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Older Brother printers and Ventura [solved]

MacSince1985

MacSince1985

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 18, 2009
406
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I have a new Mac Studio running Ventura 13.4.1 and 2 older Brother printers MFC-6490CW and HL-2240D.

I added the printers to the Mac using the 10.15 drivers (latest provided by Brother). When I print, "incoming" appears in the printer queue for a fraction of a second but nothing is sent to the printer.

For info, the Mac can see the printers and I can scan on the MFC with VueScan. Just can't print anything.

Those models are not listed as supported by AirPrint. Is there a generic driver I can use? Seems like a shame to trash working printers just for a driver issue?
 
Have you contacted Brother?

They have great hardware but they may not support older printers with newer OS software. Had to toss a perfectly good printer (P-Touch) because they did not update their software for the latest OS.
 
Yea, contact Brother. My Brother printer isn't supported with Ventura (or M1, M2, can't remember). Either way, I changed to a USB print-server and it's been chugging along since.

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Sorinut said:
Yea, contact Brother. My Brother printer isn't supported with Ventura (or M1, M2), can't remember. Either way, I changed to a USB print-server and it's been chugging along since.

I used one of these:
Click to expand...
"Device is not compatible with Multi-Functional Printers." :-(
HDFan said:
Have you contacted Brother?
Click to expand...
Their website statement is a little vague.
Basically, the 10.15 driver may work for printing, but they're not writing new drivers for older printers. Or they recommend using iPrint&Scan or AirPrint, neither of which support those printers under Ventura.

It looks like it may be a printer replacement time. Too bad I just purchased a spare set of ink tanks.
 
This is the answer specifically for the MFC-6490CW:
Apple's macOS 13 Ventura released on October 24, 2022.

We don't have plans to release official drivers or software for your model on macOS 13.

- For printing, you may be able to use the macOS 10.15 driver, if available for download for your model.

- For scanning, you may be able to use Brother iPrint&Scan.

Note
You may also need to run the iPrint&Scan Push Scan Tool for scanning directly from your machine.
Click to expand...
Notice the non-committal use of the word "may".
 
I'm using an MFC-7440N through a wired network connection with its 10.15 drivers. Started with a clean install, and manually downloading the drivers from Brother's support site, since Apple stopped maintaining its driver repository a while back.

It works fine for printing and scanning, with Image Capture. The old Brother ControlCenter, being a 32-bit app, is of course relegated to history. Too bad; it's a more fully featured app than IC, and I got accustomed to it in my workflow. It was nice to have both options.

I would expect that the non-PS printers based on the rastertobrother engine that make up the bulk of their laser products, like the 2240D, to work fine. But the USB connection may be an issue.

Still unknown what the situation is with Sonoma.
 
I have a Brother 2240D also, and I've found the only way I can continue to use it is with my 2015 iMac which I keep on Catalina 10.15.7. I cannot print from my Intel 2019 Macbook Pro updated to Ventura, and it didn't work when it was on Monterey either. It certainly doesn't work on my M1 machines. When my iMac dies I'll need a new printer.
According to the Brother website, the latest OS for which drivers are available is 10.15.
Update: After reading more comments here, I tried again to print from my 2019 Macbook Pro (on Ventura 13.3.1) and – guess what – it works. Thanks to everyone for making me think again.
And it also works on my M1 machines. So just download the latest driver from the Brother site, and it works. What I was doing wrong before I have no idea.
 
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Weird, I must be dodging a bullet here because my 10 year-old Brother HL-2270 is still chugging along just fine under Ventura, connected to my wifi network. I wonder what's different?
 
I use a Brother HL2040 bought in 2005, hard-wired to 2018 Mac mini using Ventura 13.4.1. I am having no trouble printing. I anticipated it not working due to what I read on the internet. I did not add drivers-just connected the printer.
 
ignatius345 said:
Weird, I must be dodging a bullet here because my 10 year-old Brother HL-2270 is still chugging along just fine under Ventura, connected to my wifi network. I wonder what's different?
Click to expand...

tcmo said:
I use a Brother HL2040 bought in 2005, hard-wired to 2018 Mac mini using Ventura 13.4.1. I am having no trouble printing. I anticipated it not working due to what I read on the internet. I did not add drivers-just connected the printer.
Click to expand...

Wow, I'd forgotten about the rounded, more organic aesthetic their printers used to have before they adopted the boxy w/rounded edges look. The early 2000s was a time when a lot of things were inspired by the iMac, in shape and color. I recall being in a home center, seeing something like a hose nozzle in some pastel two-tone color like the fruity iMacs, and thinking things had gone a bit too far.

Is the 2040 connected through the network or its USB port?

Based on these accounts, I suspect that the printers with network connections, and can operate as identifiable and independent devices are what spared them.
 
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After a number of tests and over 3 hours on the phone with Apple Support, the problem does not seem to be related to Brother, but to my Mac in particular.

Tested with 4 printers (USB, ethernet or wifi) and shared printers, all have the same or similar problem and no print data is sent to the printer (although the Mac can see the printers).

Apple collected diagnostic data and will get back next week. Unfortunately, new Macs can't be booted from an external drive which prevents me from testing a clean install without erasing everything.
 
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MacSince1985 said:
After a number of tests and over 3 hours on the phone with Apple Support, the problem does not seem to be related to Brother, but to my Mac in particular.

Tested with 4 printers (USB, ethernet or wifi) and shared printers, all have the same or similar problem and no print data is sent to the printer (although the Mac can see the printers).

Apple collected diagnostic data and will get back next week. Unfortunately, new Macs can't be booted from an external drive which prevents me from testing a clean install without erasing everything.
Click to expand...

Did they have you reset the printing system and start over?
 
OP wrote:
"Unfortunately, new Macs can't be booted from an external drive which prevents me from testing a clean install without erasing everything."

Try this.
Get an external drive.
USB3 or USB3.1 gen2.
It MUST be an SSD. OS won't install otherwise.

Then download a copy of the installer you need.
Install it onto the external drive.

No promises.

Also...
You can "clone" your existing setup onto an external SSD using SuperDuper, which you can get from here and is FREE to use for this purpose:

This will be bootable (or at least it is for me, using a MacBook Pro 14" running Monterey).

Of course, you will need to "prune down" user-installed software.
Another way to do this would be to create a completely "new and fresh" account on the external boot drive, and use that for testing purposes.
 
OK. I created an external boot drive with Ventura and I can print to all printers when booted from that drive. So the problem is not with Ventura but with the system on the internal drive. I just need to figure out how to import my data without importing the problem if I do a full reset.
 
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