      I love it. It's super convenient to be able to print to my printer from any device, anywhere. Even when I'm printing from a computer rather than my phone or tablet, I frequently find that the native print drivers are unreliable and buggy over the network, and especially over Wifi. Not so much that I can't get it to connect and print with a little fiddling but Google Cloud Print just works, every time. As for Google "processing" the documents, (a) I'm fairly certain they don't data mine Cloud Print data and

  • When a cloud service has a issue with firmware, it's the cloud service that's the problem.

    Google's QA is just as good as it always is, apparently.

  • Epson Keeps You Safe (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    If you do something stupid like connect your printer to the Internet, Epson takes care of you and prevents any damage done.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Autoinserted by PCMag's adware, carelessly copy-pasted by the submitter. (If they'd been trying to slip it past as an ad, they would've made it an affiliate link.)

      Just an accidental inclusion. You know, the sort of thing that an editor would catch and correct. Hypothetically speaking.

  • I miss my FX-82., Wait, no I don't.

    Fanfold was nice for listings though.

  • Anyone who has ever worked with the Google WebService APIs should know that Google absolutely has zero concern for backward compatibility or supporting old versions of APIs. They would often deprecate old versions of the Adwords API and make radical changes to it every few months. This was a constant headache for developers who had to work with these things. It's funny now that they are involved with hardware that they think they can be so flippant.

  • Didn't even know Epson was still in business, all printers I've used in the last 15 years were HP, Canon, Ricoh, Xerox, or Kyrocera. Or were one of those with say "Dell" slapped onto case.

    How about you Epson weirdos buy a mainstream printer?

    • yeah forgot "Brother" in that list, but really that's it, 99% of global printer market in a nutshell

  • If there is a silver lining in this cloud it's Epson's choice of printer defaults - I just set up a ew Epson printer at home a few days ago and in browsing though the settings I noticed "Google Cloud Print" was set to "off".

    "What's that"? I wondered, but made no move to enable it... now I'm rather glad.

    So it seems like not nearly as many Epson users will be affected as might have been...

    It's interesting to think about where blame should be apportioned in all this. At first you might think it's Google, but h

  • Somebody found a bug in a piece of proprietary software. This is news? It happens all the time. Google will fix it soon and we'll all forget about it. Nothing to see here, folks.

    • Somebody found a bug in a piece of proprietary software. This is news? It happens all the time. Google will fix it soon and we'll all forget about it. Nothing to see here, folks.

      For those who have an Epson printer and did not know that this could happen, it is definitely news.

      If you think it is not, then you are probably in the wrong forum.

  • Android CUPS Printing (Score:3)

    by Zombie Ryushu ( 803103 ) on Thursday December 08, 2016 @03:28PM (#53448127)

    Android CUPS Printing. Advertises through AVAHI, works on Smart Phones, solves the problem. No Google involvement.

    • Android CUPS Printing. Advertises through AVAHI, works on Smart Phones, solves the problem. No Google involvement.

      My Android phone with the HP print service installed just finds my HPLJ2300 on the network. No server involvement, beyond the Jetdirect card. ISTR paying $200 for it, and then I went ahead and ponied up another hundred bucks for an additional tray, a postscript DIMM, and a 128MB DIMM.

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