HP Delivers Printer Driver Update via Software Update

[illitrate23]

i went to HP's website and re-downloaded the driver installed (which has a date from January 2008 on it) and re-installed that
and now i can scan from my c5180 again - so something's not right with this latest HP download - at least not for my model of all-in-one

 

[shamino]

Why does a sodding printer driver have to be 405.1MB big??!!! Even the most complex graphics drivers that support hundreds of variants of cards are under about 50mb. I've had to sit and wait while drivers for a printer have taken two hours to install before. WHY?!!!!

It's not a driver. This 405M installer package includes all of the HP printer drivers.

FWIW, the driver update package includes the "HP Inkjet 3.3.3" driver which allows my DeskJet 842c to work again. The driver bundled with Leopard (version 3.3.1) would spew USB errors, making print jobs fail all the time - even when telling the print queue to generate a test page.

On the downside, the HP LaserJet 8000 series driver still sucks. If you print a page with a lot of graphics (like http://deepdiscount.com) with backgrounds turned on, the printer remains busy for nearly an hour processing the page. This is better than before the update (when it would process for an hour and then generate an out of memory error.) Gutenprint drivers, or the generic PCL 3/4 driver works a lot faster, but dithers the colors very badly. Tiger includes a PCL6 driver, which worked great - fast and accurate imaging, but it appears that HP no longer supports PCL - I can't seem to get PCL6 drivers for Windows anymore either.

(There's a reason why me next printer won't be an HP. They seem to have dropped all pretense of supporting their customers.)

 

[tshort]

Why does a sodding printer driver have to be 405.1MB big??!!! Even the most complex graphics drivers that support hundreds of variants of cards are under about 50mb. I've had to sit and wait while drivers for a printer have taken two hours to install before. WHY?!!!!

Mine was that size. It seemed to have updated a bunch of things in the Applications/Hewlett-Packard folder. I have an HP1350 AIO, everything still seems to work (fingers-crossed).

 

[ben.df]

well... I figured out my problem in the end and it was nothing to do with the drivers, instead it was me being stupid

I'd just happened to install a new router around the same time as installing the printer driver updates and that had caused a new ip address to be assigned to the printer which meant the mac couldn't see it any more. I'm not used to having my printer at home networked so it just didn't occur to me at first.

I removed and re-added the printer and all works fine now. This time I made sure I added the printer using bonjour rather than just as an IP printer and I'm hoping this will mean it's not bound to the ip address any more.

Anyway, I thought it only fair to come clean and say it wasn't HP's fault this time after all.

 

[shamino]

I'd just happened to install a new router around the same time as installing the printer driver updates and that had caused a new ip address to be assigned to the printer which meant the mac couldn't see it any more. I'm not used to having my printer at home networked so it just didn't occur to me at first.

I removed and re-added the printer and all works fine now. This time I made sure I added the printer using bonjour rather than just as an IP printer and I'm hoping this will mean it's not bound to the ip address any more.

Alternatively, you may want to assign a static IP address to the printer. Most network-attached printers provide a management interface (often web-based, or via the front-panel buttons) that you can use to do this.

If you do this, make sure to pick an address that's separate from your router's DHCP pool, to make sure there are no conflicts.

 

[stevo1]

Any LaserJet 1020 owners managed to get their printer working with these new drivers?

 

[merl1n]

Just a word of advice...

Anytime you install new printer drivers, you should run Disk Utility and Repair Permissions after the installation. You will see a lot of permissions errors for the files that were installed.

 

[shamino]

Just a word of advice...

Anytime you install new printer drivers, you should run Disk Utility and Repair Permissions after the installation. You will see a lot of permissions errors for the files that were installed.

That's the mantra of Mac OS. Always repair permissions. Continuosly, forever, because there are always errors reported.

This advice simply means you don't know what "repair permissions" actually does. It compares file permissions against those in each package's installer receipt and changes them if they don't match. It doesn't have a clue as to whether a mismatch actually indicates a problem or not.

To assume that you must have a problem simply because the permission-repair utility finds differences is flat-out wrong.

I doesn't hurt to repair permissions all the time, before every system activity, but it is hardly necessary.

 

[merl1n]

This advice simply means you don't know what "repair permissions" actually does. It compares file permissions against those in each package's installer receipt and changes them if they don't match. It doesn't have a clue as to whether a mismatch actually indicates a problem or not.

To assume that you must have a problem simply because the permission-repair utility finds differences is flat-out wrong.

I never made that assumption. I am well aware of what "repair permissions" does. But in the first line of troubleshooting this is one area to check. If the wrong ownership, group and permissions are assigned to installed files, problems may or may not arise.

I doesn't hurt to repair permissions all the time, before every system activity, but it is hardly necessary.

I disagree and I'm not going to debate this with you. I offered advice based on experience. You can take the advice or leave it, but don't start making accusations about my knowledge when you disagree with me!