Migrating Chromebook printing for an Epson, when the generic model doesn't exist in ChromeOS...

1/1/2021

: Fun times on the homestead: Got to spend hours today getting my wife's Acer Chromebook to print to our five-month-old Epson ET-M1170 'Eco-Tank' monochrome Inkjet. 

Issue:  Google Cloud Print was folded by Google as of midnight last night (12/31/2020). 

Workaround: Migrate your Chromebook(s) from the long-standing Google Cloud Print middle-man, to the newer ChromeOS direct printer connection support in Chrome OS 59 or later...
All great in theory, unless your particular printer *isnt* covered in Chrome OS... My wife's *wasn't*. 

Situation: 

• Issue: Epson's Google Cloud migration instructions are to configure the target chromebook with printer specified as: Manufacturer: Epson, and Model: Epson Generic ESC/P-R. Sad fact is, the Model doesn't actually exist, in the target Chromebook (even after forcing latest updates through)!
  
• Acer Chromebook is 3.5yrs old. Latest Chrome OS 86 installed (and checked for any pending updates).
  
• New ET-M1170 Mono Inkjet Printer (5mos old, as of a few days ago). Still in production (popular - out of stock at Epson).
  
• The chromebook + printer combo worked *dandy* together for the last five months, handling  my wife's fairly high volume work from home print needs.
  The combo of the simple-UI Chromebook (which required *very* minimal technical monkeying from my wife), and the very low per-page consumable cost of an Ink Tank printer worked out pretty great! Especially in comparison to the ridiculous ongoing ink carts expenditure for the older Brother Multi-function printer/scanner/fax she'd used the last several years.
  
  

Hard hurdle: Both the Setting Up Your Printer On Chromebook site *and* the Google Migrate from Cloud Print site fail to spell out a way to get a Chromebook to connect to a printer, if the proper printer model isnt already offered in the printer ChromeOS drivers. (Note: I also tried to find a PPD file as well - nada from Epson, nothing close on the Epson model from the Linux Open Printing Project).

Epson's site specifies - for all chromebooks - that one should use Epson as the Manufacturer setting and Generic ESC/P-R as the Model. 

You know where this is going, right? If you set Manufacturer:Epson on my wife's Acer, the Model: droplist  HAS NO "Generic ESC/P-R"  model on the list!

• Yes the Epson models does include an 'Epson Generic ESC/P-R' setting. Unfortunately, Epson very explicitly tells you not to use that option. (And if you do try it, it doesn't work, returns 'Could not add printer').
  
• Checking further: The Manufacturer: Generic setting doesn't yield a Model:Generic ESC/P-R, either. 
• And when I tried 'near' equivalents in the settings: Manufacturer: Epson, Model:ET-1110 Series, it likewise consistently failed to 'add' the printer.
  

Variant solutions I tried:

1. Monkeying with the web server in the printer.
2. Configuring Epson Connect cloud printing - which mentions it can stand in for Google Cloud Print - yea, for phones, not Chromebooks!
3. Tried configuring a print server on my Synology NAS.
   
4. Tried sharing the printer from a win10 box.
   
5. Considered trying an Ubuntu CUPS server (didn't get that far)...
   

Yea, hours of generally throwing things at the wall to see if they stick. 

Finally, something stuck: I tried using a 'generic' printer option. I mean the *wrong* non-functional Generic Printer (because there was literally no direct equivalent in the list).

1. Click Chromebook systray >  [gear] icon > Advanced > Printing > Printers: 
2. It should detect & show the Epson printer (ET-M1170 in this case): Click [setup] next to the printer (or [save], if you're lucky and you don't need all this horsehockey, in which case you're not reading this post. :P). 
3. Note:  If doesn't detect & display the printer,  cycle wifi on the Chromebook, and  also make sure the Chromebook is on exactly the same wifi AccessPoint ESID as the printer (mine was jumping around, had 2 & 5g configured in the AP, and it seemed to be cycling between them). 
4. Since you don't have the *proper* printer model avail (as per Epson) use:
   Manufacturer: Generic
   Model: Generic Grayscale PCL6/PCL XL Printer
5. Click Add, and with some luck, it should add without complaints.
   
6. If it does "add", access the settings on the added printer (clicking Edit), and you should find that the Chromebook has configured a big chunk of the baseline settings you need to print: 

• Name: EPSON ET-M1170 Series
• Address: [printername].local:631
• Proto: IPP (IPPS)
• Queue: ipp/print
• Uri: ipps://[printername].local:631/ipp/print
  

If you try to use the config above, doesn't work. It prints paper, with control codes etc, but not coherent data. E.g.  wrong driver for this inkjet.

BUT all you need to do now, to fix the issue is pick a closer driver:

• Try flipping the existing configured Printer Model to Generic Postscript Printer: It worked for me. 
• I then decided to use an even close model from my manufacture: So I flipped Manufacturer: Epson, and, as my 'monochrome' printer had an ET-M prefix (==for monochrome), if you drop the M from the model, I figured the Model:ET-1110 Series setting would be close enough...
  Tested it: It was.
  

Bottom line:  As long as you can get the IPPS internet printing setup with queues & urls, afterward you can play with the driver to get it to functional.