This morning my iMac (running Catalina) stopped printing. I have a HP MFN printer and a HP Color Laser Jet. Both refuse to print. But the symptoms are different.
The MFN seems to work, i get a "Sending data to printer" (Or some such). The printer icon disappears, but nothing happens at the printer end.
When I try the color LW, I get a "private/var/spool..." error.
Restarting the mac did nothing. Reinitializing the printing system was also useless.
Without any knowledge I would begin by using Reset the printing system and then re-adding the printer. I see this may be your first question on these forums so I would also recommend reading Writing an effective Apple Support Communities Question so you can get an idea of how we can best help you.
Apple did nothing, you can blame HP for this one.
This did not solve the problem. The printer software sends the data (supposedly) but nothing happens at the printer's end. The printer itself is working, and so is the Colour LW. I (the author's partner) can easily print to both. But my iMac is antique and runs under High Sierra.
The author's computer is also bombarded with messages from the system about this or that file "will damage your computer". All those files are HP stuff.
HP and or Apple really screwed up this and someone needs to get a solution.
my mac stopped printing
