hp connectivity and driver issues with my c4580 printer; using OS Catalina

Hi jspencer01,

You may want to have a look at the HP Printer Drivers v5.1 for macOS from Apple. The (US) web page has a new date (Dec 11, 2020): https://support.apple.com/kb/dl1888?locale=en_US

There is another way.

Ignore the manual installation and try the "Add-A-Printer" dialog. At that point, MacOS is supposed to automatically fetch and install the HP drivers for that printer, and offer you a Printer-specific driver.

You could also choose "Generic Postscript Driver" for "smart" printers or "AirPrint Driver" for dumber ones. These generic drivers do not give you access to printer options like two-sided printing or tray selection, if any.

You are getting those errors because do not have the correct drivers installed.

HP says that you must delete your broken print queues,

then download HP driver un-installer and remove all the old drivers.

At that point, if you Add-A-Printer, MacOS May fetch the correct Drivers and install them for you.

If not, you will have to do it yourself manually.

Printing in color is an option, and may not be the default. But defaults can be changed.

Did you end up getting an HP driver, or did you have to choose one of the generic ones? which one?

Hi,

First of all, have a look at this article:

If your HP printer doesn't work and you see a warning that HP software '...will damage your computer' - Apple Support

The HP Photosmart C4500 series is mentioned in the list at Printer and scanner drivers for Mac - Apple Support, so you may want to test whether the HP Printer Drivers v5.1 for OS X would work.

Reset the Mac printing system to solve a problem - Apple Support

Add a printer on Mac - Apple Support

jspencer01 wrote:

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/1bbc6a52-9c22-4aa0-b80f-bdbd6f3dadca

How do I get new drivers? I used the HP uninstaller to remove my non-responding C4580. I then used a printer cable to connect to my laptop. The printer was identified and some software was installed. I can print black ink only and the scanner says additional software is missing and needed. There is also a warning that there are print files that will damage my computer (I've been assured this is not so).

HP online support is useless, and offers no solution, except to acknowledge there is a compatibilty issue.

Open >System Preferences>Software Update

Update: HP Printer Software 5.1 should now be becoming available through Software Update to fix this issue.

(2220 UTC 23 October 2020)

or Apple direct download:

https://support.apple.com/kb/dl1888?locale=en_US

If you can't find an updated driver for your printer give the open-source, free Gutenprint driver a try.

http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/MacOSX.php

The generic printer can print in color

attempt to print something.

In the Print dialog choose Color Matching off the menu controlling the lower right quadrant of the dialog box.

Under Color profile, choose something other than grayscale, like maybe Generic CMYK.

If that works, next time, save as default.