TR8500 says "the printer is in use"

[CharbKM]

Hi there, out of nowhere my printer stopped printing. i was trying to print something from my ipad which typically always works. it didn't print, and now i am also not able to print from the computer or the ipad.  When i open the printer settings on my computer and try to print something, it says "the printer is in use" but as far a i can tell it is not in use.  Is there a way to reset this or something? Thanks!

[lotten81]

I'm afraid not.
At appears to be something with Bonjour on the Macs.
My work-issued Windows machine can print fine. But my work issued Mac, and my personal Mac neither can print over the network.
In both cases a print job is stuck saying "printer already in use" but of course its not.

[sarai2]

I started having the same issue; called the customer center which said "no longer supported.. and look at the website". Sigh

[wheresnaldo]

Mine did this yesterday. I think that recent mac updates have caused problems with the driver. I deleted the printer and reinstalled it but it did not help. Instead of using secure airprint, I used Air Print (regular). Then it worked perfectly. I think there is a problem with the secure print driver and new Big Sur update. Try printing insecurely if that is not a big deal to you. 

[lotten81]

Mine's been doing this for a couple years. I never did figure it out with the Macs.
What I eventually resorted to his actually printing from my phone over the Canon Print app. Sad, I know..
If I have a pdf or something to print, I send it to my phone and I send the print job from there.

[Redwoodtree]

I went ahead and created an account to save people pain on this frustrating issue.  

After almost an hour or troubleshooting and searching the forums and more, I finally found that the printer was low on battery, which is why it would show "Printer is in use" on the MAC OS and why I could not print. 

Finally in the printer's Web page, I was able to find that it was showing an "ERROR 1810" and digging into that found on a website somewhere that means "Battery is exhausted". 

Not enough "exhausted" to be off, it still turned on, did all the normal things, and it was on WiFi and everything else, but it just wouldn't print.  Totally strange!!!

I plugged it into the wall and turned it off and on and it worked after that.

[lotten81]

It has a battery?!
My TR8520 doesn't seem to. I tried booting it up while unplugged.

I've never been able to figure out 'the printer is in use' issue on Mac. I finally resorted using the Canon app on my Android, believe it or not. On the Mac, I drop PDFs to myself in Telegram. Pick them up on my Android and sent the print job.
Sad that there isn't a real solution to this.

[John1221]

My TR8520 just started doing this while trying to print from my Macbook with BugSur. I printed something just fine, and then the next thing I went to about an hour later gave me the "printer in use" issue. I ended up turning my wifi off and on from my macbook and verified it was on the same network (my wifi has two bands, 2.4 and 5) and it ended up making it print.

Maybe not a solution for everyone but figured since there really isn't an answer on this thread that it's better than nothing.

[mrmike99]

OK, I will share my solution after many hours of frustration. Lotten81 was on the right path with Apple's "bonjour" zero configuration networking interface being the issue. I went to system preferences, then to printers & scanners. I then removed Canon TR8500 printer and fax files by highlighting and using the minus (-) sign. Then I went to Canon to download again the TR8500 package for Macs. Note that the driver is now included within the Mac OS Airprint, so you are not really downloading the driver like in the old days. Now during the installation process, you will add the printer to your list of printers again. The Canon TR8500 series printer will be there (click to highlight it) with "Bonjour Multifunction" to the right under "Kind". BEFORE YOU CLICK "ADD", there is a scroll menu with "Secure AirPrint" and just "AirPrint" for Wifi. I chose normal Airprint without any security and when I went to print again, no problems.

Now, that being said, I went back to the printers & scanners within system preferences. You might not have to reinstall the software. First, just try hitting the plus sign (+) to add a printer and see if the Canon TR8500 series printer comes up to click on and highlight and see if you can change the Secure AirPrint to just AirPrint before clicking the add button. I can see this now after reinstalling the software and I think maybe I could have changed it without re-installing it, but re-installing fresh software for updated OS Systems never hurts. Hope I saved at least one person from the headache I endured. Thanks Canon-not! I just re-read this thread and see that wheresnaldo came to the same solution but I skimmed over it too quickly because of no details: "Mine did this yesterday. I think that recent mac updates have caused problems with the driver. I deleted the printer and reinstalled it but it did not help. Instead of using secure airprint, I used Air Print (regular). Then it worked perfectly. I think there is a problem with the secure print driver and new Big Sur update. Try printing insecurely if that is not a big deal to you"

[lotten81]

Thanks for the reply.

I just went to try this and found when establishing the baseline that I can print again. No idea when it started working. I have been printing from my Android phone as a work around for over a year. I may have done one MacOS upgrade in that time and am on Big Sur right now.