macOS and USB printer reset issue

Problem solved!!! I kick myself for not thinking of this sooner. macOS comes from NeXTSTEP; in fact, we would not have macOS as we know it without the brilliant work done at NeXT, and Preview was part of that platform, back to 1989. So, I simply changed the default application for opening .pdf from Adobe Reader to Preview. I tested several IRS forms and the only thing I will miss, until I get used to not having it, is the purple background associated with editable widgets. I can live without purple now that printing works correctly. I would have tried to fix the issue by upgrading Adobe reader, but I am already at the latest release for High Sierra, and the last thing I will do is switch out HS. The one good thing that came out of this dialogue with the "community" was learning about CUPS admin port 631.

I have CUPS 2.2.5 and am not in a position to compile 2.2.9 since no binary version is available to download. Besides, basic printing with vanilla macOS with the CUPS that came with the system ought to be a given, except...

I just received and configured a brand new Brother MFC-L2750DW printer. Configuration on macOS and Windows 10 and 11 was trivial. Test prints worked as did printing from LibreOffice and MS Word in VirtualBox. But...drum role... it is impossible to print a filled in tax form with Adobe Reader. That is about as basic a printing task as it gets. The printer queue reports "stopped - "Filter" failed." This is always the result when I attempt to print from Reader to my USB connected HP Laser Jet 5, and now it is exactly what happens with this new mega$$$ printer. This really sucks. The only way I can print tax forms from macOS is to do it from Preview, Apple's proprietary PDF enabled utility. I turned on debug in CUPS and this is all I can find re that particular job, to wit:

D [11/Apr/2023:15:30:02 -0500] [Job 13] BRWAC50DE7FD2C8.local.=[v1.fe80::ae50:deff:fe7f:d2c8+en0]
D [11/Apr/2023:15:30:02 -0500] [Job 13] backendWaitLoop(snmp_fd=8, addr=0x7fbe99f01088, side_cb=0x109875b81)
D [11/Apr/2023:15:30:02 -0500] [Job 13] PID 49911 (/usr/libexec/cups/backend/dnssd) exited with no errors.
D [11/Apr/2023:15:30:02 -0500] Discarding unused job-state-changed event...
E [11/Apr/2023:15:30:02 -0500] [Job 13] Job stopped due to filter errors; please consult the error_log file for details.
D [11/Apr/2023:15:30:02 -0500] cupsdMarkDirty(---J-)

There is a humungous amount of debug info re 15:30:02, so there may be additional useful information above these lines, but alas, my knowledge of CUPS is inadequate. Is it possible that I require some Adobe plug-in to print from their utility that is already enabled in Preview? The fact that Preview always works correctly is comforting but this situation with Adobe and standard IRS fill-in-the-blank forms is appalling especially since Adobe PDF tax forms print perfectly from my wife's laptop running Windows 10 to this Brothers printer via wi-fi.

Have I finally discovered something in Windows that is superior to macOS, that we can't make Adobe Reader print correctly? Apple should be ashamed. What a sorry state of affairs... Any suggestions?

Interesting and worth a try! Here is queue message:

completed at

Tue Apr 11 18:19:30 2023 

"ERROR: /AppleBraille-Outline6Dot"

Form contained 3 pages. CUPS skipped the first page, but did correctly print pages 2 and 3. If that is the best it can do I'll stick to Preview. In the meantime, I'm learning as much as I can about CUPS so more debug messages are meaningful. Thanks for the suggestion.

I just discovered something useful for testing. When a printer is deleted and then added back, the error log is cleared, thus removing superfluous messages. For my own edification and discovery I'll continue attempting to print single jobs from Adobe Reader to reduce the noise in the error log.

Yes, thanks, I'm using that port to examine the logs and read the man pages, you know, rtf*...Apple is so lame as to forbid me from using that historically significant Unix acronym.