I just upgraded my iBook (G4, 1.33 Ghz, 1.25 GB RAM) from 10.3.9 to 10.5.5. I'd been using a Brother MFC-420CN printer via our wireless network. Now I'm having these problems:
- Opening the Print/Fax system pref causes a spinning beach ball and I have to force quit.
- Choosing Print in any application causes a spinning beach ball and I have to force quit.
- Trying to open a document in Appleworks, same thing.
- Trying to open a document in TextEdit, same thing.

I'm not sure those last 2 are related to the printing problem, but they're contemporaneous. Brother's site says their drivers are included in the 10.5 system files, so I thought this would be smoother. I did a clean install of 10.3 as a new user, then upgraded through 1.4, then to 10.5, and migrated my old account (files, apps, not network) in as a second user. Everything else is working fine, as far as I can tell.

Googling and STF-ing here hasn't given me any good clues. Before I start archiving & deleting preference files, does anyone have any experience with this problem? I figure I'm probably missing some obvious piece, but not obvious enough to me. Thanks.

I haven't seen this but:
open activity monitor and see if anything is showing up red there. If there is a hung process, it might tell you something more.
Try the usual permissions fix - if the installer set some of the permissions incorrectly on something in the printing subsystem, it might give that kind of error.

Thanks. I did repair permissions, and still have the problem. Nothing seems amiss in Activity Monitor.

> I did a clean install of 10.3 as a new user, then
> upgraded through 1.4, then to 10.5, and migrated
> my old account (files, apps, not network) in as a
> second user.

You did a clean install of 10.3 before upgrading to 10.5? Why didn't you just clean install 10.5?

...

For the printing problem, first try a safe-boot. (Start up with the shift key held down.)

If that lets you get into the Print&Fax pref's then control-click on your printer's name on the left side of the window and select "Reset printing system."

That will clear the old and apparently corrupt print queue. You'll have to make a new print queue to print to that printer, which you can do by clicking the little plus-icon under the Printers list on the left side of the window.

If you haven't yet done so, try unplugging the power cord to the printer and wait a few seconds and then try it. Every once in a while I can't print to my Brother network printer and that clears things up for some reason.