Update re SC P9570 (P9500 in Europe)

[arobinson7547]

I brought one of these but was too scared to initialize it BEFORE I was really ready to 'Print for Pay' (printer sitting around clogging)

Try checking the Interface Settings, so that ONLY the Protocol that you are choosing is Activated USB, Appletalk, TCPIP, etc.

If you are allowed to say OFF for the ones you are not using, maybe that would help. (while you are there the IP settings should be set to Auto-Negotiate for the Speed (standard for a 1GB Link).

I not a [real] MAC user (Thank God <slow wink>) but I went back and reread your Post and it sounds more-n-more like an Epson Software Problem (e.g., Drivers getting corrupted) I know that Apple has strict requirements for how software should be implemented.

Some parts of the Software 'is' New for Epson... maybe they 'haven't gotten it right.


I think you now have a strong case for THEM [Epson] to provide the Resolution (especially if those 'reinstalls' you did were CLEAN installs (Downloaded OS installed to a BLACK disk/partition and THEN install Epson's Stuff)

[Mick Sang]

https://www.microcenter.com/product/623040/inland-professional-128gb-3d-tlc-nand-sata-30-60-gb-s-25-internal-ssdMicrocenter

Thank you. But, I had had a total mind shut down when I last posted. I was substituting TB for GB. The external drive we purchased was a 4 Terabyte drive and I had seen the drive you mentioned as 120 terabytes not gigabytes. I'm sorry for that. But, $20 for a 120 gb SSD still seems pretty darn good to me. So, thanks again.

Re the our 9570 print system, I spent all afternoon at that. I reinstalled the OS Mojave, reset the printing system, deleted Epson Folder and Epson Surecolor 9570.gz files from Library/ Printers/PPDs/Contents/resources and Epson Caches, then restarted and installed driver 10.86 downloaded from Epson.com. Unbelievably, Use Printer Settings could now see all Epson custom media but not our own. So, I opened Epson Media Installer and made a tiny edit to one of our custom media after which it was indeed seen by the driver. So, I did the same for all of our custom media and they were all seen. Also, EMI no longer corrupted the driver such that it had to be reinstalled. Success!...??

However, (isn't there always a "but"?) the driver was different from that which we had used before. It was the postscript driver. So, the 16 bit check box was missing as was Print Preview and a couple of colour settings were different. Nevertheless, this was extremely promising. So, next we had to print something. So, I printed a file and immediate got an error message on the printer which stated "Check the Driver."Tthe only option available was "Cancel." So, I cancelled. But, it froze until I went back to the MAC and trashed the print queue.

So, next we are going to reinstall the standard non-postscript driver and give that a shot.

Still hoping to find another MAC user and owner of one of these printers who is either having successful printing experiences or not.

Mick

[Jeremy Roussak]

Still hoping to find another MAC user and owner of one of these printers who is either having successful printing experiences or not.

If I can do anything to help, Mick, just let me know.

Jeremy

[Mick Sang]

If I can do anything to help, Mick, just let me know.

Thank you very much, Jeremy. We're getting close to running out of things to try. So, we'll see.

Friday afternoon was spent on the phone with Epson support. The tech rep seemed genuinely interested in helping which was a refreshing change. He took control of the MAC and saw first hand the effects of Epson Media Installer on the driver - i.e. corruption. As I mentioned, we are not able to use EMI without it destroying the driver, wiping out all paper sizes and half of the driver controls causing it to have to be deleted and reinstalled. He tried various things which we had already tried to no avail. He saw and made notes on every anomaly as described earlier. He had no idea as to the cause. He was in contact with the “higher up team” and opened a ticket. We were told this once before without any further contact. But, this time, it seemed more sincere. We’ll see.

Yesterday, once again, we reset the printing system and deleted all things Epson from the MAC. This was also done after a reinstall of the OS. This time EMI was also completely uninstalled. So, after all things Epson were removed printer and MAC were shut down and restarted and the non-postscript driver installed along with a fresh version of EMI. Then, as usual, we checked to see if any custom media was seen under "Use Printer Settings." All Epson media was seen which was encouraging. Ours had been deleted from EMI on the MAC during reinstall. So, one at a time they were re-added after which the driver was checked to see if they were recognized. They were!! So, once again we thought we were on to the solution. BUT, after installing the fourth custom media, once again, the driver was corrupt and had to be reinstalled after which we were right back to square one.

