M15A printer receives print job in Mac OS X Catalina but does not print

[PliSsKen]

I am unable to get the M15a printer to work in Catalina 10.15.7 in a fresh install. I had the printer working with the same cable yesterday in a previous older Catalina volume on the same machine. When I print, the print dialogue box shows that the computer is connecting to the printer, sending the job, I hear that muted tick sound from the printer, but the printer just shows the green light and nothing happens, nothing is printed out. There is no orange error triangle and there is enough paper in the printer. I initially updated the firmware by using the firmware update tool and installed HP Easy Start. I then tried installing HP Smart and it didn't make any difference. I tried uninstalling HP sw and reinstalling it, by using uninstall function in HP Easy Start, but it made no difference. Currently the HP Smart shows that the printer is ready (I had to use the add another printer option to get it to detect the status). I reset the printer and re-added it in System Preferences/Printers, restarting the printer and it still doesn't work. The HP printer dialogue box shows that driver 2.0 is installed. I have it set to Airprint on the System Prefs/Printers menu. I tried another software program to use for printing HP Laserjet but it didn't make any difference and the OS prompted me to update it to AirPrint. I ran the HP Smart fix and diagnose tool on the printer but it said it was working normally. Trying the test print function on HP Smart does nothing.

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/LaserJet-Printing/HP-LaserJet-M15a-does-not-work-with-OSX-Catalina/td-...

I tried dragging the printer driver file from users/xxxx/library/printers from my bootable back up into the current folder, and removed the printer in System Prefs and rebooted and it didn't work. I checked the printer queue settings box on the back up where the printer is working and it shows driver version 1.5.0 whereas on the current volume where it doesn't work (after dragging across the old driver) it shows driver version 2.0

In the old Catalina back up volume, when you select print it comes up with a full printer dialogue box and when you print, the printer starts straight away. In the new Cataline volume, it takes ages connecting and then sending the job but nothing happens. I tried dragging the hp folder from library/prefs to the respective folder on the new volume but didn't help. If I drag over the hp driver from the user library to the new volume and then try to remove and add the printer from system prefs, it adds a new driver and ignores the one i dragged across.

[PliSsKen]

Anyone?

[PliSsKen · Accepted solution]

I figured out how to resolve it. I ran the HP Easy Admin software app, which I downloaded from HP's web site, although strangely it is not mentioned as a sw prog for the M15a printer.Odd.

https://support.hp.com/gb-en/document/c06164609

I read about it on this post about another printer:

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Printer-Setup-Software-Drivers/Printer-will-not-work-with-Mac-OS-Catal...

Anyway, I ran HP Easy Admin, selected my printer, and uploaded the printer software, then it still didn't work, but after running Onyx disk cleaner and Disk Utility First Aid to try to fix a Time Machine problem (which may or not have been relevant here) and rebooting, printing worked again!! However, I was prompted to upgrade to AirPrint to ensure future compatability and when I did that, the printer stopped working again I had to reset the printing system in Sys Prefs/Printers then add back the printer (can't recall if I also had to run Easy Admin again or not) and got it working again, and when prompted, set the airprint upgrade suggestion to 'never ask again'. Funnily enough Printer Queue Dialogue box says its running driver version 1.6.0, was 1.5.0 on the old working Catalina volume.

Had a lots of views of this thread but not a single reply heh oh well.