Re: Any MAC guru's out there? Need help :(

pizza1 · ‎01-03-2021

Hey...so...my last printer just quit working with my desktop mac, meaning my mac couldnt "find" it. I tried to delete the printer download and re-install it, but now the mac cant even locate the downlaod or my printer. I spent hours trying to trouble shoot this, finally I gave up and went to Staples and bought a new printer.

Got home, got it out of the box and set up, went to the HP support website and downloaded the new printer. Went to "set up" or "add" the new printer to my Mac, and I apparently cant because my OS is 10.12, and the new printer requirements is minimum OS 10.13. (sighs). Im literally at at loss...

So......I thought, easy fix. Ill download or upgrade to 10.13....wrong!!! That upgrade cant be found anywhere in the app store, and the apple community is of no help. I DO NOT want to haul my desktop to the Apple store and sit at the genius bar for hours. What can I do, what are my options, and how can I get a dang printer to work with my Mac. Besides going to the store, and looking on the box of every printer to see the apple OS requirements, air print/wifi compatibilty etc...what else can I do? help!! LOL

tacpoly · ‎01-03-2021

You might have automatically installed new printer drivers that required the OS 10.13. I don't own an HP printer, but I know other companies keep older drivers in their download page. You may need to go to the HP website to download a (older) driver compatible with 10.12 -- then make sure you do not automatically update drivers.

Anonymous · ‎01-03-2021

Apple removes old OSes from the App Store. Check the links here.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211683

This link will tell you if your Mac can run High Sierra but I would honestly check Big Sur and Catalina compatibility if you're going to upgrade so you don't run into more software breakage down the line. Now that Big Sur is out and the OS is officially 11 now, I suspect that X builds will fall out of favor rather quickly.

https://support.apple.com/kb/SP765?locale=en_US

Ficoproblems247 · ‎01-03-2021

Agree with what @Anonymous said. Apple typically supports their hardware for 7 years with OS updates. I would go ahead and install MacOS 11 which they refer to as 'Big Sur.' If your machine is from '13-'14 or newer, you should be good. I installed it on both my new iMac, as well as my daughters very old, very minimum spec Mac mini from '14. The old mini runs just as snappy with Big Sur installed as it did with Catalina (their previous version.) An alternate method to check for updates is to click on your Apple menu icon on the top left of your screen and click "About this Mac." From there it will allow you to check for available software updates.

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pizza1 · ‎01-03-2021

GOOD NEWS!!!! Big Sur was successful, new printer installation was a success as well!! It only took 6 hours, because I first updated to Catalina, LOL, then updated to Big Sur.

All is well in Pizza1's land now

. Thank you @Anonymous for the links!

Anonymous · ‎01-03-2021

@pizza1 wrote:
GOOD NEWS!!!! Big Sur was successful, new printer installation was a success as well!! It only took 6 hours, because I first updated to Catalina, LOL, then updated to Big Sur.

All is well in Pizza1's land now . Thank you @Anonymous for the links!

Awesome, glad to hear it all went well! 👍