<b>SNMP and Chooser printer selection: a follow-up

Last time, we reported that removing the SNMP extensions, Open Transport SNMP and OpenTptSNPLib, eliminated a problem selecting the Printer port for serial Epson printers. Here' s some follow-up information:

Gary Opas confirmed that the problem was not limited to Epson printers. He had the same problem and solution with a HP DeskWriter 660C.

Apparently unrelated to the printing issue, Clive Sweeting found that disabling these extensions fixed a system freeze that occurred when launching a newly installed Adobe Illustrator 7.0.

Two readers (Erin Doak and Kim Cary) reported that they could not access the Printer port for a printer after installing Timbuktu Pro 4.8. Disabling TB2 eliminated the problem. For Erin, disabling the 'Open Transport Networking Group" also worked around the symptom. Kim writes that Netopia said that they were investigating this issue.

Finally, Richard Ford (formerly of Apple Computer's Open Transport team) writes:

The issue here is that SNMP acts like an application (if I remember correctly, it's a "faceless background application" - which means that it will not be listed in the Application menu), and opens AppleTalk (in order to gather statistics about it). If you've selected the Printer port for AppleTalk, then you can't use the Printer port for a serial printer.

Rather than encourage users to trash SNMP, you probably want to have them configure the AppleTalk control panel to point to whichever port actually has their network connection. Remember, SNMP is an optional install, so users will only have it if they intentionally install it - it won't automatically be installed just by updating to Mac OS 8.5.

Also remember (as noted here before), the definitive way to turn off AppleTalk is to use the AppleTalk Control Panel -- not the Chooser or Control Strip. In the AppleTalk Control Panel, select Advanced or Administrator user mode, press the Options button, and choose the Off radio button.