Printer says Driver is unavailable

[Trojanra]

We have had the HP Envy 4520 printer for a few years now with no issue. I noticed last week that it was only printing in black and white and tried the various options to see if the settings were defaulted to black and white. Nothing worked. There was no option for color printing, I saw recs online that suggested uninstalling and then reinstalling the drivers. I did this. Problem after reinstalling the drivers is that I can't print at all anymore. I see a "driver is unavailable" message when I try to add the printer. Help please! 

[Echo_Lake]

@Trojanra

Thank you for posting on HP Support Community.
 

Don't worry as I'll be glad to help, I have a few troubleshooting steps we could try to fix the issue:  
 

Download and run HP Print and Scan Doctor: Follow the steps from the link: Click here

Root level uninstall and reinstall printer drivers: 

• Go to Control panel – Programs and feature – Select all the HP Envy printer entries and uninstall them.
• Now go to Control panel – Devices and printer – Select all the printer entries and remove the device. 
• Then press the "windows key" + "r" to get the "Run" window open - Type "printui.exe /s" and press enter.
• Under print server properties, go to drivers - remove any entry there as well.
• Again, go to run window, type – “c:/programdata” – Go to Hewlett Packard folder, remove any printer related folders & files. 

To reinstall, click here.

Hope this helps! Keep me posted for further assistance.
Please click “Accept as Solution” if you feel my post solved your issue, it will help others find the solution. Click the “Kudos, Thumbs Up" on the bottom right to say “Thanks” for helping!

[Trojanra]

Hello Echo_Lake. I followed the steps you suggested and uninstalled the printer in all of the instances you outlined. I have the HP Smart app but when I press the diagnose button I keep getting a pop up that says "Do you want to allow this app to make changes to your device?" then I click "Yes" but the pop-up just continues to show up on loop. The same thing happens when I tried to install the printer from the app. I went instead to the control panel and installed the printer from there and continue to get the same "driver unavailable" message. 

Please note that I have Windows 11 in S mode. Not sure if that makes a difference?? 

[Echo_Lake]

@Trojanra

Thank you for posting back. 

I appreciate your efforts to try and resolve the issue.
I'm sending out a private message to assist you with the next course of action. Please check your Private message icon on the upper right corner of your HP Community profile Next, to your profile Name, you should see a little blue envelope, please click on it or simply click on this link: https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/notes/privatenotespage
 

Hope this helps! Keep me posted for further assistance.
Please click “Accept as Solution” if you feel my post solved your issue, it will help others find the solution. Click the “Kudos, Thumbs Up" on the bottom right to say “Thanks” for helping!