No PPD for HP Deskjet 3510 in Linux Mint 18

[JavelinDan]

Hello.

I was successfully using an HP Deskjet 3510 All-In-One printer/Scanner on an early 2006 iMac running Linux Mint 18 untill a few days ago when it had a stroke and died. I am now trying to install this printer on a Lenovo G50 laptop running the same OS, but in full disclosure, this is a 64 bit while the previous box ran 32 bit. I first ran the printer utility bulit into LM and the printer and scanner both worked the first time I used them. However after shutting down and restarting, it wouldn't. I then tried to run HPLIP using both the most recent 3.19.1.run version (several times), and an older 3.17.10 version. All efforts end the same; the HPLIP utility runs normally till I get to the end where it aks to set up the printer. I choose GUI mode, it recognizes the printer, goes through the motions until I get an error message that says "No PPD file was found". I am then pointed to choose aPPD file from a list that was generated in the HP directory in my hard drive. In version 3.19.1 there is a selection for the 3510, in 3.17.10 there is not. In either case the install fails with a message that says something to the effect that there was no relevant PPD file available. I've spent a few hours trying to research this on the interweb, but found nothing that has worked or made much sense. I saw some posts on the LM forum that said that the 3.17.10 version should work, but again I can't find a PPD that will make it work.

I have subsequently tried to reinstall through the print utility in the OS, but the printer doesn't show up when I hit the "Add" button. What am I missing?

[JavelinDan · Accepted solution]

Well I didn't get any help here, but I was able to get a little from the Linux Mint Forums. The first thing I did was install the HP Graphical User Interface by entering the following command in the terminal: "sudo apt-get install hplip-gui" (do not include quotes). Once installed, I went into the applications menu (lower left button on desktop), clicked on "All", and then scrolled down to "HPLIP Toolbox". Once in, I clicked on "Device" in upper left corner. In the drop down menu, I clicked first on "Refresh Device". I then clicked on "Device" again, and this time selected "Diagnose HPLIP Driver". This opened the terminal and ran a dialog. When done, I was able to see and install my printer and all was well.

I don't know exactly how this worked or if it would work for anyone else, but in this instance it worked for me. I hope I have left a trail of breadcrumbs for anyone else who sees this. Even though I got no help here, I will tag this solved.