As the title says, I have a new iMac, and am able to print and use all of the features now, but am unable to profile. I can create a new paper type and calibrate it, but when I go to profile it it gives me a useless error message saying that "Cannot create ICC profile, An error has occurred". When I ask it to print without measuring, or even measure an existing chart, HP Printer Utility crashes. No HP errors show up in Console, either.
I had an almost hour long discussion with HP Support and got a fairly knowledgeable and helpful tech, but he conceded that there was no known workaround at the moment, and might not be for Mac. He suggested reverting to an older version of the OS (I'm running 10.15.6). OK, ridiculous, but I figured I'd play along. Aaaaaaaaarrrrgggghhhh!
I first tried Parallels, with the intent of running 10.14 or older, but it seems that Apple has removed all old copies of their installers and is no longer signing them. Even the developers' site only has updaters, not full install DMGs.
OK, I've done it before, I decided I'll just run Windows 10 in Parallels. Easy, right? Well, it seems that I can print and interact with the printer just fine running Windows 10, but the Windows Printer Utility is unable to see my printer. I tried all sorts of connection methods, before finally doing some research to find that Parallels actually uses Mac drivers, so it is a workaround that is not useable for making profiles (or so it seems to me now). I tried to install and use native Windows drivers, but it fails to see the driver.
A really odd thing I learned from the HP tech is that the HP Designjet Utility, the renamed version of Printer Utility, that HP says is right for up to OS 10.14 is not supported for Z3200s, despite the website saying that it is. The tech said that they had discussed it in a support meeting recently, but that in typical HP fashion, there was no solution in sight. Left hand/right hand-itus. In OS 10.15, I have tried both Printer Utility and Designjet Printer Utility, but get the same results.
HP actually recommends HP Click as the utility for Catalina, but in another head scratcher, it won't launch and says it is damaged, even after multiple downloads and tries. I've even run the Terminal command to make sure that it isn't a sandboxing issue. A web search found one other person with the same problem, but again . . . no solutions.
One more bit of weirdness: on the new computer, when I load either the HP PS driver or raster driver, there are no controls for gloss enhancer to be found in the interface. I asked the tech about this too, and he had no answer for me (poorly supported, he says!). The only way that I can have any control over gloss enhancer is to use the Generic Postscript Driver. WTH? It works, but I can't rationalize why, or why I need to resort to a generic driver to get hooks for native features. Using the native driver doesn't seem to affect the profiling problem, regardless.
I've been using Z3100 and Z3200 printers since they were first introduced, and am stumped over this problem. I can't wrap my head around the thought that my only solution to make my own HP profiles is to have to buy a Windows computer for this one purpose.
With all the amazing people on this site that use these printers, are any of you using a Mac and able to offer any insight or suggestions for how I should move forward? I'm exhausted from beating my head against the wall.
Thanks,
Ron