MAC will not print documents

September 14, 2013 10:30 PM

Sorry to be asking this question here, I have tried the usual places but no luck. Just bought HP Officejet Pro 8600. I am running OS 10.6.8, ran a software update and installed my drivers online. Set up went well, I can wirelessly send commands to print diagnostic things like cartridge alignment, network status print outs etc. All that stuff works. I am supposedly successfully set up. Documents however do not print and just idle in the print queue. Went through same set up with pc and it works fine. I can't figure out what's blocking me, no error messages, all seems ok except for the silence of the printer. Any ideas?
posted by jdcasey to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)

Since the first day I got it and hooked it up to my Mac, my HP printer has intermittently required that I turn it off and then turn it on again...and then everything in the print queue starts printing. This only happens when connected to my Mac and not a friend's PC, on which we tested it. At the risk of sounding like an off-shore IT helpdesk, try turning it off, then on again and seeing if it all starts printing. This doesn't answer your question as to "what's wrong?" -- my personal experience is just that there's a ghost in the machine, but it may make your pages actually print, which seems to be the underlying question. Good luck.
posted by The Wrong Kind of Cheese at 10:53 PM on September 14, 2013

Clicking on this link will take you to HP's forum about troubleshooting this printer. Scroll down to Mac OS X 10.6 and 10.7 and click on the plus to expand that link for suggestions.
posted by Lynsey at 12:00 AM on September 15, 2013

It sounds like your print queue is "paused". There should be a way to open the printer software; if so, look for the print status. If it's paused, it should be fairly obvious, but some third-party software for the Mac can be pretty obtuse. You may have to do a little searching to find it.
posted by dinger at 4:37 AM on September 15, 2013

Have you done the "restart your computer" ballet?
posted by Namlit at 7:35 AM on September 15, 2013

Response by poster: Thanks for all your answers.
What is unusual to my situation, and it's an important detail, is the fact that from the control panel I can print all the diagnostic type stuff. That means the mac and the printer are in contact, but will not print any documents at all.
posted by jdcasey at 7:47 AM on September 15, 2013

When you say you "ran a software update and installed my drivers online", does this mean you updated your drivers via OSX's software update? Hopefully, you didn't download/install anything off HP's website. Snow Leopard should support your printer natively, without need of any additional software/drivers from HP.

FWIW, my experience of late has been that a lot of HP printers have a tendency to drop into the "Printing is paused" abyss. All it takes is for a print job to have a glitch of some sort...paper jam, ink runs low, out of paper, etc...and the printer never fully recovers. Power-cycling everything seems to be the most assured method of recovery.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:49 AM on September 15, 2013

Response by poster: Well, I originally installed using the supplied disk, but then uninstalled and reinstalled via OSX software update. But the problem persists.
I've been through the power-cycle but no luck.
posted by jdcasey at 7:59 AM on September 15, 2013

My parents' HP printer doesn't print from Safari (just piles up in the queue) but prints fine from Firefox and Word. Are you unable to print from all applications or certain ones? I'm still trying to figure out the root cause for their issue, but from what I've gathered it seems like it's a driver issue.
posted by homesickness at 2:00 PM on September 16, 2013