If you suddenly can't print to your HP Printer from your Mac, you're not alone: Code security cert snafu blamed Many Mac users today found, to their surprise, they are unable to print to their HP Inc printers. This is due to a code-signing snafu affecting macOS Catalina (version 10.15) and Mojave (10.14), specifically. HP's printer driver software is cryptographically signed with a certificate that macOS uses to determine whether the …
My ancient (not really, though I’m sure Epson thinks so) Work Force 3500 series MFDs are being... strange... today. Some files cannot be printed from a iOS device, some print just the first page of multi page documents, some merely take a very long time to print. Affected files include PDFs, web pages, PNGs, and JPGs. Some also have problems with macOS devices, but not with Windows.
The same items print just fine on Brother devices.
Time to retire the Epsons.
Okay, I can understand Apple treating Amazon music as malware, since it is a competitor of Apple Music, which means it can't be trusted, just like non-Apple repair parts. But why HP printers? Is Apple getting back into the printer market? Did HP not give Apple 30% of the revenue for ink for printers connected to Apple devices?
Inquiring minds want to know, etc.
And I'm off before the pitchforks mob gets here.
It's not just the signing on the application, if you try to install the HP Printer Utilities 5.1 DMG from the HP website, the installer is signed with a certificate that expired a year ago. You can tell the system to trust it... but it doesn't help -- various bits won't install because the individual executables are borked too.
Your average Joe like me gets by just fine using AirPrint. Printing to one of those from a fruity thing of any kind requires no device driver installation or dedicated app. In a previous life I have horrible memories of installing hundreds of megabytes of driver and service code to get a printer up and running, with a Windows service in the background cheerfully volunteering to purchase expensive ink, and doing god knows what else to my PC like, for example, serving as an entry point for malware.
No, they just decided that you need to go to tank printer, so you need now to buy a new printer to get the properly signed drivers
And in a while they will change their mind, bork the tank printer drivers and issue new cartridge drivers (incompatible with the current generation of cartridge printers) so you will have to buy an new printer...
Profits!
because what you are describing is very, very, cery close to what will happen and is clearly not a joke.
HP has transformed from a great company into a bunch of scumbags.
I'm ashamed to admit that I worked for them but at least it was before they got too far down the scumbaggery ladder.
I'm running a salvaged and repaired HP LJ5, here in the Fortress of Solitude (my basement WFH room) and it's just doing a tremendous job. Also for my wife, who's using AirPrint through my Linux system, acting as a print server for her Apple gear.
My work PC runs (corporately managed) Win10 and worked fine until a recent update replaced HP's PCL5 drivers with a newer version which, for some reason unknown to me, borks all printing to the LJ5.
And HP has scrubbed the previous version of the drivers from their website. Luckily, they are available on the Web, thanks to a kind soul who had the foresight to grab them. When the older driver is installed, the LJ5 works just fine off Win10.
I am no longer a fan of HP, and will buy nothing from them. Certainly no printers. They appear to be moving to "Printing as a Service", meaning you have to subscribe to ink deliveries, lest your cartridge "expire". LJ5's don't have that ability, thus the borkage by driver. Or, so my skeptical mind suspects.
We heard from users at 8:am here in NL on Friday. Took us a better part of the day to get to the bottom of it, as we were coming off of a two day power outage, low voltage and mid voltage gear had to be swapped of out facility, and were sure the printer issue was due to the power going from mains to UPS to generator, and back again when the job was done. We had a power cut years ago that borked a few JetDirect cards, so we were once bitten twice shy...
I had a fun time this week when trying to scan a document. I'd say this printer has been installed for a year, maybe used once every 2 to 3 weeks, and it's never straightforward.
HP manages to install about (checks) half a gigabyte of apps and drivers as a *minimum* and it still can't keep track of the printer that's installed. Took 30+ minutes of troubleshooting before I could scan, and it got me thinking while I clicked and sighed my way through reinstalls, how have printers remained an absolute ballache for 20+ years now? HP's "Print Doctor" diagnosed a TWAIN issue in the end (TWAIN! Still exists! Wouldn't be surprised if there was a virtual LPT1 installed too). How a non-IT literate consumer is meant to use printers is beyond me.
From what I can tell, it wants to install the printer as a cloud enabled device, and you print through that (so I can do all manner of printing away from the house presumably...). It takes all manner of arguments to persuade it to act as a local printer only.
Fruit isn't part of my diet, but am I mistaken when I seem to remember that CUPS works perfectly on macOS? Or doesn't that solve this issue? Or is CUPS the default printer spool anyway and is it something Apple specific that's the hindrance and messing up? Because here, on *nix with CUPS and a HP laser all is good...
Never mind...
Has Apple abandoned CUPS, the Linux's world's widely used open-source printing system? Seems so
After only one public Git commit this year, penguinstas think: Fork it, we don't need Cupertino
https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/15/apple_cups_develoment/
Well, that didn't take long to close that walled garden then...
Banging the current Gutenprint bundle on solves so so many macOS printing woes. I have to use it as HP dumped macOS support for my battletank of an LJ 5N and Canon for my MP600 about four years ago, and I recommend it to anyone who has a printer in the huge supported hardware list.
Though this has now been uncovered as a mistake at HP, issues with malware scanners are not uncommon. And Apple's XProtect is essentially a first line of defense rudimentary anti-malware scanner.
