Printer problem mac OS Big Sur

This one is actually the only solution that worked for me. Thank you so much, @hectoranderic!

Yay! So glad to help! x

Installed OS Big Sur and have the printer ‘filter failed’ problem others mentioned. I’ve deleted the printer, reset, and re-installed as suggested, but no luck. My printer is a Canon D530/D560.

Previously posted:

Just installed Big Sur on my Mac mini 2018.

Tried to print to a Canon Image Class MF 4150 and then to a Brother HL-L2360D printers to no avail.

Had to RESET the Mac printing system to solve a problem.  

As directed in Apple Support: https://support.apple.com/en-ca/guide/mac-help/mh14001/mac 

If you can’t print to your printer and you’ve tried all other solutions, reset the printing system. This process deletes all printers from your list of printers, deletes information about all completed print jobs, and deletes all printer presets.

Important: First, try other troubleshooting techniques in Solve printing problems on Mac.

1. On your Mac, choose Apple menu  > System Preferences, then click Printers & Scanners.
2. Press and hold the Control key as you click in the list at the left, then choose “Reset printing system” from the menu that appears.
3. After you reset the printing system, the list of printers in Printers & Scanners preferences is empty.
4. Re-add any printers.

OR GOOGLE

"iMore re how to reset printing system Mac" which includes screen shots

Having downloaded and installed Big Sur on my 2020 iMac, my Lexmark E360dn laser printer also failed to print due to the 'failed filter error'. The advice to delete the printer and reset and then use the generic printer properties for the Lexmark printer has worked for me I'm pleased to say

I did a hard drive erase and clean install of Big Sur, and the printer drivers that installed fine on Catalina didn't work. I found that since I had a Catalina Time Machine backup, I could just copy and paste the contents of my old "Printers" folder in the "Library" folder to the same folder in Big Sur, and the printer drivers I previously installed worked perfectly.

Delete the printer when you click the + sign to add a new printer choose the IP sign and enter the IP address for the printer then choose airprint in protocol and add and you should be able to print again. Those are the steps I took. Make sure you have an IP address for your printer before deleting it.

OK I downloaded the Lexmark 3.2 drivers from 2017 from Apple. Used Pacifist to put the folders Lexmark and PPDs into the Big Sur/Library/Printers folder, replacing what is there. I still get the filter error when I try to print. Waiting to see if the next update fixes all these printing problems, otherwise it is stay on Mojave for me.

And I did all these things: delete the printer, reset the printer system, try both the bonjour printer it found (my printer) and printing to its fixed IP address and selecting the correct Lexmark printer. And of course rebooting. Got the filter error in all of them. At this point I give up.

You don't have to blindly accept and install all offered updates. One should due their due diligence and find out what the consequences of a system upgrade will be. When we went from Mojave to Catalina we lost the use of all 32 bit apps.

What happens when you try to launch Quark and Oki? Do you get any warning message. Do you have the latest versions of them? Check with the developers to see if you do or not.

Although Apple says the problem is solved by one post, putting the printer as a generic Postscript printer is **not** a solution. You lose all the printer features like black and white, two sided, etc.

It is inexcusable for Apple to put out an "update" that breaks basic functionality like printing for so many people. Do they even test this stuff?

I have been able to get my Lexmark CS410dn to print two sided using the Generic Postscript printer. Note the default setting is for single sided only.

Agree we should not be put in the position of downgrading our computer software to allow us to use our works printer!

Are you new to Apple products? Often when they launch a new OS they kill off old printer drivers. Printer manufacturers are then left with the task of re-writing new drivers and getting all the earache! Obviously any discontinued printers may not have new drivers written but your anger whenever this happens should be directed back to Apple.

When you buy Apple, you buy two, three, four, five... times. Not necessarily because it's broken but because Apple force you to.

Simple solution, don't upgrade until you've checked that everything is compatible.

Notice that I found the problem by looking at the errors posted in /var/log/cups/error_log. If not using a Lexmark printer or the same driver I have (CS310 Series), look for something along the lines of the following:

D [27/Nov/2020:15:26:29 +0200] [Job 11] Unimplemented: POSIX::tmpnam(): use File
::Temp instead at /System/Library/Perl/5.28/darwin-thread-multi-2level/POSIX.pm 
line 185.
D [27/Nov/2020:15:26:29 +0200] [Job 11] Unimplemented: POSIX::tmpnam() at /Library/Printers/Lexmark/filter/rerouteprintoptionG2 line 6.
D [27/Nov/2020:15:26:29 +0200] [Job 11] BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /Library/Printers/Lexmark/filter/rerouteprintoptionG2 line 6.
D [27/Nov/2020:15:26:29 +0200] [Job 11] PID 48514 (/Library/Printers/Lexmark/filter/rerouteprintoptionG2) stopped with status 255 (Unknown error: 155)

Maybe with little luck the rest of you who are using another driver/printer are able to make yours work without reverting to Catalina or the clumsy generic printer.

Hello nategold,

It appears that you have the exact same obsolete call in the psoptionreroute filter and it should suffice to replace line #7 by the following line:

This is the original, erroneous code:

use POSIX qw(tmpnam);

And this is the new code:

use File::Temp qw(tmpnam);

The error messages you're getting indicate that it's that line that is at fault, so the above should fix at least that problem. You may have other issues that I've not stumbled on so far, however, and the above fix may not be enough to solve them all. It appears that certain issues may show up when some settings are applied in the print dialog and when some of the custom scripts get invoked at the time of printing.

Have a look at the above and see if it solves your problem.