All of a sudden my Epson color inkjet has stopped working. When I print a document to it, the printer icon appears in the dock for a moment, then goes away, but the printer never does anything. If I go to the completed job print queue, whatever I just tried to print is listed there, but nothing has actually come out of the printer. It’s like the print utility is sending the info, but the printer never gets it. Anybody have any ideas what gives? It’s connected directly via USB, by the way. Thanks in advance.
Up front, I’ll just say I’m no Mac expert, by any means, so take this with as large a grain of sodium chloride as you see fit. But, if I had a printer behaving this way on a Windows system, the first thing I’d do is uninstall it and remove all the drivers, and start over with a complete reinstall. I assume you’ve already tried power cycling both the Mac and the printer.
Do other USB devices have problems?
I agree. Go to Print Center (in /Applications/Utilities). Delete the printer. Check the Epson web site and download any updated drivers. Then re-install the printer using the new drivers.
This should resolve any problems.
That’s pretty close, Q.E.D..
You don’t need to uninstall and reinstall the printer drivers unless you had to install them from CD in the first place, and even then I wouldn’t try that until first trying:
a) Launch Printer Setup Utility (in the Utilities folder of Applications folder).
b) Select the Epson printer from the Printer List (it might or might not be the only printer that appears there). Delete it (using the Delete button at top). Then Add it back (using the Add button at top). When you hit “Add”, the OS should “see” and recognize the printer and apply the right driver, whether you installed it or it came as a standard printer driver along with the OS.