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After updating to Big Sur, one of my three Mac Minis doen't recognize my HP6980 LAN-printer (neither on WiFi nor ethernet). It thinks it is a PCL-laser printer. Duplex recognized but it only prints black/white (status color cartridges not shown). The other 2 Mac Minis have no issues. How do I try to fix this?

Edit 20 dec 2020: The Mac giving the issue has a driver version 2.3 The Macs without issues have driver version 4.0.5. Even after "forcing" BS to choose the correct deskjet instead of the PCL-laser the wrong driver persists.

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    Try turning on printer sharing on a Mac that does recognize the printer. Next, try accessing the shared printer from the Mac that did not recognize the printer.
    – David Anderson
    Commented Dec 18, 2020 at 19:24
  • @David, tnx for the suggestion. It is a great workaround. The Mac mini in question still doesn't recognize the printer, but it prints correctly through the other Mac. Caveat: the other Mac has to be turned on. Seems to be a local flaw for this Mac.
    – JayBee
    Commented Dec 18, 2020 at 19:53
  • Found a workable solution. 1 of my 3 Mac's is always on (music, video and more streaming). Using this one also as a "printer-server". Problem not solved but skipped. Works just as well for me.
    – JayBee
    Commented Dec 18, 2020 at 20:03
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    With my Macs, once working though sharing, I can turn sharing off and the Mac will now work directly with the printer. You man have to manually add the printer for this to work. In any case, if you found a solution, then you should post your own answer. Later you can return and accept your own answer. If someone else knows a better answer, then they can still post their answer. If you wish, you can change which answer is accepted.
    – David Anderson
    Commented Dec 19, 2020 at 0:11
  • See if the HP has an update. HP had a lot of certificate troubles earlier in the year, requiring Apple to fudge some certificates to work again & HP to have to update a lot of their Apple software & printer firmware too. My Apple drivers were updated a month or so ago, but the printer's onboard firmware (which I have set to auto-update) only arrived this week. If you login to your HP "home" page you'll see the announcements.
    – Tetsujin
    Commented Dec 20, 2020 at 12:48

1 Answer 1

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We have had luck connecting a HP printer to the mac with USB, adding it to a local print queue and then letting software update install the drivers. The drivers are mostly monolithic so any update to any HP generally gets them all updated in one shot.

In the past, they had used a certificate to sign their helper app and when it was revoked, many chose to go get the driver and install it but I haven’t needed that procedure since a month after that event.

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