Problem with Konica Minolta and Printing with Authentication on Mac OS X 10.10 in an Active Directory Domain Environment

I have a client who has a base of Macintosh OS X users, but they are all joined to the domain for printing and file sharing purposes. They also have apps that requires central authentication as well, as such, a domain environment is required.

The reported problem was simple:

"I am unable to save the Authentication Settings for the username and password for printing color print-out."

Upon inspection, I found out that the issue is that :


I spent 2-hrs over remote to help the user out. I checked the following:

1. ensured key-chain access is removed and not saving any passwords
2. login to different user profiles within the Mac to try, same problem
3. added printer and re-add printer drivers, ensured that printer driver is the latest (5.2.1) for Mac OS-X for Konica Minolta Bizhub C364 (printer in mention)
4. ensured that the LOCK is UNLOCK for all system settings
5. verified that all users that i tried have admin access
6. other printers do not have the same problem. I have 2 printers (one lexmark and the other konica minolta), but lexmark doesn't seem to have problems with saving authentication settings.
7. I read the following sites:
1. http://forumspain.net/thread/konica-minolta-authentication-account-track-greyed-out.html
2. http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/printing-to-konica-minolta-bizhub-c360.1039526/
3. http://manuals.konicaminolta.eu/bizhub-C554-C454-C364-C284-C224/EN/contents/id16-0030.html
4. http://www.copytechnet.com/forums/konica-minolta/87457-authentication-greyed-out-printing-c224e-mac-os-10-9-a-2.html?s=347e833b6c02a4f2594008dbea88a541
5. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2733341?tstart=0
6. https://forum.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14453&p=67592
7. https://computing.si.umich.edu/confluence/display/SIC/Authentication+-+Mac+OS+X+10.6+and+Before
8. I also re-read the manual for installation... and it's found here: http://manuals.konicaminolta.eu/bizhub-C554e-C454e-C364e-C284e-C224e/EN/contents/id01-_101378675.html
9. I made sure that I tested printing from Chrome, Safari, Ms Word, TextPad and all the issues were the same.  

 Note that in my situation, I have the following scenario:

• this is the only MacBook that was unable to save the authentication details
• everyone on PC and other Mac were able to print.
• the printer is not showing any error, and job logs on the printer admin console shows that print-out are successful.
• my domain environment is a Windows Server 2008r2 domain
• Mac OS-X is 10.10.5 (Yosemite)
• Make sure that it's Authentication and not Tracking that you are troubleshooting. There is a difference and details of the set-up can be found here

The solution:

1. Remove printer driver
2. Unjoin (unbind, that's what mac calls it) the macbook pro from the domain
3. Restart the Mac
4. Re-install printer driver (5.2.1 at this time of writing -  https://www.konicaminolta.com.au/downloads)
5. Ensure that you can save the authentication settings
6. Rejoin (re-bind) to the domain
7. Restart the Mac
8. Test print - it should work now....

Hope it saves you all time instead of having to spend 2-hours like me!!!

Apple Mail and SMTP Offline issues

Client called me this morning, I found out that the apple mail email settings has gone awry. For some weird reasons, my SmarterMail Server settings is shown 'offline' all the time.

I tweaked, re-created account and nothing short of banging the mac on the table... and I realized that Apple Mail on the Mac OS-X (mountain-lion and above) doesn't like non-SSL based SMTP.

Gmail SMTP, or SMTP server that does not uses password authentication works well, but when SMTP authentication is enabled, it seems like a requirement for SSL to be enabled.

As such, since my server utilizes SSL (TLS Authentication) on a separate name for it's server, I had to use our own registered server name - cloudmail.b**.co*.s* and VIOLA! it worked almost immediately.

While it's a nice gesture to make the application smarter and think-ahead for it's users, I do feel that Apple should incorporate some form of warning or alerts into the Apple Mail configuration instead of simply blocking access for unsecured connectivity.

Oh well, time and efforts are already spent... glad that it is all resolved within the hour.

Mac OS X (all ver) has issues with DNS resolution IPv6 with SBS-2008

Some time back, the SBS-2008 my client has in their office is causing some DNS resolution issues with IPv6 reverse lookup. As such, some times the MAC OS X'es are unable to resolve DNS entries to get connected to the mail server.

A work-around my colleague gave was to set-up VPN connection as PPTP VPN using RAS gives out a separate IPv4 address, and is able to resolve IPv4 DNS requests without using the IPv6. 

While this is an easy work-around, the easier method is to simply set-up hosts file to perform the mapping.

Unfortunately for him, he was unable to locate the hosts file to edit in the mac os X. I did some search in the web and encounter this blog post... (here) I don't wish to re-invent the wheel, but I thought I'll post it here anyway, with some pictures to guide my readers and my team how to make the changes.

Follow my print-screens below. It should be self-explanatory.

just press CTRL+o (Omega) to save.

press Enter to save the changes.

You are good to go! 

Now for the biggie.. the server needs to be fixed with the IPv6 issue.

This is the issue:

I ensured that all settings are right:

 

After hunting through different blogs, i found one here and I realize this guy faced the similar problem and fixed the issue!

the mistake i made was to create 8.c.2.f.0 where I should have done it like this:

 

 Once added with an AAA record, the PTR can be added.

  

Resolution now works.. but the problem still persists!

Shucks! 

 

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