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Fix printing to the HP LaserJet 1022 Series under 10.6 Snow Leopard

I’ve got a cheap and cheerful HP LaserJet 1022 attached via USB to my Mac Pro.

Up until 10.6 came along, it worked perfectly. Then, once Snow Leopard arrived on the scene (and, more specifically Apple’s insistence to bundle print drivers with the OS, no matter how buggy) and it stopped working.

It would print one page and then hang with blinking lights on the front panel. Or, you’d print a big document and it would only print odd numbered pages. And then hang with blinking lights once it had completed the print job. Or it would print a few pages and then pause for an extended period of time, print some more pages and then… Yep, you guessed it, blinking lights.

The only way to recover from the blinking lights was to hard-reset it. Power it off and on again. A bit of a pain in the arse when you were printing a number of small print jobs. Print. Power cycle. Print. Power cycle. Etcetera…

The problem arose because Apple had a very poorly tested and very buggy driver from HP blessed as the One True Driver for 10.6.x

What really annoys me, more so than the busted driver, is that whenever I managed to track down an older version of the driver from HP and install it, Software Update would keep reminding me I had a HP Printer Drivers Update to install. Whenever, in a moment of forgetfulness, I let Software Update do it’s thing and inadvertently installed the print driver update, it’d be a battle for a week or two until I got annoyed enough at the printer to track down the solution to the problem again.

Anyway, here’s a link to the driver from HP’s site – when you try to mount the disk image, OS X tells you it may be damaged and the default is to not open it. I think this is just out of spite because the old HP driver actually works:

HP LaserJet 1022 Series OS X Universal Binary Full Solution HP LaserJet 1022 Printer – HP Customer Care (United States – English).

5 thoughts on “Fix printing to the HP LaserJet 1022 Series under 10.6 Snow Leopard

  1. Thanks for this solution – I was about to go buy a new (non-HP!) printer even though my 1022 is still rock-solid with the Windows machines in the house. Just in case you (or anyone else) are still having the ‘software update’ nagging issue, you can tell system to ignore specific updates from the ‘Update’ menu within the Sofware Update application. Now I just have to get my airport express back on track and I can get back to the nice wireless printing solution I had in place 3 years ago…

  2. I installed this but how do you tell the systems preferences to use that driver? When I try to add my 1022 as a new printer, it goes and looks for the latest version.

  3. When you add the printer, after it’s auto-detected it, then you need to go in and manually select the driver you have just installed.

    1. Kai, Thanks for the tip. Have downloaded the driver, and it works for a couple of jobs and then goes back to the all lights flashing, and don’t know how to manually select a printer driver.

      Peter Radford
      Happy to pay you for your time if you call me on (03) 57622538, or reply here

      1. Hi Peter,

        I’m more than happy to come and have a look If you’d like. Looking towards a longer term solution however, rather than spending $100-150 on having me turn up and put a band-aid on it, you’re better off spending the cash instead on a printer that’s got better OS X support (and possibly cheaper consumables) – something like these:
        https://www.brother.com.au/products/printers/monochrome-laser-printers
        https://www.brother.com.au/products/multi-function-centres/monochrome-laser-mfc

        Ultimately, the HP will stop working altogether on OS X so if you’re going to have to switch, now’s as good a time as any.

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