So next, we have installed a fresh system on a removable with nothing else there but PhotoShop and LightRoom - so like a new MAC. We will install the printer later today and see what happens. It is suicide to sit around waiting for Epson. So, we persist.

I know that the driver corruption issue was present in the Windows world for awhile and that has been resolved. There must be more MAC using owners of these printers. Has anyone else experienced anything like the issues we are experiencing?

Thanks again Jeremy,

Mick

[deanwork]

You should send them an invoice for your time. You are a temp employee of theirs now.

What I don’t like is, if there is a hardware flaw they will come out and fix it under warranty, but if there is a major software problem they assign the customer the job of doing their work for them and beta testing for them. Man with this new line there is a lot of it going on this year. Hp is pretty much the same way. From my experience with Canon I’ve just never had software issues at all in 8 years. The good thing is overall it’s a very minor issue but if you are in business it really messes you up and wastes time.

John

Thank you very much, Jeremy. We're getting close to running out of things to try. So, we'll see.

Friday afternoon was spent on the phone with Epson support. The tech rep seemed genuinely interested in helping which was a refreshing change. He took control of the MAC and saw first hand the effects of Epson Media Installer on the driver - i.e. corruption. As I mentioned, we are not able to use EMI without it destroying the driver, wiping out all paper sizes and half of the driver controls causing it to have to be deleted and reinstalled. He tried various things which we had already tried to no avail. He saw and made notes on every anomaly as described earlier. He had no idea as to the cause. He was in contact with the “higher up team” and opened a ticket. We were told this once before without any further contact. But, this time, it seemed more sincere. We’ll see.

Yesterday, once again, we reset the printing system and deleted all things Epson from the MAC. This was also done after a reinstall of the OS. This time EMI was also completely uninstalled. So, after all things Epson were removed printer and MAC were shut down and restarted and the non-postscript driver installed along with a fresh version of EMI. Then, as usual, we checked to see if any custom media was seen under "Use Printer Settings." All Epson media was seen which was encouraging. Ours had been deleted from EMI on the MAC during reinstall. So, one at a time they were re-added after which the driver was checked to see if they were recognized. They were!! So, once again we thought we were on to the solution. BUT, after installing the fourth custom media, once again, the driver was corrupt and had to be reinstalled after which we were right back to square one.

So next, we have installed a fresh system on a removable with nothing else there but PhotoShop and LightRoom - so like a new MAC. We will install the printer later today and see what happens. It is suicide to sit around waiting for Epson. So, we persist.

I know that the driver corruption issue was present in the Windows world for awhile and that has been resolved. There must be more MAC using owners of these printers. Has anyone else experienced anything like the issues we are experiencing?

Thanks again Jeremy,

Mick

[Panagiotis]

.. BUT, after installing the fourth custom media, once again, the driver was corrupt and had to be reinstalled after which we were right back to square one...

Mick

I don't have a MAC or the specific printer. I wonder if there is a way to change the file permissions on the EMI executable or the driver folder to prevent the corruption. Set the EMI to read only the driver directory or something like that. Just a wild wild suggestion....

[arobinson7547]

>You should send them an invoice for your time.<

Priceless. <smile>

I guess you ARE taking care, that your naming convention is 'conservative' (custom media names); no spaces, illegal characters... things of that nature.

I'd try Upper & Lowercase Letters, numbers and Underscores, only.

It could be spazing out when it reads file naming it does not like.

[Mick Sang]

I don't have a MAC or the specific printer. I wonder if there is a way to change the file permissions on the EMI executable or the driver folder to prevent the corruption. Set the EMI to read only the driver directory or something like that. Just a wild wild suggestion....

Thanks, but not sure how to do that on a MAC if it is even possible. Also, EMI communicates back & forth with the MAC.

Still have not received any response (again) from Epson. The tech rep with whom I spoke on Friday did appear to be seriously interested. He took screen shots and made notes which he claimed he would escalate because he had no answers. He also claimed that I would get a response by Monday. That did not happen.  If he did escalate the issue to anyone, they appear to have dropped the ball once again.

So, today we installed a fresh version of the last iteration of Catalina on an external 4gb USB, installed fresh software (no Time Machine back ups), downloaded and installed Epson driver and utilities including a fresh version of Epson Media Installer 1.1.5. To make a long story short, we got EXACTLY the same results as described herein including driver corruption upon loading EMI as well as the inability of the driver to "see" custom media. Now I am getting pissed off.

