Your printer begins printing immediately after you give a print command from your Mac. Sometimes, the printer enters into an unresponsive state and refuses to print documents.
When the printer is not responding, it shows no sign of initiating a print or may display an error message on the screen.
To address this issue, you can conduct a basic connection check or perform advanced fixes like resetting the printing system and updating the macOS.
Check Connections
Printers mainly stop responding when they encounter a communication issue with the printing devices—and it also holds true for your Mac.
We will first check if there are any connection issues between your printer and Mac.
If you are using a USB cable to connect the printer to your Mac, check these things to verify the wired connection status.
Similarly, if you are using awireless printer, you should take care of these things.
Once you verify the wired/wireless connection, check the printer’s status.
If your printer passed the basic connection check, you should be able to print normally again. However, if that does not work, you can move to a few advanced fixes below.
Reset Printing System
Apple always suggests resetting the printing system of your Mac whenever you encounter any printing errors.
It mainly helps to reinitialize the printer settings by removing all the printers installed on your Mac andclearing the print queue.
Manage Your Printer Using CUPS
CUPS (Common UNIX Printing System) is simply an admin interface that provides you with more room and functionalities for managing the printer profiles on your Mac.
If resetting the printing system did not work, I suggest you use the advanced CUPS interface to remove and re-add the printer to your Mac.
Update Your Printer’s Firmware
If you are using a printer with outdated firmware, it can also cause compatibility issues with the macOS.
Try updating the printer’s firmware and check if the printer starts printing again. You can simply update it from the printer’s Embedded Web Server (EWS.)
Here I will be updating the HP printer’s firmware for demonstration.
Update macOS
Many Mac users reported that their printers refuse to connect to the Mac after upgrading to version 11 MacOS (Big Sur.)
Printer error likeunable to communicate with the printer at this timeis common in this version of macOS.
So if you also started facing issues after a Big Sur update, get the latest macOS update or downgrade to other versions of macOS.
