topic Re: Virtual Printers Not Working in macOS 14 Sonoma Host (VMware Horizon Client, VMware Fusion) in Horizon Desktops and Apps

Virtual Printers Not Working in macOS 14 Sonoma Host (VMware Horizon Client, VMware Fusion)

tree_frog — Wed, 25 Oct 2023 13:45:45 GMT

Hello,

I have updated 4 Macs (2 Intel, 2 Apple Silicon) to macOS 14 Sonoma.

Virtual printers are no longer working (they were working fine under macOS 12 & 13); attempting to print from within the virtual machine to a shared printer from the host fails silently.

I have a 5th Mac still on Ventura that does not exhibit the issue.

Has anyone come across this? It is having a really significant effect on my workflow.

Thanks,

Dave

Re: Virtual Printers Not Working in macOS 14 Sonoma Host (VMware Horizon Client, VMware Fusion)

scott28tt — Wed, 25 Oct 2023 15:14:59 GMT

Is this about Fusion or about Horizon? It's not clear from what you describe.

Re: Virtual Printers Not Working in macOS 14 Sonoma Host (VMware Horizon Client, VMware Fusion)

tree_frog — Wed, 25 Oct 2023 15:58:37 GMT

It's from both. From what I understand, they share a common virtual printing service. The Intel Macs have both installed, whereas the Apple Silicon Macs only have the Horizon Client installed.

Re: Virtual Printers Not Working in macOS 14 Sonoma Host (VMware Horizon Client, VMware Fusion)

RDPetruska — Wed, 25 Oct 2023 16:42:37 GMT

If you are running the latest version of Fusion (13.5.0), the release notes state that the virtual printing functionality has been removed.

Re: Virtual Printers Not Working in macOS 14 Sonoma Host (VMware Horizon Client, VMware Fusion)

tree_frog — Wed, 25 Oct 2023 17:42:06 GMT

Well, that's very interesting! I hadn't noticed that Fusion 13.5 was available yet. I was still running Fusion 13.0.2, and the virtual printing was working in Ventura but not in Sonoma.

More concerning to me is Horizon Client, though. I'm running the latest version (2306), and unlike a local VM there are fewer workarounds for printer redirection.

I know that parts of the printing subsystem of macOS were rewritten for Sonoma, so I'm assuming that's the source of the bug. I haven't come across anything that suggests that virtual printers have been removed from Horizon Client – my organization relies heavily on virtual printing.

Re: Virtual Printers Not Working in macOS 14 Sonoma Host (VMware Horizon Client, VMware Fusion)

Mangui — Thu, 26 Oct 2023 02:41:35 GMT

MacOS Sonama has dropped the support to convert postscript to pdf (https://developer.apple.com/documentation/macos-release-notes/macos-14-release-notes#Printing)

"macOS has removed the functionality for converting PostScript and EPS files to PDF format. As a result, CoreGraphics’ CGPSConverter returns an error when invoked, ImageIO no longer converts EPS files, NSEPSImageRep does not display EPS files, and PMPrinterPrintWithFile does not accept a PostScript file for non-PostScript print queues. (110019863)"

This will affect printing if the printer in your MacOS doesn't support postscript queue. Workarounds can see this kb: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/94729

Re: Virtual Printers Not Working in macOS 14 Sonoma Host (VMware Horizon Client, VMware Fusion)

tree_frog — Thu, 26 Oct 2023 03:39:36 GMT

Thank you for linking that article (note to future users – the link has a trailing comma that must be stripped to be valid; alternatively, click here). It looks like that's the issue, in which case it doesn't look like a future macOS update will fix anything.

I'm using 3 virtual printers with Horizon Client – two physical HP LaserJet printers, and one print-to-pdf printer driver (RWTS-PDFwriter). None of them are working in Horizon Client under Sonoma (though they work fine when printing locally).

The workaround in the article involves server-side configuration changes. I'm just an end-user, and while I'll pass this along to IT at my organization, I can't imagine it'll be a quick (or even realistic?) fix.

Is it correct to say that this issue cannot be resolved with a future update to Horizon Client?

Re: Virtual Printers Not Working in macOS 14 Sonoma Host (VMware Horizon Client, VMware Fusion)

Mangui — Tue, 31 Oct 2023 02:30:00 GMT

We have working on another workaround in the 2312 Horizon product, that requires user to deploy the third-party postscript to pdf convertor (for example, converter from Ghostscript) in MacOS 14 that be a replacement for the tool dropped by Apple.

Re: Virtual Printers Not Working in macOS 14 Sonoma Host (VMware Horizon Client, VMware Fusion)

tree_frog — Thu, 02 Nov 2023 03:18:13 GMT

Thanks Mangui – that's fantastic news.

Really looking forward to the update, as I haven't found any feasible alternatives short of running Horizon Client in a macOS 13 virtual machine.