Hewlett-Packard All-in-one devices under Mac OS X 10.4.x (Tiger); fix for issues

If you are having issues with All-in-one Hewlett Packard devices under any iteration of Mac OS X 10.4.x -- including an inability to print, scan, or slow operation -- you may be experiencing a driver issue that can be remedied by deleting all HP drivers from your system then re-installing the latest driver version.

The process for doing so is relatively involved, and requires quitting several HP-related processes using Activity Monitor, then deleting files from various folders in the Mac OS X Library structure.

First, open Activity Monitor (located in Applications/Utilities), and quit any of the following processes if they are active:

• HP Communications
• HP Director
• HP Image Zone
• HP Trap Monitor
• pipedaemon.
• HPIO Classic Proxy
• HPIO Classic Proxy 2
• Hpdot3d
• HP AiO Notifications.app
• Print daemon

You can use the "Filter" field at the top of the Activity Monitor window to search for these names one-by-one, then select them and press the red "Quit Process" button.

Next, delete the following files. Note that you can simply enter an rm command in the Terminal (located in Applications/Utilities) for each -- formed by typing rm then the full path to the file. For example, the first file's rm command would be rm "/Applications/HP AiO Software" (you have to put quotation marks around any items with spaces in their names). Note that the asterisk (*) indicates that any file starting with that set of characters should be deleted. Not all of these files may exist.:

• /Applications/HP AiO Software
• /Applications/Hewlett-Packard
• /Library/Application Support/hp
• /Library/Caches/HP*
• /Library/Caches/Hewlett-Packard*
• /Library/Caches/com.hp*
• /Library/Documentation/Help/HP Photo and Imaging Help
• /Library/Frameworks/HPServicesInterface.framework
• /Library/Image Capture/TWAIN Data Sources/HP All-in-One Scan.ds
• /Library/Image Capture/Scripts/Import and View with IPhoto
• /Library/Image Capture/Scripts/View with HP
• /Library/Preferences/Hewlett-Packard Preferences
• /Library/Preferences/HP Registry
• /Library/Preferences/com.hp*
• /Library/Preferences/loginwindow.plist
• /Library/Printer/hp/aio
• /Library/Printer/hp/Frameworks
• /Library/Printer/hp/hpio
• /Library/Printer/hp/pipedaemon
• /Library/Printer/hp/Print Daemon
• /Library/Printer/hp/Utilities
• /Library/StartupItems/HP IO
• /Library/StartupItems/HP Trap Monitor
• ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.print*
• ~/Library/Preferences/com.hp*
• ~/Library/Preferences/Hewlett-Packard*
• ~/Library/Preferences/HP*
• ~/Library/Preferences/hp*
• ~/Library/Printers/(any All-in-One printers)

Next go to Hewlett Packard's support and drivers site and download the drivers appropriate for your all-in-one device. After installing the drivers, you may need to open Printer Setup Utility (located in Applications/Utilities), click the Add button then select your all-in-one device from the list.

Feedback? Late-breakers@macfixit.com.

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