George Coghill

Q: Dymo 4XL label printer pauses during printing

I recently bought a Dymo 4XL label printer for printing shipping/postage labels from Etsy, eBay and Amazon. I am saving the labels as PDFs and printing from Adobe Reader (even though I was able to print directly from the browser at times). The print job usually starts immediately, but then the print job stalls at 25% to 50% of the way through the process, the printer queue app shows the Dymo 4XL as "paused", often with an error message to the likes of "cannot communicate with the printer" (I can't recall exactly right now).

 

Hitting the Resume button usually ends up in the print job starting over from the top of the PDF, resulting in a label printed half on one label and half on the top of the next one. And the print job remains in queue with the horizontal "barber pole" progress bar. As id it was going to print the PDF a second time.

 

Unplugging the printer and plugging it back in seems to result in a successful print every time. It seems to be the successive prints that fail or get screwed up. With a limited supply of the expensive proprietary labels on hand, I am hesitant to just keep trying options. Often 2-3 labels are wasted per attempt.

 

This reply with instructions from Dymo says that they do not support connecting the printer to a USB hub. With 2 USB ports on my MacBook Pro, there's no way I can avoid using a hub. This seems ridiculous and very archaic. But I've not yet tried printing directly, although I have switched USB hubs for the next attempt.

 

When it works, it works great. I do not have any issues with page setup, printer setup, etc. Dymo help is abysmally awful, they just email PDFs of the FAQ and KB info on their website. I have reinstalled the software, but after seeing the thread linked to above, it seems the built-in uninstaller in Dymo's own installer doesn't cover these procedures. Unsurprising from an experience right out of my 1990 PowerMac 7100 experiences.

 

I have a Brother laser printer that has worked flawlessly for years, and on 2 different Macs. This is not an Mac issue, this is a Dymo issue. Anyone out there have a similar issue, and find any real-world solutions? I'll be doing the manual uninstall next, and from there try and print directly from the USB port. Just wondering if anyone has tried all of this and what the results were. Many reports on non-technical support forums like Etsy.com reveal plenty of similar issues, but little in the way of resolution.

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mavericks (10.9.5)

Posted on Jun 23, 2015 9:50 AM

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Q: Dymo 4XL label printer pauses during printing

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  • by mari-method,Helpful

    mari-method mari-method Jun 23, 2015 10:09 PM in response to George Coghill
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jun 23, 2015 10:09 PM in response to George Coghill

    I have exact same setup as you.  "MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mavericks (10.9.5)"

    and Dymo 4XL

     

    I have tried using a HUB, and it will not work. It does exactly what you describe above.

     

    However, when I plug the Dymo directly into a USB port, it works perfectly. Since I have to print a lot of labels every day, I don't have time to mess with it. So, I just have a long cable, and unplug the HUB, and plug-in the Dymo when needed. 

     

    I agree, Dymo need to fix this!

  • by George Coghill,

    George Coghill George Coghill Jun 24, 2015 6:44 AM in response to mari-method
    Level 2 (483 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jun 24, 2015 6:44 AM in response to mari-method

    Thanks for the info, very helpful. I just printed 2 consecutive labels after attaching the Dymo to my other USB hub. It's too soon to tell if this is going to continue to work, but if need be I will do what you did, and direct connect the Dymo when I print labels.

     

    I would't hold my breath waiting for Dymo to fix this issue, their technical support was incredibly bad and unhelpful.

     

    I have an upcoming Kickstarter fulfillment to take care of, which is primarily why I bought this printer. Knowing that I'll be able to use it when directly connected is a relief. There's really not many other options in the same price range out there.

     

    I'll keep the updates coming as my experience with the alternate hub and/or direct connection continues.