'Filter' failed error when printing from EPSON

The real problem is your router is assigning your network printer another address for some reason. You are trying to print to a printer that is no longer there. Go into your router's DHCP settings and assign a static IP to your printer. Reboot your router. Then add the printer again. This time it should stay put.

Opening Preferences --printers--Printer Sharing on--then "Can Print" worked for me.

Amazing that the preference changed after I had updated to OS X El Capitan version 10.11.2, and that I had to track down this change.

Your solution lead to the right solution.

Hello this may or may not anyone who still has issues with this but I had the same problem with our Epson Stylus 9900 when it was moved to a different part of the building.

What sorted the problem for us was to go into the network setup options on the printer consol and make sure the status was disabled. For some reason when it was set to ENABLE, the filter message appeared but works when set to DISABLE. The printer is plugged into a ethernet port on a network where the macs pick it up.

Hope this helps.
Mark

How ridiculous that we are still experiencing this problem 4 years after the first post. My first epson printer gave me this error message periodically. My husband replaced the printer, unfortunately with another Epson. And after 2 weeks of working perfectly, I am rather dismayed to see the same error message pop back up. Annoying.

My WF4630 just developed this problem.

Here is the fix from Epson Support which got it back up and running.

Thank you for contacting Epson Support.

Please perform these steps to help resolve the issue:

- Power off printer

- Open System Preferences and select Printers & Scanners.

- Highlight the Epson printer and click on the "-" sign to delete the printer.

- Click Delete Printer to confirm and close Printers & Scanners.

- On your hard drive, select Library > Printers. Delete the Epson folder.

- On your hard drive, select Library > Printers> PPD > Contents > Resources. Delete Epson Printer Name.gz

- On your hard drive, select Library > Cache and delete the Epson folder.

- Close the hard drive.

- Restart your computer and power on the printer.

- Try to add the printer. If cannot add printer Go to the Epson website to download the driver.

Hope this helps :-)

I had same problems with an Epson SX-525 and WF-7515 on my wifi network. I removed the printers and used 'add printer' in system preferences, making sure that the ones I added (Your Mac should find these and list them for you) had the '(IP)' suffix. This solved the problem for me.

I believe that OS-X automatically finds and downloads appropriate drivers for your printers so don't worry about searching Epson's site for drivers. Hope it helps.

I had the same "filter failed" message after using migration assistant to migrate to a new mac on El Cap.. I tried everything, deleting a lot of printer and lock files, etc. Disk Utility checked the disk out as fine....eventually I got around to upgrading Onyx (Titanium software, free, I highly recommend it) to El Cap version and ran repair permissions (oddly missing from disk util now...). It ran for over an hour. Anyway, The log was HUGE, and there were a ton of permission problems, several dealing with EPSON and printer files. I didn't even have to reboot, and the printer worked. Hope this helps!

I had the same problem with two different Epson printers at home and my office when I installed Sierra. I tried evertthing I could think of. Finally I download the Drivers and Utilities Combo Package for my WP-4020 but for 10.11 not 10.12. I set it up from scratch and did it as WiFi print. You may not have to or be able to setup for Wifi, but that's what I did.

I was previously set up to print by USB when the the print failed after the Sierra install. Now my printer work just fine. The print dialog box doesn't the same granular control from before Sierra but, hey, it prints!!

I was hopeful that this would work but alas no. Running Sierra, did all the fixes and still nothing. Calling Epson today. My other printers work just fine but this has me stumped. If I use a gutenburg driver it works but the quality is so bad, it makes no sense to use the printer. I hope someone figures this out soon. I now have two computers, running Sierra with my Epson printers both saying filter failed. Yikes.

I spent an hour on the phone with Epson. We did all from an above post:

- Power off printer

- Open System Preferences and select Printers & Scanners.

- Highlight the Epson printer and click on the "-" sign to delete the printer.

- Click Delete Printer to confirm and close Printers & Scanners.

- On your hard drive, select Library > Printers. Delete the Epson folder.

- On your hard drive, select Library > Printers> PPD > Contents > Resources. Delete Epson Printer Name.gz

- On your hard drive, select Library > Cache and delete the Epson folder.

- Close the hard drive.

- Restart your computer and power on the printer.

- Try to add the printer. If cannot add printer Go to the Epson website to download the driver.

It still did not work. The tech said somehow the 'OS is trying to make it do postscript. There is some problem with the new OS'--I am running a beta Sierra. We gave up.

Then just as I thinking what to do...I have two computers, two epson printers --one at work and one at home--. I decided to check for a Sierra update--sure enough, there was a new public beta, update and boom it fixed the filter error and I could print again. Thanks Apple team. Happy ending to the story.

in this case, you can reset your print to a manufacture setting, you can download resetter for epson on this epson l120 resetter page, the resetter compatible for many of epson L series to completely reset you epson print.

I have a Canon PIXMA MP250 printer and started getting the "filter failed" error message yesterday. I am running macOS Sierra 10.12.1 (on a Mac mini Late 2014) and found the following on Canon's website (click "PRODUCT FAQS" tab) under the heading "To macOS Sierra users":

https://www.canon.com.au/printers/pixma-mp250/support?option=drivers

To macOS Sierra users

Solution

When you use the printer driver for OS X EI Capitan (10.11) with

macOS Sierra (10.12), you may encounter the following problems:

- When you attempt to print, the "filter error" will be indicated and no printing

can be performed.

- Printing stops midway.

- Print results are incorrect (some portions are missing, etc.).

Solutions are now being prepared.

For the time being, the problem may be solved in the following procedures:

...

Those procedures consist of using Preview to create a .pdf of the document to be printed, then exporting that .pdf from Preview as a .tiff , and then printing from that .tiff .

This solution worked for me, and as Canon say on the linked page, they are aware of the issue with printing from macOS Sierra and "solutions are now being prepared."

I had a "similar" issue with an Epson 545 where the LAN was configured with one main router doing DHCP and another set in bridge mode. I had an ethernet cable connecting one of the 4 ethernet ports (the blue ones numbered 1to 4) of the main router to the "input" port (the yellow one) of the bridge router. Sometimes, but not always, the computer wouldn't be able to see the printer. When I changed the wiring to connect to a blue port on the bridge router instead of the yellow one, it started working perfectly.

That is, until I upgraded to Sierra, now it is broken again.

I have the same issue with an Epson Artisan 800.

Deleting the printer and adding it again fixed the issue.

I have many problems with this printer. I won't buy another Epson printer. The feeder broke on day 1 and never worked for one sheet. The color ink is used up during black and white printing. Color ink isn't being used so I am throwing away cartridges with ink in them at exorbitant cost. I won't go inkjet again. I won't go Epson again.

The "Filter error" has happened to me a few times. For me, the problem is wifi connectivity, after for whatever reason, the IP address of my Epson printer changes. You can find the IP by clicking on your printer's WiFi setup button. THE FIX is to add a "new printer" in your MAC system preferences with the new IP address. (Then delete the "old" printer).