How to stop MacOS pausing printers

The problem I was seeing with HP printers was that the print jobs would start in the queue but pause immediately. I tried resetting the print system, removing and adding printers (ad nauseam), HP drivers, and adding by IP. All to no avail. Odd thing was that the scanner function worked with OSX and I could scan stuff all day. I could also print from my iPhone and other windows machines.

What I found was that the encryption certificate on the HP printer was expired. It uses a self-signed certificate to have "secure" communications with AirPrint. When the certificate comes across as expired, OSX must decide to quietly pause and not tell anyone why. I noticed an error somewhere and regenerated a self-signed certificate on the HP Printer through their interface (I know, not the most secure), and voila! worked. Printing from all systems now reliably

Chuck

Find the IP for the printer, put that in the url bar at the top of safari. On my printer it is under "Networking" tab, then on the left under "Security" there is a "Certificates" link. Click that and it will open a page where you can configure the printer certificate. Click "Configure" then select the "Create a new Self Signed Certificate" (yes..yes we all know it's not the most secure). It will walk you through the steps.

MoeCD wrote:

After a long session with HP tech support, the problem came down to two things and the expired certificate was the key. HP isn’t as friendly with Macs as on a Windows pc, but I finally unraveled the printers IP address and self signing a new certificate. Not intuitive or obvious, but the problems solved.

Resetting the printer, or resetting the printer network settings, is the usual path, if the printer doesn’t have a certificate regeneration button somewhere.

Or yes, you can load your own locally-generated or a purchased certificate into most printers.

Thank you so much. Apparently the old certificate expired yesterday so I just started having issues. This fixed it right up. I appreciate you responding.

Find the IP address for your printer and enter it in a search window. That gives you access to the printers control panel and you can find it from there, probably under "certificates." It's not always clear, but you'll find it eventually.

How do you generate a new certificate for your hp printer

After a long session with HP tech support, the problem came down to two things and the expired certificate was the key. HP isn’t as friendly with Macs as on a Windows pc, but I finally unraveled the printers IP address and self signing a new certificate. Not intuitive or obvious, but the problems solved.