How-to: Canon MF4150 works with Snow Leopard
By rockia on Sep 29, 2009 with Comments 23
My main printer at home is Canon’s MF4150 Laser Printer. It’s a multifunction printer that has Faxing, Printing, Photo Copying and Scanning; however, due to the fact that Canon “thinks” Mac users is not worth to have all these functions, only printing function was supported, and only in Leopard at this moment.
Since I upgraded my OS to Snow Leopard, I didn’t really try my printer at all as I usually print my documents at school. However, I finally need to deal with the printer tonight when I push my printing task to this MF4150; it just won’t print.
I knew it was about the incompatibility between MF4150 and Snow Leopard; well, it is not working very well with Leopard anyways. So I did a quick search on Canon’s website and hopefully they updated the driver. Yet the result is disappointing; they didn’t add other functions supported on Mac nor updated the driver so the printing function is working under Snow Leopard. The latest build of the driver is UFRII 1.8 for OSX which is not working on Snow Leopard, and they are not likely going to release the driver before the end of October 2009.
However, I accidentally found that they released an updated driver for imageCLASS MF4350d, and the driver is UFRII version 2.0 which is more likely to be a recent build from version 1.8. So I download the file and gave it a try. The installation was straigh forward; in order to make sure the driver is loaded properly, I restarted my computer although it’s not required by the installer. When I go back to my “Preference”->”Print & Fax”->”Add”, I clicked on my “Canon MF4100 series”, and Snow Leopard seems to recognize it back. Then I did a quick printing test and everything seems to be working fine.
Here is the link that you might be able to download the driver:
http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelInfoAct&fcategoryid=124&modelid=17450
UPDATE: (Thanks Thomas for his email reminder)
Seems like Canon has already released a driver for Mac OS 10.6, it’s the same one I found, you can just click the above link to download it; but if you would like to download from official site, here is the link: Download MF4150 drivers from Canon. Make sure you select “Mac OS X” for the OS drop down menu.)
For those who didn’t use this printer on Mac before, here are some limitations you might be interested to look at before you buy this printer:
Limitations for Mac OS X 10.6
1. Cannot print or communicate with a printer after performing “Reset Printing System” in “Print & Fax” in System Preferences. (UFRII/UFR LT v2.00, Fax v3.00) Workaround:Reinstall printer driver.
2. Error will be displayed when the Help button on any print dialog is clicked. (UFRII/UFR LT v2.00, Fax v3.00) Workaround: Directly access help file.
3. When printing Excel file which contains multiple sheets with different paper orientation, all sheet will be printed with paper orientation of selected sheet. (UFRII v2.00) No workaround These limitations will be fixed in the next release version.
Regarding so many issues on the Duplex Printing, I personally contact Canon, here is their replay via Email:
Thank you for your E-mail inquiry regarding your Image Class MF4150.
We would like to provide a response to your inquiry via email, however due to the nature or complexity of the subject matter, we feel that we would best be able to address your inquiry via telephone. This will allow us to provide you with more interactive, personal response to your inquiry.
Please call our Customer Information Centre at your earliest convenience at 1-800-OK CANON [1-800-652-2666]. We are available Monday through Friday from 9:00am to 8:00pm EST (excluding holidays) and would be more than happy to assist you.
Should you require further assistance, please feel free to email us or visit our customer support website at http://www.canon.ca
Sincerely,
(Technician’s Name Omitted)
Technical Support Representative
Customer Information Centre
Canon Canada Inc.
Then I called them up at the number provided, the technician guided me through a lot of stuffs but the problem is not solved; they have no clue at all.
UPDATE2:
Thanks to David Taylor’s comments, now we have a working driver, which is the latest “UFR_II_V205_MacOSX_us_EN.dmg”, you can download from Canon’s official site.
Filed Under: Featured • Operating Systems
hi there. i’m glad i found this post. thanks!
it worked for me too.. BUT i’ve yet to figure out how to print double sided . have you?
i found a “2 sided” option box in “drivers” sub-tab under the “options & supplies” button on the main “print & fax” utilities menu item, and i did check that.
but when i went to print i have not yet been able to find where to select that option when about to send a doc to print.
Do you know how to do that?
[just switched from a pc to this mac, and i'm thrilled. had the printer with my old pc and it worked great there too]
thanks
jeff
@jeff roth
Dear Jeff, sorry, I don’t know how to make MF4150 double side printing works with Snow Leopard yet. This printer is lucky enough to have driver working on Mac already since Canon wasn’t building this one to work with Mac. I am guessing I will get a new printer with similar features and got full support on Mac.
