Duplex printing on Brother broken update 2.8?

Thanks Karl, this worked for me as well with the MFC-8890DW (surely all Brother printers, but I'm sticking my model in here for search results as it took me a bit to find this thread). Submitted feedback to Apple as well.

Installing CUPS driver from solutions.brother.com worked for me, too. 5250DN here.

Thanks a bundle!

Another data point:

I have an MFC-8870DW.

Before finding this thread I installed the CUPS driver from brother and uninstalled the printer in the Print & Scan preference panel.

When I try to add the printer again, I get the message, "Software for this printer is available from Apple. Would you like to download and install it?"

If I click on Cancel, the process of adding the printer is cancelled. If I click on Download & Install, after a minute I get the message, "The software for this printer is currently unavailable. Please contact the printer’s manufacturer for the latest software" and the sole option of cancelling, which, again, cancels the process of adding the printer.

markbennett -

Perhaps try changing the order of your installs? Try deleting the printer, then installing the Brother software, then installing the printer.

This is not a printer that I own, so I can't quite replecate the process here. I see that there is seperate software from Brother for the scanner portion of your Brother machine - maybe that needs to be installed before you add the machine also?

Thanks, Terry. A restart solved the problem (as restarts often solve problems) of the Print / Fax preference panel not recognizing the Brother CUPS driver.

The Brother site not only as a new printer driver as of December 2011, it also has a new firmware update.

I did the firmware update before installing the new printer driver and all is well now

John

FWIW, HL-5250DN here too, and installing driver from Brother's website worked for me too. Also, I didn't have to remove and re-add the printer, simply installed the driver then tried duplex printing again and it worked.

Thank you all for your help.

Marc

i have a brother HL-5370DW and my duplexing ability disappeared over the past couple of weeks too. finally googled the problem tonight, and was happy to find this thread explaining the issue. went to brother's site, downloaded & installed the latest cups driver, and viola, problem solved (i did not have to restart the computer or printer, just installed the new driver and duplexing was good to go).

for the record, the brother site has this to say about the update history:

Version 4.1.0

Corrects the issue of being unable to do 2-sided (duplex) print. (Only for machines supporting 2-sided (duplex) print)

Version 4.0.0a

Compatible with Mac OS X 10.7.

Thanks for posting that the 4.1 driver is available, Pablo.

I just downloaded and installed. I'm still a little confused about what Lion reports as the driver in use after installation though.

When I went to Options for the printer after installing the 4.1.0 driver, the preference panel showed that the 4.0.0 driver was still associated with the my 8860DN, even though an 8890DN showed 4.1.0 I suppose I could have tried a restart, but I deleted the 8860DN and added it back and then it showed the 4.1.0 driver.

(Unfortunately, my duplexer is still broken after the paper jams caused by the original update. Have to find a damaged feed roller or haul it into a repair facility. Prints front side fine, but jams in the duplex tray every time.)

Cheers,

Karl

Partial success. Installed the CUPS driver from Brother site and got duplexing back for Safari, but it still doesn't work for MS Word 2008. Preference panel shows 4.1.0 is installed.

Scratchin' me head.....

GeoFlyer - Did you uninstall the your printer before you installed the drivers from the Brother site? Also, try restarting after that uninstall, then installing the Brother drivers. I'm not having that problem with MS Word 2008 or 2011.

Terry,

Kudos to you! I'm back two-sidn' again!

I followed your suggestion exactly, except I added a turn-off & unplug printer step after I deleted the printer from the preference pane. After the computer restarted, I installed the Brother 4.1.0 driver, turned on the printer, and added it on the preference pane. Everything is sweet now. Thank you! 🙂

i have an older brother laser (5150D). i've had duplex work for a while, then not work, then work again, etc. over the years. the printer is attached to a server.

so when i have to try diagnosing and fixing the no-duplex problem when it re-occurs, it is a pain to add/remove the printer from the server, then try adding/removing it from clients, etc. each time i want to try out someone's suggestion for a fix.

i just wanted to contirbute that HerrDrKarl's suggestion worked for me.

i think the probably event that caused it to stop working a few months ago was an apple software update of brother printer drivers. manually downloading and re-installing the printer drivers from the brother site fixed it. i confirmed this, even though the version on the brother site (4.1.0) matched what my system said was installed. so it must be something about the apple automatic sw update process that causes the problem.

Hope the update fixes the loss of duplex. I'm on the road without a printer, so cannot try it. I'll wait for more testimonies of success before I update our mission-critical machines at home.