Forums | MacLife

rpmdesigns · 2008-02-22 12:57 pm

That's my educated guess.

I got a MacBook in Nov. last year. It came with 10.5 pre-installed.

I disconnected my existing HP 6210 All In One from my wife's blueberry iMac and plugged it into the USB port on our Airport Express.

Wireless printing worked two or three times. We don't print that much or that often. I was so excited that we could print wirelessly.

At some point I installed to 10.5.1. Pretty soon actually. Probably less than a month after getting the computer. I'm almost 100% positive that it was AFTER that point that this problem started happening and I've installed 10.5.2 (which was supposed to fix wireless printing issues.) It's still happening. Here's what happens.

- While connected to the Aiport Express, The printer shows up in the list or printers. Several times I've deleted it and re-added it since this problem started. It shows up as a BonJour printer and it's the only way one can add it. The Mac even picks the right driver.

- System preferences shows the printer in the printer list, and it shows a green light next to it, and it says "Ready, Idle" (or something to that effect.)

- I send a print order from say, Safari.

- The print queue for the HP opens.

- The print queue shows "Opening printer connection" and "Connecting" and it stays like that for a long time until the queue stops itself. The "Pause printer" button turns into "Resume".

- If, while the print queue is trying to connect, one plugs in an Ethernet cable into the MacBook, the printer all of a sudden begins printing any and all print orders in the queue. Note that the Ethernet cable is connected to the same Ethernet hub as the Airport Express.

- One could also send print orders while the Ethernet cable is connected, and this works just fine, but that's not the problem.

- If, while the print queue is trying to connect, one plugs in the USB cable that is connected to the printer directly into the MacBook, this does absolutely nothing. The print queue just hangs.

- I went to the HP website, and downloaded what appears to be a new set of drivers, and setup software. Installation went fine, BUT I could not "set up" the printer until I connected the USB cable that is connected to the printer directly into the MacBook. Again, that's not the problem.

- The HP website also says that Mac OS X 10.5 has the necessary drivers and no installation is needed.

- The HP website also has a page that lists instructions to set up an HP device on a Wireless network. The instructions involve making sure that the device is set up for wireless capabilities, and connecting to it via BonJour and some other stuff. I can't get very far into this process, because I've been over all the menu options on the printer itself and I can't see anything about wireless setup. I've also looked at the manual (PDF) and there's only one single occurrence of the word "wireless" and it has nothing to do with setup. I forget what it's about right now. It's on the second to last page or somewhere near the very end.

- So that's where I am right now. New drivers, no printing. It worked with 10.5 and I strongly suspect that 10.5.1 broke it. And that 10.5.2 did not fix it at all.

- I would like to test my theory by reverting to 10.5 but I've already had to re-install the OS once and recover from a backup once after re-formatting the internal HD. Better not mess with that.

Any comments and/or questions that would help me fix this would be greatly appreciated.

rpmdesigns · 2008-02-28 11:04 am

Good news. It appears to be fixed!

Of all the things I've done, I'm convinced that what fixed it was resetting the printing system. A forum linked to from another place I posted this question mention that it helped others. I found how to reset the printing system in Leopard by searching for it online.

I went to System Preferences > Print & Fax and right clicked on the left had sidebar. The contextual menu had the command "Reset Printing System". This warned me that it would delete all my printers. I said OK. Sure enough all my printers were gone.

For good measure, did the following:

- I re-installed the new HP software.

- I re-set up the HP 6210 while connected directly through USB using the HP setup Assistant. This process adds the printer both as a printer and as a Fax in System Preferences > Print & Fax.

- I opened the print queue and the utility and print a test page using this direct method.

- I disconnected the HP 6210 from the computer and connected it to the Airport Express.

- I went back to System Preferences > Print & Fax and clicked on the plus sign to add another printer

- (additional note) In the resulting dialog box, I tried adding the printer as an IP printer (using the Airport Express' IP address) but for some reason could not find the right driver (I was looking for one with the term "OfficeJet"--more on that below). I picked a different driver knowingly and got a weird message about the software being incomplete. Sure enough, printing to this new printer added this way with the wrong driver did not work at all. I decided to try the OS's own automatic way to add the printer (see below).

- In that same dialog window referenced above, I clicked on the leftmost icon (I think it says "Default") and the (at this point wireless) printer was already on the list as a BonJour printer. I made sure to give it a different name than the already added, direct USB connected (same) printer by adding the word "wireless" so in the printer list and print dialing windows and it's print queue it's called "HP OfficeJet 6200 Series wireless" as opposed to "HP OfficeJet 6200 Series" which is the original direct connected (same) printer. And the driver the OS picked automatically is "HP All In One 5.3.1" (as far I can remember--it could be something a little different).

- I sent a print order from Safari, and boom! I started to print almost immediately! After about 5 minutes, I sent it again, and it printed again! Then I printed page one of an email from Mail, and it worked again!

- So far so good. We'll see if this holds up.

Thanks for all the comments, suggestions and links that helped me (apparently) solve this.

Forums | MacLife

#1 2008-02-22 12:57 pm

10.5.1 broke wireless printing to HP 6210 All In One

#2 2008-02-28 11:04 am

Re: 10.5.1 broke wireless printing to HP 6210 All In One

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