e-mails not printing on Lexmark

[TWHH]

MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2017, Four Thunderbolt 3 Ports)
OS 11.2.2 (20D80)
Lexmark MC2535
Ethernet cable from MBP to router, printer connected to router with cable

Hello all,

As from a few days ago emails would not print from the Airmail client (which I've been using problem free for a long time). On sending something to print the Print Manager icon appears in the Dock, the printer makes a clicking/whirring noise (the first noise it normally makes when it has something sent to it), but then disappears and nothing prints. No error messages are displayed

So I made the switch back to Outlook (the new version) and the same happens.

Other apps (Word, Safari etc) all print perfectly fine. Weirdly, printing mails from Mail works fine!

I tried saving emails to a pdf from within both Airmail and Outlook, and then open these in Preview. When I try to print these I get the same - initial appearance of the Print Manager, printer appears to wake up, but then nothing.

Steps taken so far (before and during a long call with Apple Support):

• Updated printer firmware and drivers
• Run Disk First Aid (no reported issues)
• Checked for Malware with Malwarebytes
• Removed and re-added printer, trying different drivers (Lexmark's own, Airprint)
• Deleted printer from Library
• Created new User account
• Connected printer with a USB Cable

I hooked up as lightly older HP printer (across wifi) and all printed absolutely fine.

Both the chap I spent along time with at Apple and I are flummoxed.

Spoke to Lexmark and they were pretty dissmissive, saying that the e-mail I was trying to print was corrupted. I asked how that it could be that all my mails in both Outlook and Airmail were corrupted, but the same e-mails were not corrupted in Outlook, and asked if they were corrupted how the HP printer was able to print them... He too was flummoxed.

Any idea what might be happening? The fact that the pdf generated by the print dialogue doesn't print is really odd

Any help gratefully received.

Thanks in advance

 

[chown33]

If the PDF doesn't print, then it suggests something in the output is causing the printer to fail. Without some software that lets you peek inside PDF files (a PDF editor, such as PDFpen), I don't really see a way to figure out exactly what that might be.

Since it fails with the PDF, you can at least send a file to Lexmark and see if they can duplicate the problem. Be sure to tell them exactly which OS and app versions you're using.

If you have some time to spend on this, I suggest sending yourself some extremely simple emails, with no attachments, no styling, no embedded images, or anything else. Try printing them. If the simplest one prints, then add one thing at a time, send it to yourself again, and try printing again. If it stops printing, then you know the last thing you added is what triggers the failure. Send the last working PDF and first non-working PDF to Lexmark.

 

[TWHH]

Will do some tinkering, but I',m not convinced the issue is with the format (or otherwise) of the e-mail as no e-mails print from Airmail or Outlook, but do from Mail.

 

[chown33]

Different apps might structure their printing differently. This might result in different things being output. For example, I wouldn't necessarily expect a PDF "printed" by Mail to be the same as one printed to PDF by Outlook.

Maybe send a working PDF from Mail and a non-working one from Outlook to Lexmark. They might find any differences revealing.

I don't know where Airmail fits in this, because I have nothing here that can receive it, so it's moot.

 

[TWHH]

Spoke to Lexmark again... same chap tried to convince me it wasn't an issue with the printer (guess he is used to the WinDoze ecosystem approach of support --> point the finger somewhere else ).

After pursuading me otherwise we deleted the printer and re-added it using the 'Generic Postscript Printer' driver and voila, e-mails print from Outlook and Airmail again.

Weird.

Solution worked, even if I now have a crappy icon for my Lexmark printer.

Just as weired was that the Logmein app he sent me to try and do a remote session didn't work. Tried to open it, got prompted to Allow the app, but then nothing - app not visible anywhere

 

[chown33]

The last couple printers I've had were Brother printers with their PostScript clone BRScript. I used to use "Generic PostScript Printer" when I had trouble with the Brother driver. For a while, I even had 2 printers: one was using the Brother driver, and the other was the Generic PostScript. I'd reconfig the one with the Brother driver every couple months, using their latest download.

Eventually the Brother driver stopped having problems, so I used it exclusively. When I replaced the printer (it was cheaper to buy a new printer than to replace the existing one's drum), I again started with Generic PostScript Printer, and then switched to the Brother driver.

Right now, I see I have 2 printers: 1 with Brother driver, 1 with Generic. I can also see I haven't used the Generic one in years.