HP LaserJet 1012-Unsupported Personality: PCL

[cnesgoda]

Hello All--
I recently purchased my first mac, a macbook! I absolutely love it! I am however, running into problems when trying to print. I have an HP LaserJet1012 that I connect over the network. I use a Lynksys PSUS4 print server for it. I can connect to the printer just fine, and I can select the pre installed driver just fine, however whenever I try and print, it either prints garbage or 'Unsupported Personality: PCL'

I am at a lost, I have been googeling and forum searching for about six hours and have yet to find a solution that works. I have tried downloading the drivers from HP, but that did not work either.

Any suggestions?

Thanks--

 

[Preclaro_tipo]

Sorry

It worked with Tiger. HP's website has the correct Tiger driver. But it looks like support has been dropped for Leopard.

There hasn't been an official explanation that I have seen. I is listed on unsupported on an apple page i think. They suggest Gutenprint to get it working...it doesn't help it work though, still very much broken. but gutenprint tries and prints the first quarter inch of the page after up to a day of thinking about it.

It is really sad, I didn't think Leopard changed that much in terms of printing compared to Tiger (10.4) oh, well. Who can expect a laser printer purchased in October 2005 to work past October 2007, honestly.

I will never buy HP again, there are just too many other good options.

 

[skydaver]

coming in really, really late, and new to the forum & Macs in general, but I found today that turning the HP1012 off & on can (at least today) fix the problem for a while.

My HP1012 is attached to a HP Pavilion, running Vista, and access from my Macbook via smb. I'd successfully printed, then started getting the Unsupported Personality: PCL message. Tried reinstalling drivers, called AppleCare (who verified I'd done various steps correctly) AppleCare suggested I might find the answer more quickly if I contacted HP. Googling the error message and mac, found a hit that suggested this problem occurs on all OSs, even Windows.

Our 1012 has produced over 25000 pages ... I'll consider another HP when the time comes to replace this.

 

[*LTD*]

HP makes quite a few models. If the 1012 doesn't work as you'd like, try a different one. When an HP does work, it goes forever. I've got a Laserjet P2015 and it's quite a workhorse, and works flawlessly, with all the advanced options accessible under Leopard. I recommend the P2015, the base version.

There are plenty of old Laserjets from the early 90s (those big bulky ones) still in use!

 

[hillmp]

HP LaserJet 1012 and Leopard...

I just wanted to add my two cents. I also am running Leopard and at first I could print to my laser but then it stopped working with the error mentioned. I have the Laser shared off of a Windows XP Pro computer in my home office.

It has been driving me crazy and I tried everything to get the printer to work again but nothing helped. I tried rebooting both computers, re-entering passwords, reconfiguring the driver on the Mac. I even downloaded a driver from HP's web site (which works via Gutenprint). I thought I had also cycled the power on the printer but that must have been the one thing I didn't try. That seems to have make it all work again.

So for those out there having the same problem, try just cycling the power on your HP LJ 1012 before you print to it.

I also second what folks have said about HP printers. I used to work at a college and the printers that worked the best and took a beating but kept on working were the HPs. If one model doesn't work for you try another.

 

[EditAngry]

well I had the same issue....I deleted the printer from Printers & Scanner Pref Pane.

Power cycled the printer and my Imac asked to download new printer software.

It prints just fine now.

 

[Mamanoodle]

I have a mid 2012 Mac Yosemite.
Plugged in HP Laserjet 1012
Mac recognized it, but when you print, its stuck on 'Preparing to Print'
To fix, go to Appstore- Updates
Under Software Updates, it will find HP Laserjet 1012. Click Update.
It will download, install and restart the computer.
When you try to print, you will get an Error 'Unsupported Personality - PCL'
To fix, unplug the Printer for 1 minute. Plug back in.
It will print this time.