Ok here's the deal. I'm using my PowerBook G4 on a Windows network at work. I've been doing this successfully for a few years now with little trouble. At some point printing to the networked HP LaserJet 5Si become problematic. I used to be able to do
Windows Printing but at some point the printer was no longer listed in the Printer Browser. I could navigate to the domain and the file/print server just fine ... but it just wouldn't list the printer itself. I figured the network admins either changed something or one of the OS X updates broke something. Oh well. So I switch to
IP Printing Protocol and all is well in the world for quite some time. Unfortunately at some point that approach stopped working as well. Started getting a "Network host '10.12.2.31' is busy; will retry in 30 seconds" error. Again, I don't know if this was caused by a change on the network or in OS X. So finally I try out
HP Jet Direct - Socket and
Line Printer Daemon - LPD. Both of these will print, but the output is always
extremely light. In fact, I thought the printer was getting low on toner so I even changed it. Then one day after that I needed to print something again and the output was still light. But I noticed that the document that was printed before mine looked fine. So that let's me know that the problem wasn't the toner. So I go back and print the same document from my Dell laptop and it comes out fine. Well now I know that the problem is with printing to that particular printer from my Mac. So what I need to know now is the following ....
1. Is anyone else experiencing this or a similar problem?
2. Does anyone know how to get past the "Network host '10.12.2.31' is busy ..." error so I can go back to the IP Printing Protocol?
3. Is the "printing works, but output is too light" issue a problem with the Line Printer Daemon and HP Jet Direct protocol itself?
4. If not, what suggestions do you have to get machine to stop printing documents too light using those protocols?
Some additional background that may be helpful ...
- I can print to a HP Color LaserJet 4500 just fine. That machine is sitting right next to the HP LaserJet 5Si.
- I've uninstalled and re-installed the printer numerous times with various combinations of settings. I've tried the HP drivers and the GIMP drivers.
-
Even when I uninstall all printers, I still have two
Printer Device entries registered in ColorSync Utility. See the following image....
The
_10.12.2.31 printer is the problematic HP LaserJet 5Si that prints too light. The other one is the HP Color LaserJet 4500 that works OK. I'm not a ColorSync expert but I suspect this
might be part of the problem.
A) Why are these entries here when I uninstall all printers? If I add a new printer it registers a new printer device. If I delete a printer the registered device goes away. Why are these sticking around?
B) Somehow the HP LaserJet 5Si (_10.12.2.31) ... a grayscale printer .... is assigned an "HP
Color LaserJet RGB v402" printer profile. WTF? How did that happen? And what's even stranger is that the system
will not allow me to change it! Whenever I select a different profile it just gives me the error sound and leaves everything the same.
C) When I add the HP LaserJet printer in Printer Setup Utility a new printer device shows up in ColorSync Utility ...
_10_12_2_31 (
Notice it is identical to the one that won't go away except that it has the underscore character instead of a period in the IP address). The color profile defaults to "unknown or remote profile" but I can specify any of the 3 installed HP profiles just fine. My suspicion is that when I do this and try to print the system may be getting confused with the erroneous _10.12.2.31 entry because the IP address is the same. I wonder if it prints too light because the erroneous entry is set to use a
color profile instead of a gray one?
D) Is there anyway to get rid of ("unregister") those two erroneous printer devices? Would it even matter if I did?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
OAW
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