#1 Grand Daughter came to me with a problem this morning; she couldn't print to Nana's laser. "No problem", I said, "I had a problem with it yesterday, myself. It will take only a minute to fix." Famous last words? All I expected to do was to delete the entry in her 10.6 Print & Fax Pref Panel and then add it back. The first part was quick. It's that second part that started the ordeal.
The printer simply refused to show up in the "Add Printer" list, for hours! In the mean time, there were several 'printer resets', manual reading, printer power-cycling, GD's computer Restarts, Terminal 'messing-about', and searching. Every single site I found simply repeated the "control-click the minus "-" button to reset the print system then re-install them" mantra. I even once got the printer "added" using its IP address, unfortunately, it refused to actually print even though it was offered in the print dialog window. Oh well...
I
finally re-read a detail in one of the Apple Support docs mentioning to correct all warning messages from the printer. It's shown a "Paper jam" error (in the Print dialog) whenever I've printed for the past several months. But it printed, just the same, with no complaints, not even when I deleted and re-installed it!!! Because it had 'always' worked despite that 'error', I'd simply ignored that advice all morning.
So, in desperation and having run out of all other options, I found a "Reset" item in the printer's menu. No feedback, of course. Almost immediately, the "Add Printer" window (that was burning itself into the screen of my GD's MBP) showed the Brother printer!!!
Apparently, the 10.6 Print System is slightly less tolerant about installing a printer with any error message? I don't know. It could also be finally Restarting my wife's MBP where the printer is shared. Either one is possible and quick to try...
next time.
Once again, perseverance overcomes stupidity, assuming life is long enough! Hope no one here has to struggle with this. I gotta go eat some lunch, I'm bushed and my head is sore from beating it against the desk...
Just after I managed to get things working, SWMBO said, "Oh, I forgot to tell you, I couldn't print to that Brother laser earlier this morning."
Me: "Try now and see if you can."
"Oh. I just used your Canon printer. I don't even remember what I was trying to print, anyway."