Mick

[Panagiotis]

Thanks, but not sure how to do that on a MAC if it is even possible. Also, EMI communicates back & forth with the MAC.

Still have not received any response (again) from Epson. The tech rep with whom I spoke on Friday did appear to be seriously interested. He took screen shots and made notes which he claimed he would escalate because he had no answers. He also claimed that I would get a response by Monday. That did not happen.  If he did escalate the issue to anyone, they appear to have dropped the ball once again.

So, today we installed a fresh version of the last iteration of Catalina on an external 4gb USB, installed fresh software (no Time Machine back ups), downloaded and installed Epson driver and utilities including a fresh version of Epson Media Installer 1.1.5. To make a long story short, we got EXACTLY the same results as described herein including driver corruption upon loading EMI as well as the inability of the driver to "see" custom media. Now I am getting pissed off.

Mick

Why not a win10 pc just for print. If there is no problem with win10 and Epson EMI drivers etc. Just a non elegant temporary solution.

[Mick Sang]

Why not a win10 pc just for print. If there is no problem with win10 and Epson EMI drivers etc. Just a non elegant temporary solution.

That is absolutely on the horizon as a final step if we continue to get nothing from Epson as we have so far.  But, I am not one to let them away with this. If there is something that we are doing or have done wrong, we need their help to determine what it is. So far, it appears that they simply fluff off our concerns. I could hear in the voice of the tech rep with whom I spoke last Friday his veiled concern that his having to "escalate the issue" would lead nowhere. JR Smit (Jan) encountered this sort of lack of concern with his 9500 and he eventually had them take it back. We are not at that stage YET. But, when I think of having to bring in a new computer simply because we can get no help from Epson, I get really pissed off. We are and have been more than reasonable and patient. Time will tell where this goes.

Mick

[Mick Sang]

If I can do anything to help, Mick, just let me know.

Jeremy, may I ask how many custom media you have been able to install via EMI?

Thank you,
Mick

[Jeremy Roussak]

Only a couple, really to see if I could. I'm still playing, learning why I need to install custom media (I have to spend most of my time on the day job, alas).

Jeremy

[Mick Sang]

Only a couple, really to see if I could. I'm still playing, learning why I need to install custom media (I have to spend most of my time on the day job, alas).

Thank you, Jeremy. That's what I had hoped. We may be on to something. We offer over 30 different papers 23 of which were being installed via EMI. We have an idea which may bear fruit at least in terms of getting the thing to work as it should. I'll report back once the newest tests have been run.

By the way, no reply whatsoever from Epson despite their promise to get back to me via phone or email on Monday. Nov 30.

Thanks again,
Mick

[JRSmit]

Mick, could it be that the latest MacOS update also updates the SQLLite drivers? The EMI database is An SQLLite database, but perhaps in a previous version, no longer supporters, causing the cortuption?

[arobinson7547]

Have you ruled out in illegal characters in your file names? (illegal for EMI)

[Mick Sang]

Have you ruled out in illegal characters in your file names? (illegal for EMI)

"Ruled out? No. But, we have received no error messages or any other messages in that regard. We are using upper case, lower case, spaces and hyphens on occasion. Fir example"CSI Ilford Gold Fibre Silk 310gsm." I saw your earlier suggestion regarding this and have paid attention to our naming since then. It appears to be similar to that which has been used by Epson in terms of the aforementioned list.

We go at this again tomorrow.

Thanks,

Mick

[StuartR]

Just since you are asking, I am a small studio using the 9500 in Iceland on a Mac (still using Mojave, as I need 32 bit for Flexcolor). I am not having any issues yet, though I have only had the printer for a few weeks. May I ask again why you need Epson Media Installer so badly? It sounds like a disaster...my general procedure has been to make presets in the Epson printer driver, adjust them as needed, and save them. This is what I have done for ten years without a hitch. So far it does not really seem any different. I am not judging, I am just curious as to why you need this, as it seems like any benefit it has of serving you a readymade preset is offset by the fact that it seemingly fails to function completely...I am still new to the printer, so perhaps I am missing the benefit here.

Best,
Stuart

[Mick Sang]

Mick, could it be that the latest MacOS update also updates the SQLLite drivers? The EMI database is An SQLLite database, but perhaps in a previous version, no longer supporters, causing the cortuption?

Hi Jan,

It is for this reason coupled with reported incompatibilities etc. that we have avoided "updating" the OS on the MAC which connects to the 9570. It is still running Mojave. We tried Catalina on a partitioned 4 TB USB drive and we encountered the same failures right away.

