Z3200 - Any solutions re: printing from Mac OSx Catalina?

[plasakow]

I'm raising this topic again in hope that somebody has found a solution to printing to the Z3200 from Catalina. HP, as I understand it, won't be writing a compatible driver and the legacy driver doesn't work in Catalina. 

I've got a dedicated Mac running Mojave to print from now, but that is far from convenient and really puts a speed bump in my workflow.

Thanks.

[Mark Lindquist]

I'm raising this topic again in hope that somebody has found a solution to printing to the Z3200 from Catalina. HP, as I understand it, won't be writing a compatible driver and the legacy driver doesn't work in Catalina. I've got a dedicated Mac running Mojave to print from now, but that is far from convenient and really puts a speed bump in my workflow. Thanks.

Many of us have dedicated machines for specialized equipment. HP most likely will not be developing drivers for Catalina unfortunately. One thing I do, is run Windows 10 on VMWare and I do most all my profile making using the color center on Win 10. It works well - actually better than the Mac version of the Utility. That is a work-around, but you will be slowed down somewhat. At this point, we have to be glad with what we have with the Z3100-Z3200 machines.
Best,
Mark

[plasakow]

Thanks, Mark.

[GST]

Have a look at https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-designjet-z3200-photo-printer-series/3737543
The drivers got updateed recently, including macOS 10.15

regards
Gernot

[plasakow]

Wow! I had no idea. Thanks!

[kers]

a little late - Sep 4, 2020 ...  ! say a year

I see the Z3100 support stops at 10.14...  not a big problem for me but good to know.

[plasakow]

Looks like 10.15 to me. I haven't tried it yet but will in the next few days.


Screen shot of driver page: https://imgur.com/nb1vXnr

[Mark Lindquist]

Looks like 10.15 to me. I haven't tried it yet but will in the next few days.


Screen shot of driver page: https://imgur.com/nb1vXnr

Be careful - the screen shot shows "Detected Operating System" 10.15 - check carefully that those drivers are for 10.15.
I'm on 10.14.2 and I could not get past 10.14 on the download site. When I tried to change operating systems it only allowed up to 10.14  - but that could be because I'm not running 10.15.

EDIT: I just tried again tonight and was able to get in to the 10.15 drivers. Good luck - hope they work for you.  Please let us know.

Mark

[deanwork]

That’s really good news if it works!  And thank you HP. We will be using these printers for quite awhile on Mac mini’s, iMacs, and MacBook pros.

John

Be careful - the screen shot shows "Detected Operating System" 10.15 - check carefully that those drivers are for 10.15.
I'm on 10.14.2 and I could not get past 10.14 on the download site. When I tried to change operating systems it only allowed up to 10.14  - but that could be because I'm not running 10.15.

EDIT: I just tried again tonight and was able to get in to the 10.15 drivers. Good luck - hope they work for you.  Please let us know.

Mark

[glyph]

I've printed with a Z3200 for quite some time using Catalina, and it works just fine. The only issue I have is an inability to create new color profiles, which is a not insignificant limitation when adding new substrates.

Mark, I tried Parallels and VirtualBox on my Mac to see if it would make a difference, and would enable me to make a profile in Windows. I don't think I tested VMWare. Parallels and VirtualBox printed without issue, but only via printer sharing that I think uses emulation instead of the native Windows driver. As a result, I couldn't profile with a virtual machine.

It sounds like I either didn't know what I was doing, or you have a different experience with VMWare. You run Windows 10 with it and have no issues accessing the HP Printer Utility via Windows to create profiles?

[Mark Lindquist]

I've printed with a Z3200 for quite some time using Catalina, and it works just fine. The only issue I have is an inability to create new color profiles, which is a not insignificant limitation when adding new substrates.

Mark, I tried Parallels and VirtualBox on my Mac to see if it would make a difference, and would enable me to make a profile in Windows. I don't think I tested VMWare. Parallels and VirtualBox printed without issue, but only via printer sharing that I think uses emulation instead of the native Windows driver. As a result, I couldn't profile with a virtual machine.