I used to work for one of the big AV software companies and every couple of months one of our competitors would have a PR disaster on their hands as their software had identified a vital Windows system file as malware and had quarantined or removed it. Cue headlines with hundreds of thousands or even millions of machines that would suddenly not boot any more.
Yet, nobody used this as a cheap shot at said competitor because every one knew this stuff happened and you could be next. And we were next, at some point. I forget which file it was but it was days of negative media, support departments overwhelmed and tech staff writing blog posts to explain to very novice users how to put a specific Windows system file back in a place they've never heard of before, using tools they'd never used before.
And all was absolutely and correctly blamed on the AV suppliers. If you want to be in the business of AV, you CANNOT afford false positives in any part of the automated removal process. You MUST make the quarantining or removal something the user has to decide on if your automated system isn't 100% correct.
HP asked Apple to revoke the cert. Apple prompts the user that the cert is expired and offers to continue, the driver then loops, likely doing its own checking against xprotect obviously failing and showing the cert issue again.
As it’s an HP driver it’s HP at fault.
I can't help visualising HP's management over the past many years as being like a group of children who've wandered into a control romm full of switches and buttons which they don't understand going "I wonder what happens if we press this".
Alternatively it may be a consequence of the fact that, as most of us know, the reliability of an HP product is proportional to its age so they're trying everything they can to make it difficult to drive the older stuff because that's the only way they'll force us to replace it.
I think it is when the application runs, it would be a waste of resources to check every few minutes if the application wasn’t being used.
Incidentally gatekeeper the OS X component that does the verification has been built into the operating system since 2012.
HP are the idiots to blame for this fiasco. I do have a HP printer but it is using the generic driver.
Max’s download updates to the following on an ad hoc basis
Xprotect
Gatekeeper
MRT
It’s not sending stuff to the cloud but downloading signatures just like an AV program would.
See Howard’s helpful explainers
https://eclecticlight.co/2020/07/19/last-week-on-my-mac-malware-detection-games/
Not sure how you’d go about stopping these updates or if you should. Certainly don’t need to pay for AV especially if running 10.15 or later.
Recently updated to macOS 10.15.7. Now my HP 4500 does not print. The printer is older than I can remember but I deleted it from my Mac and tried to add it. Got the malware error that said it could damage my computer so I reinstall the HP drivers from HP's website. Now when I try to re-add the printer, I receive an error saying "An error occurred while trying to add the selected device. Unable to communicate with the printer at this time.
I restarted the computer and powered the printer on and off and still the same error. Any suggestions?
This post has been deleted by its author
Ok this fixed my problem with a hp4350
Opened up and tried to print, got the error message.
Clicked show in finder.
Found the hp folder a couple of levels up from the app causing the error.
Deleted this.
Rebooted the Mac
Added a printer using the generic Apple driver it needed to do a download from Apple
Just checked and it supports the paper trays and duplexer so I am all good now.
Ymmv
Weird morning with the message that my HP was hosting malware. I tried uninstalling the driver sw and then installing the latest sw from HP - after a looooong protracted effort to locate it. Funny thing was then that the WiFi connection I use for my printer access disappeared. I was able to shift the printer to another WiFi channel and reconnect. Took most of the morning og fumbling in cyberspace.
I deleted the printer from printer settings, and clicked the "Show in finder" folder, then deleted the "hp" folder under /Library/Printers/
Then I re-added it in the system preferences (NOT downloading any drivers from HP's site). It gave me a pop up that said "Drivers need to be downloaded from Apple", and then it downloaded and installed them successfully - it now prints fine and the issue is resolved.
iMac 10.14.6 and HP Deskjet 6940 printer started failing in HP Utility.app with "Termination Reason: Namespace CODESIGNING, Code 0x1"
I first reset printing to delete the Deskjet 6940. Then ran ftp.hp.com/pub/softlib/software12/HP_Quick_Start/osx/Installations/Essentials/hp-printer-essentials-S-5_14_8_4.pkg . And reinstalled the Deskjet printer.
Printing via network from iMac connected to WiFi router by ethernet cable to the Deskjet also connected by ethernet to the same router worked. The printer is shared and a MacBook Air is able to also print again via WiFi.
Thanks HP for causing a working two Mac networked printing setup to go belly-up.
MacBook Pro Late 2016 / Catalina 10.15.7
Printer HP DeskJet 2132 (I know it's not a wireless)
This helped in my case:
1/ removed all software I installed for my HP 2 years ago
2/ removed my printer from Preferences/printers/scanners
3/ installed HP Printer Drivers v5.1 for OS X from support apple com
Started printing a document without even adding a printer. My Mac just got it all by itself.
Hope it helps.
I have had problems on and off with my Hp printer. They always blame Apple. I spent 4 hours trying to get the printer working the other day with the help of HP tech (waited an hour for support - no call back option) At that point I could print but not scan. I was getting the "this will destroy your computer message)
The tech told me if I have any more problems I should buy another printer because this one isn't compatible with Apple. It's considered old but it works fine if only HP and Apple would get their act together. Now - 3 days after it was fixed I can't do anything. Getting an error message that says "Stopped - filter failed"
If I have to buy another printer due to their ineptitude - what would be a printer that might actually communicate and work with my MacBook?
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