Three Perplexing Printer Problems
Three Perplexing Printer Problems
The printer troubleshooting basics bombed, your print queue seems
fine, but still your printer won't print. Here's how to deal with three
stubborn problems:
The printer
troubleshooting basics bombed, your print
queue seems fine, but still your printer won't print. Here's how to
deal with three stubborn problems:
1. Printer? What printer?
When you select File -> Print, you should be able to choose your
printer from the Printer pop-up menu in the dialog box. But what if your
printer isn't listed in the pop-up menu at all? On rare occasions, for reasons
often only known to the Mac gods, a printer will vanish from this menu, even
though it was present the day before. One known instance when this can happen
is after a user reinstalls or upgrades to a new version of OS X.
All you usually need to do is select File -> Print, click on the
Printer pop-up menu, and then select Add Printer. This opens a window in which
you should be able to find your printer. Simply select your printer and click
on Add. You can also access the Add Printer window by clicking on the plus-sign
(+) button in the Print & Fax system preference.
If your printer does not appear in the Add Printer window by
default, you may need to select a different option from the window's toolbar.
For example, for a Bluetooth-connected printer, click on the Bluetooth icon.
Tip: You can sometimes solve a variety of printing problems by
deleting and re-adding your printer in the Add Printer window, even if you see
it listed there correctly. (See "Remotely fixing
the family printer" for a details.) To do this, first delete
the printer--select its name in the Print & Fax system preference and then
click on the minus-sign (-) button. Then re-add the printer as just described.
2. Errors when you try to add
Sometimes when you try to add a printer, you'll see this message:
"An error occurred while trying to add the selected printer." What
now? It's time to reset your printing system: Go to the Print & Fax system
preference. Control-click on the Printers list. Then, in the contextual menu
that appears, select Reset Printing System.
According to this Apple
support article, this last-resort nuclear option will delete all
printer queues and jobs, reset all printer settings to their default by
deleting configuration files, and perform a permissions check on the /tmp
directory. In other words, you'll have to set up all your printers again as you
did when you first connected them to your Mac. With a bit of luck, however,
your printing problems will disappear.
3. When all else fails
If nothing I've advised has solved your printing problem, give
Fixamac's $30 Print Therapy
a try. This program is chock-full of features. It will check and repair
permissions settings for virtually every print-related file on your Mac, delete
temporary cache and spool files from the /var/spool/cups directory, and restart
the cupsd process. The last two items in this list refer to fixes to the CUPS
(Common Unix Printing System) software that underlies all printing on a Mac.
Any of these actions may jump-start a stalled printer.