It sounds like I either didn't know what I was doing, or you have a different experience with VMWare. You run Windows 10 with it and have no issues accessing the HP Printer Utility via Windows to create profiles?

Hi Ron, Yeah, I run an old Windows HP Utility on VMWare running on my Mac Pro Tower 10.14.2
It does everything in the color center perfectly. I would not advise trying to run the current Win 10 drivers that are on HP’s drivers download page.

[glyph]

Hmm. Sounds like I'm still out of luck, then. Oh well . . .
I may wind up sending out to have profiles for new papers made by a third party. Sad, since I have a perfectly good colorimeter in my printer, I just can't seem to unlock it from the software side.

My i1Profiler died earlier this year, and I can't justify the expense of another one just for making a couple of profiles.

[kers]

Hmm. Sounds like I'm still out of luck, then. Oh well . . .
I may wind up sending out to have profiles for new papers made by a third party. Sad, since I have a perfectly good colorimeter in my printer, I just can't seem to unlock it from the software side.

My i1Profiler died earlier this year, and I can't justify the expense of another one just for making a couple of profiles.

Buy a cheap (<200$) second hand mac with an old system or a windows machine and you are done.
That is the way i do it.

[glyph]

My wife has a 2016 MacBook that she was about to trade in for $130 against a new MacBook Air she is buying. It needs a new main logic board because sound in all forms has stopped working, but if functions just fine as a silent laptop (even Bluetooth sound doesn't work).

The laptop currently runs Catalina, but I have found an installer for Mojave that I think will work (Apple doesn't make it easy to download older software).

For driver software, what is on the HP site now for 10.14 is Designjet Utility 1.0 from January of 2019. I know that version definitely fails to work for making profiles on newer OSs, but perhaps it behaves differently in Mojave? Any suggestions for tracking down HP Utility in an earlier iteration, before it was renamed Designjet Utility?

*I don't want to totally hijack the Catalina printing thread, but with this piece of the puzzle, Catalina will be able to print successfully with all the needed capabilities to add new substrates, as well.

[kers]

i just downloaded the drivers from the site above - or got it through Apple... don't know...
All i know - for the Z3100 it works on Mojave- should work to for the Z3200...

[glyph]

OK, sorry for asking dumb questions. It's just my suspicion that when they morphed HP Utility, the previous version, into DesignJet Utility (and added support for the new models) they inadvertently introduced a bug that affects profiling on the Z3200. The fact that the driver is 2 years old and is v1.0.0 makes me suspicious. Although they are supposed to be functionally the same, the last version I had that I successfully profiled with was the final iteration of HP Utility, before the name change. Alas, that variant is no longer downloadable from HP.

[kers]

I can only speak for the Z3100 and it works... with designjet utliity 1.0.0 (2)  is written here -  don't know about the (2)

[plasakow]

Okay- I tried the alleged driver for 10.15 and, for me, it doesn't work.  "Filter Failed" errors on both Z3200s. I can run one print, but multiple pages fail every time. 

This is really disappointing.  I may try to get hold of an HP engineer on the HP Forum, but that's always hit or miss. 

If I could get them to work on Catalina, I think I could get another 4 or 5 years out of these printers. Without that, I may start the process of replacing them in 2021.

[plasakow]

Mark, see my latest post. No dice.

Be careful - the screen shot shows "Detected Operating System" 10.15 - check carefully that those drivers are for 10.15.
I'm on 10.14.2 and I could not get past 10.14 on the download site. When I tried to change operating systems it only allowed up to 10.14  - but that could be because I'm not running 10.15.

EDIT: I just tried again tonight and was able to get in to the 10.15 drivers. Good luck - hope they work for you.  Please let us know.

Mark

[Panagiotis]

Okay- I tried the alleged driver for 10.15 and, for me, it doesn't work.  "Filter Failed" errors on both Z3200s. I can run one print, but multiple pages fail every time. 

This is really disappointing.  I may try to get hold of an HP engineer on the HP Forum, but that's always hit or miss. 

If I could get them to work on Catalina, I think I could get another 4 or 5 years out of these printers. Without that, I may start the process of replacing them in 2021.

https://photopxl.com/stopped-filter-failed/