But, further to that, I spent much of the past weekend at this. I deleted every aspect of EPSON from the MAC and reinstalled fresh - TWICE. The first go started to show some success followed by failure. The second go was more successful - so far. After hearing from Jeremy who said that his system works but with only a few custom media entries we considered the possibility that the system can't handle all the custom media we were throwing at it - over 20 papers. So, I cleared out all things Epson, restarted, then slowly and carefully installed an older printer first followed by the 9570 and finally Epson Media Installer. Then, I imported several Epson media and checked USE PRINTER SETTINGS in the driver to be sure they were recognised. They were. So I imported ONE of our custom media sets for Canson Infinity Baryta. Let the bells ring out and the banners fly! It's too good to be true but it saw that media. So, we imported ONE MORE custom media for Ilford Gold Fibre Gloss and it was also seen.

After so many weeks of fighting this thing, I wanted to go no further. I restarted and it was all still good. So, I shut down. I wanted to see if it would continue to work next day. With this printer each day revealed something new or something would disappear. We still have no "Preview" ruction from the driver. It is greyed out. It has always been intermittent. I'd call Epson. But, they have been absolutely no help whatsoever. They have promised follow-ups apparently just to get us off the phone. So, if all else continues to work, we're happy. We'll see what happens when we import a third media set. There are plenty of empty space. So, we'll see.

Finally based upon comments from arobinson7547, we renamed all custom media to a maximum of 30 characters. One of the Epson Media is 33 characters. So, we SHOULD be ok. A few had been longer than 34. I realise this should NOT be ab issue. But, who knows? Otherwise, there are no special characters or anything really different from Epson media names.

 So, so far so good. Let us pray.

I'll keep you posted. To those who offered help, thank you very much.

Mick

[Rand47]

Just since you are asking, I am a small studio using the 9500 in Iceland on a Mac (still using Mojave, as I need 32 bit for Flexcolor). I am not having any issues yet, though I have only had the printer for a few weeks. May I ask again why you need Epson Media Installer so badly? It sounds like a disaster...my general procedure has been to make presets in the Epson printer driver, adjust them as needed, and save them. This is what I have done for ten years without a hitch. So far it does not really seem any different. I am not judging, I am just curious as to why you need this, as it seems like any benefit it has of serving you a readymade preset is offset by the fact that it seemingly fails to function completely...I am still new to the printer, so perhaps I am missing the benefit here.

Best,
Stuart

The problem with your approach is that for some (many?) 3rd party papers the recommended Epson media type has significantly different base-line parameters.  Here’s an example.  Canson Baryta Prestige is a 345 gsm paper, with a caliper of .381.  The Canson recommended media type is Epson’s generic “baryta” paper type (with a -15% color density).  The issue with the 75xx/95xx printers is that you cannot set the platen gap, caliper, etc., in the driver, as you could on previous Epson printer models.  It must be done from the printer LCD on a per paper basis for the media types registered in the printer.

I guess you could go into the LCD panel menu and change the advanced settings every time you use an Epson paper as media type which has different advanced media settings than the Epson default, but then you’d have to remember to change them back to Epson default if you used “that” Epson paper at some future print session.

You also asked about “benefit.”  One benefit is that you can “name” the custom media type you create with its “actual name” (e.g. “Canson Baryta Prestige”) which then appears in the driver and in on the LCD panel of the printer (and which contains all of its required advanced settings (e.g. thickness, platen gap, drying time per pass, etc.).

Rand

[StuartR]

Thank you for the clarification. I have not really needed this level of customization in my studio as I have mostly adapted existing media settings to the papers I use (albeit not always the ones they were intended for), and I mostly set the platen gap on the printer as needed. This works for me, as I am a one man studio, mostly printing low volume stuff for galleries and museums etc. In other words, I don't need an easy to set setting, as no one else is coming in using the printer except me. That said, I certainly see the benefit in just having such a setting, and if EMI worked reliably, I would likely set one up. I guess for now I will just wait until it is all sorted out.

As an aside, has anyone noticed that Hahnemühle recommends a 3 second per pass drying time for Photo Rag Baryta? I tried doing that and it was excruciating...the prints took ages. I have not noticed any difference in quality either (not saying there isn't one, just not that I have noticed yet...again, early days. But adding that much time to my prints is a non-starter.)