As of last night my 2 Brother laser printers are no longer recognized by my iMac. Apparently the 32/64 bit communication ceased. Hopefully Brother will be coming up with whatever is needed for drivers etc. to get these operational. Pretty much sucks.

Sounds like something I'd expect apple to do

What changed? Mac OS Update?

I had a similar problem on windows machine and an old HP plotter. It was due to windows update, rolled back the update and when the next one was issued about a month later, they had fixed it.

It is definitely something with my iMac. I have a PC at my Ham radio set and it is connected to the same WIFI and still prints. I did do an update on the Mac so that is likely the issue.
At least anything that I absolutely must print can be done in a rather round about way until the drivers are updated.

The prior OS update killed my admittedly out of date scanner access too.

Funny, I upgraded to Catalina, the 64-bit OS, and had no trouble at all with my Brother laser printer. It never asked for an update on the driver. I ran a compatibility check program from Apple prior to the upgrade.
I had to upgrade my Fujitsu ScanSnap software, that was the main thing.

Here’s a link to the Brother support page for the Mac:
Link

My Brother HL-L 2340DW works just fine. Able to print from iMac, Macbook Pro, iPad and iPhone,

Late last night I reloaded the Brother driver app. Everything works now. Update must have taken out the drivers. Weird...

Good that you're up and running again. But not weird at all. Apple (and Microsoft with Windows) try to take as many contingencies into account when they draft and code their OS updates, but all it sometimes takes is some unique setting (or combinations thereof) that an end user may have for their 'puter and BOOM...stuff gets 'broken'.

I haven't updated the OS to 10.15.7 yet. This must be the update that kills support. Hesitant now.

quote:

Originally posted by bettysnephew:
Late last night I reloaded the Brother driver app. Everything works now. Update must have taken out the drivers. Weird...

This is surprising to me ‘cause my Brother printer works through AirPlay and no drivers have ever been installed on my iMac or any Apple product (iPhones, iPads, etc.). They simply work. Even after all the recent updates.

I also have a Brother printer - a black & white laser job. Has never given a moment's trouble & I've had it for 4 or 5 yrs now. I sure hope that mine doesn't start giving trouble as I am pretty well "computer ignorant". FredT

quote:

Originally posted by bettysnephew:
Late last night I reloaded the Brother driver app. Everything works now. Update must have taken out the drivers. Weird...

Sooo, exactly which update/to what version OS are we talking about here? Others may benefit from the details of your experience...Care to share?

Inquiring minds want to know

quote:

Originally posted by bettysnephew:
Late last night I reloaded the Brother driver app. Everything works now. Update must have taken out the drivers. Weird...

No. Most likely you had a 32 bit printer driver installed. The new 64 bit OS wouldn’t work with your existing driver. It likely installed the 64 bit driver when it saw the 64 bit OS.

As an aside, Brother printers support postscript, so you can use a generic CUPS driver, even after an ancient printer is no longer supported.

my brother laser printer quit working with one of the windows updates. I followed the directions for a fix and nothing. Then a few weeks later another patch came out and it started working again

The update was 10.15.7.
It is very possible the drivers I reinstalled may have had 64 bit support but all I really know is everything is good after going to the Brother site and updating the drivers. I have both an all in one
b&W laser unit and a color laser printer. It may have been due to the combination.