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HP printers stop working after driver certificates get deactivated

If your HP printer has stopped working this solution will help
By Peter Müller
OCT 27, 2020 10:08 am PDT

If you can no longer print on HP printers and get an error message it may be because the drivers for certain HP printers have lost their certificates.

If you try to print using an HP printer and find that you can no longer print, or you see an error message stating that the software could damage your Mac, here’s what do do.

Apparently the only exceptions to the issue are HP printers that are controlled via AirPrint.

The cause of the problem is that the certificate with which the driver software is certified has been deactivated by Apple – apparently at the request of HP. This means that the printer software is no longer certified and you can no longer use it.

According to reports, HP is said to have now reversed the withdrawal of the certificate.

How to fix the HP printing problem

You can temporarily remedy the printing problem by deleting your printer and then setting it up again with a generic printer driver. Then you can at least print again, but all printer-specific settings (with the exception of the resolution) will not be available.

If that doesn’t work for you the next option is to reset your printing system.

Here’s how we reset the printing system of our LaserJet 2420D under macOS Catalina

  1. Go to the System Preferences > Printers & Scanners
  2. Right click on your printer. You will see the options: Rename Printer, Set Default Printer, and Reset Printing System – click the latter. This will delete any other existing printers and scanners you have set up.
  3. If you want to go ahead click on Reset.
  4. Now open the Finder and click Go in the menu.
  5. Click on Go to Folder and type in Library.
  6. Now find the Printers folder and open it.
  7. Drag the HP folder into the trash.
  8. Empty the trash.

Note, the PPDs folder with the printer descriptions for the HP printers does not need to be deleted. You can ignore that.

If you decide you’ve had enough of your printer, we have this collection of the best Printer deals. We also have this tound up of the best Mac printers.

This article originally appeared on Macwelt. Translation by Karen Haslam.