Strange characters printed sparsely on lots of pages

[stomgb]

You pretty much summarized my exact experince with my purchase.

[cos667]

Thx ralphie,

Using this solution i could finally ditch my Windows 10 VM that i used only for printing. However a new driver would probably still help a lot of people, but as the printer is old, i don't think it will happen.

Using this over WiFi with MacBook Pro 2019 and MacOS BigSur.

[emg]

I am facing the same issue with a Xerox B215 and MacOS 10.15.7 and can confirm that using the IPP workaround seemingly fixes it.

[ralphie · Accepted solution]

OK, So I finally got very fed up with this and called Xerox and played phone-tag with Level 2 IT support until we got this figured out. Even if you download the latest MacOS drivers from the Xerox site ... it will default to installing Wi-Fi equipped printers with the "Airprint" version of the driver. DO NOT DO THIS. What you want to do is go to system preferences, printers, delete all the instances of the xerox printer that you have right now, then click on the "+" to add a new one. On the next screen, click the globe/network symbol in the middle of the window, type in the IP address of your printer and make sure you select "IPP" Internet Printing Protocol for the protocol type and NOT "Airprint". Works like a champ. Now I don't have to take a sledgehammer to this printer. 

For some reason, it just won't work with the airprint protocol. That being said, I just clicked "share" printer on my network and everyone else can print from it at home AND it still shows up on my iPhone as a printer in the "Airprint" sections, so I can still print from my phone too. 

Thanks to the real Xerox support for helping me figure this out ... now they just need to make sure that they post this solution somewhere, or at least give Mac owners a warning. 

[NicoRaph]

Same issue here. Got a brand new MacBook Air M1 and a Workcentre 3225 printer. I tried to print a PDF from the MacOS preview application and it printed out strange characters.

I managed to solve my issue by manually installing the latest Xerox driver from here : https://www.support.xerox.com/fr-fr/product/workcentre-3225/content/147051

I was previously using the standard AirPrint driver which failed printing, but using this one works.

Hope this helps someone.

[DaveT]

I have the same issue with the B205 and a Macbook Pro running Catalina. For a workaround, I've been saving documents to my desktop and then printing them from the "Files" app on my iPhone, and that seems to be working fine.  

I have also canceled a print job and then re-printed immediately after, before the printer went in to sleep mode- and it printed fine the second time.  I don't think that's dependable though. It just makes me wonder if that is a clue somehow as to what is happening.

[amyv]

I have this problem, too, with MacOS Catalina 10.15.7 and my Xerox Phaser 3620.   In System Preferences, I removed my printer and then readded it.  I downloaded the new printer driver. I restarted my MacBook. I STILL have this problem.  I can airprint from any other non Catalina device in the house without a problem. What am I missing? Why didn't the updated printer driver fix the problem? Making distance learning for my family super challenging to say the least!

Thanks for any help!

[ralphie]

Xerox, we need an actual Xerox rep to weigh-in on this, and actually fix it. This is unacceptable. 

I've tried the CUPS and just "plain old printer module" on the MacOS -- that STILL doesn't work, and if I'm downloading the specific driver for my specific printer, then it should work, plain and simple. 

Getting ready to return this printer and the extra cartridge I bought for it, what a waste of time.

[WayneBDA312-ASP]

Hi 

It has a Xerox label on it but is none the less most likely manufactured but one of the major SE Asian companies

I do not work for Xerox but have 38 years working on many makes   of printers and OS's 

Xerox usually lags when it comes to MAC updates  and having latest drivers  it is usually  about 6 months after latest MAC  OS releases 

I have used MACS back to the days of Lisa so using the Generic Driver for basic Prnting should work for as the pages of script is the the Printer cannot interpret   the Post Script PDL with the current driver  and prints the PS Language or the formatting of the page

Kind Regards

Wayne   

[cos667]

@WayneBDA312-ASP i hope you are proposing this as temporary workaroung right ?
Otherwise you should scrap the MacOS driver from your website and update all documentation about how to use this printer.

Nevertheless as a Mac user i would expect things to work, and install the printer as specified in the printer Documentation, not to play around with generic drivers and CUPS. Not every user is technical.
Not to mention if you have tens of printers like this in a SMB.

For me at least, the situation is not critical, but think about users that are still buying this printer first time and they use MacOS... Therefore a new driver version containing the fix should be provided.