PIN-Release Print Jobs Stall for Mobile-Account Users
Thirty iMacs on an accounting floor print to two Canon imageRUNNER multifunction devices shared from a Windows print server. Jobs must be released at the device with a badge or PIN by a vendor accounting plug-in; the Macs use the vendor's PPD and a client component installed by a signed package. The Macs run macOS 14.5. Users log in with AD mobile accounts, and a Kerberos SSO extension profile is installed. After a print-server update in October, jobs from most users sit in the queue as 'Held for authentication' and never appear at the device. Jobs from the local admin account release normally. A few users' jobs appear after about ten minutes. The CUPS error log records 'kerberos ticket expired' and 'GSSAPI authentication failed'. Users change AD passwords every 60 days and travel between sites.
1. Why do jobs from the local admin account release normally while mobile-account jobs stay held?
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The release station needs a valid Kerberos service ticket for the print server to identify the job owner for accounting. The mobile accounts depend on the SSO extension to obtain a TGT and then a service ticket for the print server. After an off-network password change or a long period between sites, the cached TGT is stale; klist would show an expired ticket, and the CUPS log's 'kerberos ticket expired' and 'GSSAPI authentication failed' match that. The local admin account has no directory ticket to expire and the client plug-in falls back to a local job-owner string or saved server credential, so the server accepts the job but cannot charge it to a directory user. The ten-minute releases are likely the server's retry or fallback path, not a working fix. This is an authentication and identity problem, not a driver or PPD problem.
2. Give an ordered repair for one user that does not disable PIN release, and the fleet change that prevents recurrence.
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First check time sync; Kerberos tolerates only a small clock skew. Run klist to see whether a TGT and a ticket for the print server exist. Destroy the stale tickets, obtain a new TGT with the current password, and test a print job. If no service ticket appears, the SSO extension profile is not scoped to the print server host: add the server's hostname and realm to the Kerberos configuration, reinstall the profile, and sign out and in or re-run kinit. Confirm the vendor client component is still installed and that the PPD points at the same queue. For the fleet, push the corrected SSO payload, require an on-network or VPN sign-in after password changes, and add a pre-flight check to the print support runbook. Do not disable badge release or switch users to local accounts; either would bypass accounting.
3. A user must print a signed contract within the hour. What fallback do you authorize, and what do you document?
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Do not convert the user to a local account or print from the admin account, because both break cost allocation and audit. Authorize a controlled fallback: have the user release the job through the vendor's web release portal with their own directory credentials, or print to the second MFP after a fresh kinit and release with the user's badge. If neither works, a supervisor may release the held job with a one-time code, but record the job owner, document ID, approver, and reason. The user can also submit the job from a web upload queue that authenticates directly to the accounting server, avoiding the Mac's stale ticket. After the deadline, complete the SSO profile fix. The documentation should show that the fallback preserved user attribution; an untracked release is worse than a missed deadline.