Print job disappears and Print Settings controls disabled

[Paul-ny]

My Epson PC-600 printer stopped printing correctly with Photoshop. Job appears in Job Queue window for a moment, then suddenly the window is empty; printer makes noises as if getting ready to print, then stops.

The same thing happens when printing from Illustrator, but not from InDesign or Acrobat. Preview and browsers also print normally.

One other oddity is that in the Photoshop print dialogue, the Print Settings button stopped working. (It is especially important to me to get to those settings because photo/matte ink choice is there only, and there is a horrible tendency to revert to default of photo black ink, which I never want—the transition takes up ten minutes and uses lots of ink).

And I just discovered that this problem only occurs when I set Photoshop to control the colors in the Photoshop Print Dialogue. With Color Handling set to Printer Manages Color, printing works normally.

Things I have tried already:
Printed via USB rather than the usual WiFi connection. Removed and reinstalled TCP-connected printer in Printer preferences. Reset Photoshop Preferences (via “Reset Preferences on Quit” in General Preferences).Updated to new version of Photoshop from Creative Cloud,. Re-downloaded and installed printer software. Ran Photoshop from a newly created user on my Mac.

I also turned everything on and off again. None of this made a difference.

I have Photoshop v. 23.1.0, Epson Driver v. 10.85, Mac OS 11.6.2 on a 2.9 GHz 2018 MacBook Pro

[NB, colourmanagement]

Hi, here are some notes on print issues:

IF it’s a MAC, reset printing system:

On your Mac, choose Apple menu System Preferences, then click Printers & Scanners

Press and hold the Control key as you click in the list at the left, then choose “Reset printing system” from the menu that appears.

After you reset the printing system, the list of printers in Printers & Scanners preferences is empty.

Reinstall the print driver, only from the manufacturer, not Apple.

Here is some general Adobe [Mac and Win] info on printing problems,

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/troubleshoot-printing-problems.html

Simple reset: hold the space bar when you open the print window. It resets the print dialogs

if that doesn’t help -

Perhaps try resetting Photoshop preferences?

Resetting restores Photoshop's internal preferences, which are saved when Photoshop closes. If they become corrupt then various issues can occur.

Here’s some info on how to do that:

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/preferences.html

And

https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop-ecosystem-discussions/quick-tips-how-to-reset-photoshop-pre...

You may want to backup your settings and your custom presets, brushes & actions before restoring Photoshop's preferences.

Here is general info that:  https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/preferences.html#BackupPhotoshoppreferences

Also take a look at the following article and check if that helps: 

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/printing-color-management-photoshop1.html

It may even be time to reinstall Photoshop.

Use the Adobe CC cleaner tool to remove all traces first.

Uninstall Photoshop BUT make sure to choose the option “Yes, remove app preference”.

Once that process finishes, start the installation process and look into the “Advanced Options”. Uncheck “Import previous settings and preferences” and choose to “Remove old versions”.

I hope this helps

neil barstow, colourmanagement net :: adobe forum volunteer

google me "neil barstow colourmanagement" for lots of free articles on colour management

[please only use the blue reply button at the top of the page, this maintains the original thread title and chronological order of posts]

[Paul-ny]

Thanks! I will get onto this!

[Paul-ny]

I did everything-- reinstalled a fresh Photoshop, and nothing changed. However I then tried things I should have earlier: choosing Photoshop Manages Colors with different profiles, and it turns out that at least some of them work, unlike the SC P-600 Standard, the one for plain paper. Non Epson profiles I tried worked, and then a couple of other Epson ones. So it's apparently an Epson thing and not an Adobe thing maybe. I need to figure out which of the four or five versions of Epson's ICC profile lists is being used when I print, and swap it out for a different one that isn't corrupt (maybe).

[NB, colourmanagement]

Maybe some clues in here:

Epson printer profiles are missing in Photoshop manages color in the print dialog (Mac)

To use "Photoshop Manages Color" properly (to make accurate prints) you need access to the printer manufacturer's paper specific profiles, since you need to select the relevant paper profile in that dialog.

Using "Printer Manages Color" should work for Epson’s own papers, as long as the printer driver is correctly installed.

Printer Manages Color [based on the media type selected] calls upon ICC printer profiles from a different installed folder*

[*usually a hidden one, this is so they don't get deleted inadvertently, more on that and how to find them below].

Epson ICC printer profiles may be missing in Photoshop after updating macOSX. This issue started with Mojave.

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/photoshop-and-macosmojave.html#epson-printer-profiles-missing

Adobe’s tips:-

To resolve this issue, reset the printing system in your Mac's system preferences and then add your Epson printer again. 

