Snow Leopard, Epson 3800 support site driver differences

[Peter S]

I have been having the often reported problems with my 3800 having upgraded to Snow Leopard.  I now have a solution which might help others but there are still some things (many!) that I do not understand.
I was cautious, I thought, and upgraded my MacBook to 10.6.4 downloaded the driver from the US site v6.11.  Connected via ethernet (Netgear DG834PN) to the printer and it worked perfectly via Bonjour. I should point out that the 3800 had never previously been connected to the MacBook.

Greatly encouraged I did exactly the same thing on the iMac, connected via the same router.  I could not get it to work whatever I tried.  I followed all the advice I could find on previous posts including Wayne's step by step clear out of old files.  I tried connecting the ethernet cable directly between the printer and iMac no difference.

I spent an hour and a half talking to Apple support but still no solution.

I tried Epson UK and they directed me to a NEWER driver on the UK site 6.57.  I downloaded this and everything started looking good.  The printer showed up in two forms Bonjour and TCPIP.  The TCPIP works fine.

I cannot however install EpsonNet Config on the iMac.  It is there (Rev2.0a) on the MacBook but not on the iMac.  It refuses to install.  I have downloaded and tried several versions.  The installation get as far as "searching the hard drive" and does not progress any further and can only be stopped with a force quit.  I cannot see any old version on the iMac.

If anyone has a solution I would be delighted.

I am really puzzled as to:
Why will a driver work on a MacBook but not an iMac?
Why are there different drivers on the UK and US sites?
Why will EpsonNet Config install on the MacBook and not the iMac?

I know next to nothing about what makes these machine tick but I find this very odd and would be very interested if anyone can explain why this is happening.

Kind regards
Peter

[sjcampbell]

Peter,

Check that the installer does not require Rosetta. Epson have a few installers that they use older versions of Vyse, and they require Rosetta on your mac. The MacBook may have had it and the iMac not. Rosetta is on your install disk.

If that's not it I will leave it to the collective wisdom

Cheers
Steve

[Jeremy Roussak]

I had problems as you describe, on a Mac Pro. I could print but not use any of the utilities (I particularly missed PrinterWatcher), using the 6.57 driver from the UK site.

I tried various proposed solutions, none of which worked. Eventually (and, I confess, without really understanding what I was doing), I completely reset the printing system on the Mac (in System Preferences, go to Print & Fax then control-click on one of the printers in the list on the left and select Reset printing system...). I had to reinstall both my printers from scratch, and I lost various presets I'd set up for my laser, but since then I've had no problems at all.

Jeremy

PS: if you didn't have Rosetta, you wouldn't have got as far as you have. It's needed only by the installer, not by the driver.