I tried Jake’s suggestion of clearing the printers and adding the plus sign after a reboot but to no avail. It appears in “Add Printers” but when I select it and try to print, the icon flashes up in the dock and vanishes within a couple of seconds. No documents appear in the print queue.
When I look in “Printers and Scanners” my HP 3050 J610 appears on its own but one strange thing: where it says “kind”, I see “Generic PCL Laser Printer”. This is odd because it’s an ink jet. It shows up with a green dot (“idle”) and when I pull out the plug, this message changes, as expected, to a red dot.
In the box “Add Printers” I see different printers that have been used in the past with the older Mac. These are named and to the right, under “Kind” I see “Bonjour Selected”. But this current printer it is noted simply as USB.
It still works on the older Mac – scans, does copies and prints. It was always used on the (10.13.6) Mac with a USB cable – I never set it up for wireless. This time I did try a network connection but gave up and deleted the network. It is now connected again via the USB cable to the new MBP.
I read that a lossy cable can cause problems. I’m going from the printer via an older style USB plug and cable into the Mac via a ZMUIPNG adaptor that clips into the two C sockets on the side. Are there better USB cables that have an older plug (for the printer end) and a ‘C’ plug (for the Mac end)? Might this help?
On the Apple website, the reference to Air Print states:
“The following printers and print servers are AirPrint-enabled. This information is provided by each manufacturer and is updated regularly by Apple. If you don't see your model listed, check with the manufacturer for more information.” My HP 3050 J610 does not appear in this list.
I’m now more or less resigned to transferring documents to the older Mac via Air Drop or a USB stick. But if anyone is using an HP 3050 J610 with Big Sur, I’d be interested to know.
Thanks again.
M