1. Reset the printing system.
   For instructions, refer to Apple's support documentation: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203343#reset
   
   
2. Add your Epson printer again.
   For instructions, refer to Apple's macOSX User Guide documentation: Add a printer on Mac
   
   
   
3. Relaunch Photoshop.

When you select Photoshop manages color in the “print” dialog, the “printer profile” dropdown should now provide you with a list of all the ICC printer profiles on your system. If not please read on.

The Epson installer puts them in hidden folders, but normally Photoshop can access them via a hidden link.

You may be able to find the profiles manually in the folder hierarchy

Are you working on a PC? If so, you may need help from Epson's support team.

Here are some Mac tips for when Photoshop can't find the Epson profiles:

I had to search for these myself on a client site once, took me quite a while and a lot of head scratching. But it means I now know how to find them

Basically, the printer profiles are in a folder hidden away in the system “library”

Navigate to

“Your hard disk name”/library/ printers/EPSON/InkjetPrinter2/ICCProfiles/ [hidden inside a “package”]

[Not in the “your username”/library/ ]

Screenshot below

Inside the ICCProfiles folder (see above) is another folder containing the printer name, e.g:  Epson Stylus Pro 4900_4910.profiles

If you right click [or ‘control’ click] it and select "show package contents"

A contents folder appears

Now look inside that folder and you’ll find the ”resources" folder. 

see screenshot below

These are the icc profiles which used within the Epson driver [e.g. when you select Photoshop’s 'printer manages colour' option],

DO NOT DELETE OR MOVE THEM. It’s OK to copy of course.

SO - don't drag to move them as this actually removes them from the original folder

You can copy to your normal ICC profiles folder which is in the system library

[ computer name/hard disk name/Library/Colorsync/Profiles ]

Restart Photoshop, can you now see the profiles you copied across in Photoshop’s print dialog under "Photoshop manages color"?

I hope this helps

Happy Printing

if so, please "like" my reply and if you're OK now, please mark it as "correct", so that others who have similar issues can see the solution

I hope this helps

neil barstow, colourmanagement net :: adobe forum volunteer

google me "neil barstow colourmanagement" for lots of free articles on colour management

 

 

[Paul-ny]

Update: the printer queue disappearance stopped being my primary problem after these reinstalls, because I now found that the printer profile I wanted Photoshop to choose ("standard," for plain paper) was missing. It and eight others were among the 28 profiles installed in the Epson install; Photoshop could see all but those nine.

I had already seen that a small group of Epson printer profiles including "standard" were stored in my User/Library/ColorSync/Profiles folder-- I removed those as well as all other Epson profiles before all the reinstalling I did--and I now suspect that this group of profiles was what recently began causing Photoshop's print dialogue to malfunction. The rest of the Epson profiles available in the print dialogue were being accessed from their obscure package-in-a-folder stored in System /Library/Printers...  and those  did not give printing problems.

I vaguely recall long ago being stymied by the apparent absence of the plain paper profile, and getting help from Epson, which may be why there were some Epson printer profiles in my User/Library/ColorSync/profiles folder. Interestingly, Mac's ColorSync Utility app also failed to see those same nine profiles when it listed profiles; it saw all the others in /Library/Printers/Epson.... but not those nine. So it seems to be a Mac system problem and not Photoshop per se.

Then I read about a bug where Photoshop loses profiles in this very helpful blog:  https://blog.conradchavez.com/2020/11/22/printer-profiles-missing-on-macos-a-permanent-solution/ and thought this would be the end of my problem, but I didn't read carefully enough to see that its solution applies to everything but MacOS11.6.2, which is what I have. So when I'm prepared, I will upgrade to OS12 (not much choice), and I'm hoping printing on plain paper with Photoshop managing color will work again, and I can try to restore all the lost settings from Photoshop, which I think I saved in preparation for this. My lost settings for the printer (custom paper sizes and I don't know what else) may just be lost, unless I can discover where to find them in a backup, and know that swapping files will be a safe thing to do.

[NB, colourmanagement]

Sorry about all this troubleshooting - I am reading eleswhere about OSX MacOS11.6.2 having a bug that affects prnt profile usage, unfortunately it’s a matter of awaiting a fix from Apple. 

I hope this helps
neil barstow, colourmanagement net :: adobe forum volunteer
google me "neil barstow colourmanagement" for lots of free articles on colour management
[please only use the blue reply button at the top of the page, this maintains the original thread title and chronological order of posts]