Printer Communication Problem

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I have a HP Officejet 8600 Pro printer connected wirelessly to my MacBook Pro. They have worked flawlessly together from Mountain Lion, through Mavericks and into Yosemite. However, the two are currently not communicating. The printer works when connected through USB, but will not work wirelessly.

The printer is still connected to my network. I even went through the HP wizard function for making the connection again.

I deleted the printer from the laptop through System Preferences and re-added it through the USB connection, but it would still not connect wirelessly. When you try to add the printer wirelessly, the Mac does not recognize the printer.

I have not made any changes to firewalls or anti-virus programs prior to the service interruption.

It may be coincidental, but I will mention it as I have seen numerous complaints on-line about printing problems after upgrading to Yosemite. After this problem occurred, I checked the software update list and noticed there had been two Yosemite upgrades pushed near the time my printing problem started. I currently have OS X 10.10.1 installed. Since the printer worked fine upon the initial upgrade to Yosemite, I thought the maybe something in the subsequent updates may have triggered the problem.

As usual, I welcome all thoughts and ideas.
 

chscag

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I deleted the printer from the laptop through System Preferences and re-added it through the USB connection, but it would still not connect wirelessly. When you try to add the printer wirelessly, the Mac does not recognize the printer.

HP printers can be a pain to setup wireless. They usually connect by "bonjour". Try this:

After setting up the HP via USB.... leave it connected that way. Now at the bottom of the print dialog where you would normally add a printer, click on the + sign. Your HP should appear as a new printer with a wireless address. If it does, you can then add it and disconnect the USB cable. (Make sure you go thru the HP instructions to setup wireless first or the above will not work.)

And yes, Yosemite has changed the location for printer information which is why some folks are having difficulty setting up their printers. I've noticed that it effects HP and Brother more than the other printer manufacturers.
 
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Rick T
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Based on your response, here is what I did.

1. Connected USB cable between printer and laptop. Printer was already set-up for wireless operation.
2. Turned printer ON. Opened System Preferences on laptop and chose Printers & Scanners.
3. Clicked on the + sign. The Add box appeared with the printer name and USB listed under Kind.

If I read your process correctly, is this where I should have seen the wireless info rather than USB? It appears the laptop will not recognize the printer.
 
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MacInWin

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I have exactly the same printer and am running Yosemite. I followed chscag's steps and after a few minutes a bonjour printer appeared and could be activated. So, it CAN work, it has to be something unique to your setup.
 
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Rick T
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The keywords in your response were "after a few minutes." I waited and bonjour printer arrived. When adding the printer, I used the software list and chose the base HP Officejet 8600 for printer and HP Officejet 8600 Fax for faxing.

I disconnected the USB cable and tried a test print. The printer icon showed up in the dock with a red ball 1 and after a few seconds disappeared with no output at the printer. I tried it again and opened the print queue. It showed it was printing with the % complete countdown and everything looked normal, but no printer output. Where it thinks it is printing to I have no idea.
 

chscag

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@Rick:

All I can suggest is to start over from the beginning and see if it works. I had to go thru the steps I outlined above two times before I could get the bonjour printing to work. When it does work you should have two HP printers listed for the 8600 Pro: One will be the USB connectivity, the other will show up with a separate address for bonjour. I guess I have been fortunate in that my printers (Epson and HP) have continued to work in Yosemite.
 
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Rick T
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I was unable to get the printer discovered by the laptop. Since the USB connection was really not a problem, I left it that way.

A new problem has occurred and I am wondering if it might have some relationship to the printer problem. I use an Apple wireless keyboard and the Not Connected message appeared this morning. The KB and LT are in close proximity to one another and I have never seen this message before in this position. It will occur when I take the LT elsewhere in the house and always reconnects automatically when brought back to the KB.

Even though I had not received a low battery alert, I changed the batteries. When turning the KB on, I noted the blink-blink-pause pattern denoting that the KB should be discoverable.

In System Preferences, I checked to see if Bluetooth was on and the LT discoverable. Then went to Keyboard/Set Up Bluetooth Keyboard and it will not discover the keyboard. I then went to Change Keyboard Type and it would not recognize it there either.

It appears that, as with the printer, the LT is incapable of discovering the KB. If something in the LT went awry, I would have expected any and all Bluetooth devices to stop working at the same time.

Any thoughts?
 
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MacInWin

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The printer uses WiFi, the keyboard Bluetooth. Two different things, so probably NOT related, although I never rule anything out. Murphy is creative! I don't use a BT keyboard with my MBP, so I can't help you get that set up, sorry.
 
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Rick T
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Duh. Thanks Jake for reminding me there is a difference between what is using wi-fi and Bluetooth. That easily explains why the two problems were not simultaneous doesn't it? If I don't have any further brain fades today, things may work out.

Thanks for you reply.
 

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