downgrade printer driver

Question

my printer (it is samsung ml 1640, if that matters) exhibits random failures since updating its software. the update went through apple software update. it worked fine before update. so, obvious fix would be uninstalling the offending package, i suppose. how can this be achieved? i must confess i have no clue... i'm running os x 10.6.6 on a 2006 macbook.

thanks

Answer 1

Usually, the most surefire way to get a specific printer driver is to download it from the manufacturer's website.

For your printer, drivers can be found here. It says they haven't been updated since 2009, so you'll probably be going back to the old version.
(Note: Of course, this will restore the functionality of whatever version of the driver you're installing. It may break things or it may fix them depending on how good that particular driver is.)

Answer 2

Have you tried toggling Printer Sharing in the System Preferences? I had a similar experience after applying Apple's software updates with my printer and that fixed it.

Immediately after updating my printer tasks would quit from the queue. I reinstalled the old drivers but that didn't change anything. The Samsung ML 1640 app that OS X creates (the one that opens when you print something and shows the queue) was also not responding or showing print queue items, and asked to update to the most recent drivers. I then tried the printer sharing trick, and just speculating here, I think that actually changes the permissions on some of the printer files and fixes it.