Orphaned LaserJet?

[Wingsley]

Our household has an old HP LaserJet 4100N plugged into our AirPort Extreme base station via Ethernet.

It worked fine until I clean installed MacOS Mojave onto my Intel iMac recently. Now the iMac won't recognize the printer; it acts like the 4100N isn't even there.

 

[nospamboz]

It worked fine until I clean installed MacOS Mojave onto my Intel iMac recently. Now the iMac won't recognize the printer

Yeah, Mojave messed up a lot of printer drivers. Gutenprint eventually worked for me. Google it.

 

[Wingsley]

Yeah, Mojave messed up a lot of printer drivers. Gutenprint eventually worked for me. Google it.

It’s been so long since I did anything with printer drivers, I had completely forgotten how I had gotten the situation under control over 10 years ago, give or take. Still, I seem to remember Gutenprint. Maybe I’ve been using it and forgot about it.

I looked over the Gutenprint homepage, and I see that between 2018 and 2019 (about the time of MacOS 10.14 Mojave) Gutenprint 5.2.14 and 5.2.15 were released. The software went from apparently being 32-bit to being 64-bit. Any suggestions which version would be good for my iMac, or should I just wing it and get the latest?

 

[Fishrrman]

"The software went from apparently being 32-bit to being 64-bit. Any suggestions which version would be good for my iMac, or should I just wing it and get the latest?"

Get the most recent version.

If that doesn't work, try an earlier version.

 

[TheIntruder]

It's not orphaned. The 4100 series is listed as supported in this driver package from Apple.

The real issue is why it doesn't appear on the network automatically (Bonjour on?). You might have to manually assign it a static IP.

 

[Wingsley]

How do I turn Bonjour on in Mojave?

 

[TheIntruder]

Bonjour is by default enabled on a Mac, or a lot of stuff would fail to work seamlessly.

You need to double check that it's enabled on the printer, by going through its settings.

If it is, and still doesn't appear on the network, assign a static IP to it, a common solution for cranky old printers that don't play well with newer software.

I'm not intimately familiar with the 4100, but this might also help.