But anyways, I will update here when I have any good news.
i figured it out. a few things.
first i called canon to ask when the driver for the mf4150 would be in os 10.6. he said a month or two.
then googled it and it took me to a link for a driver to download..and voila! it was the Same driver as the one you mentioned in your post. so there you have it .. it’s done and done. and the full functionality is there.
when i downloaded it–and you too– you may have noticed a .pdf which is the user manual. i did, and the double sided functionality implimentation is described therein.
so i dont think we’ll be needing to buy a new printer just yet. which is pretty great becasue without being too much of a geek the mf4150 totally rocks–at rock bottom pricing. way better than the $400 comparable Brother series which i’d been using for years.
but heck you can get a color laser multifuncidton for $499 these days.!
take care
jeff
@jeff roth
Thank you Jeff. Your work and time spent is totally valuable to everyone else who has the same printer like we do.
Hi Rockia, thank you for taking the time and effort to share this information. Best wishes from Istanbul!
@Alper
You are welcome, Alper, good to hear that my post is helpful.
I’ve heard reports that this printer will not print multiple pages. For example, if you have a 5 page Word doc it will only print 1 page. Can anyone confirm/deny this? I don’t want to upgrade to Snow Leopard until I know the driver for my MF4150 is functioning correctly. Thanks!
@David
Hi David, I have been using this printer for almost a year, with Leopard, and it’s working fine. And there is no problem with printing on Snow Leopard neither, but just a note to you that, the scanning function is not working on neither Leopard nor Snow Leopard.
Right. I’m using it on Leopard currently and am aware of that limitation. I just wanted to make sure that everything seemed to print correctly on Snow Leopard. Specifically, I’ve seen issues in these threads:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10251295
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2148149
Have you tried duplex (front and back) printing? I’ve got to assume you’ve printed documents of multiple pages with no issues, which is the main thing that has me concerned. Some people also mention weird formatting/margin issues.
By the way, thanks for posting this fix on your blog. I tend to do the same thing in case someone is googling around looking for answers.
@David
Hi David, no sorry, I didn’t try duplex printing and I probably won’t use it at all. Yes, the multiple pages printing is working fine, right now I don’t see any issues yet other than the lack of support on scanning. Thanks, and yes, spread out of the words, hopefully Canon will eventually make something for this old printer. Cheers.
For me, the multiple pages printing, even without duplex, gets messed up. Anyone else see the same?
I cannot print multiple pages. The first page prints out fine, but the second and subsequent pages are garbled. 2-sided does work, but again all pages after the first are messed up. I’ve been forced to print one page at a time, which is a royal pain. Tried uninstalling the old drivers and reinstalling the new ones, multiple times, each time with the same disappointing result.
If anyone has found a fix or workaround for this, I’d love to hear it. Thanks!
@DaveW
Re: Chuck and DaveW, I really have no clues on this issue. Maybe you can contact Canon and see if they have a fix on this? At the mean time, I will send them an email as well; if there is any updates, I will post it here and let you guys know.
I’m having exactly the same symptoms and would greatly appreciate any help!
@nokonzok
Same poblem here. Duplex printing gives only correct first page and then previous print jobs appear on the reverse side…only prints one simplex page at a time. Royal pain.
I reporting this problem to Canon earlier in the week using the support request form on their web site. Despite their promise to acknowledge the request within 30 minutes and get back within 24 hours, I haven’t had any response from them (even checked my spam folder, nothing).
This really is a great little printer, but Canon’s support for it is sadly lacking, at least for Mac users.
@DaveW
Hey, DaveW, do you know what? Even I don’t use Duplex print at all, but I did send them email regarding this issue, but their response is really “official”, saying that the problem is too complex and I need to call them. OK then I called them, the technician guide me through everything, like all the setting stuffs, but eventually, the problem is not solved.
@DaveW
Have the same issue… Any one have any fixes??
Exactly the same issue with my MF4120. Only the first page could be printed properly by UFR II 2.0.0.
HEY! I contacted Canon yesterday complaining about the current SL driver for the MF4150 and received no response. However, when I went out there today they had released the v2.05 driver!
http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelInfoAct&tabact=DownloadDetailTabAct&fcategoryid=335&modelid=14444
I still have not upgraded to Snow Leopard due to this issue. Can someone upgrade their driver and see if it fixed the problem of not being able to print multiple pages and/or duplex printing?
david@davidtaylorfamily.com
I posted this in response to a similar thread on the Apple support forums and it appears that v2.05 is the real deal and fixes the problems. It looks like I’ll finally be able to upgrade to SL:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10594708#10594708
Indeed, the v2.05 driver available on the Canon site now lets me print more than one page at a time! Haven’t tested extensively yet, but it no longer garbles the second and subsequent pages, and duplex printing works just fine.
Grateful that it works now, yet wondering why it took Canon nearly three months after Snow Leopard was released to get it right?
Unfortunately, once I upgraded to Snow Leopard I found another HUGE limitation (at least for me). The 2.05 driver will not allow printer sharing either between the Mac it is connected to and other Macs or Windows machines. This worked perfectly under Leopard. I had the printer shared and was printing from my XP machine and Vista machine. I’ve contacted Canon and they are so far uncooperative/unresponsive. I have no idea if a fix is coming. Here is a link to a thread I started on the Apple Support Forum detailing the issue:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2276282