Duplex Brother Printing: Pooched (after update)

So, I updated all the needed software in the Mac Lab yesterday, and one of the updates was the “Brother Printer Drivers 2.8 ” supplied by Apple via Software Update.

I went to print something – double sided (to save paper), and it acted like it was printing duplex: the Brother models that we have, print the page, then suck it back in to print on the other side. Unfortunately it was “just acting” like it was printing, because it would print out page two on it’s own page.

Since I print duplex all the time, and ask that the students do the same when ever possible, this was a major issue that needed to be fixed.

First I called Apple and got transferred a few times so that I finally reached the right department. The technician told me that: Brother provides the drivers directly to Apple. Apple then takes the drivers, bundles them and offers them via Software Update. He informed me that Apple couldn’t “roll back” the drivers, so in the end, I would have to contact Brother about the issue.

I went to Brother’s website to find a phone number. After a few transfers, it was an obvious mistake on my part. The person – likely in India – just couldn’t understand my request: “UPDATE your drivers and send them to Apple!!! So that we can continue to print duplex!!!” They thought I was having problems, and that they wanted to walk me through setting up the printer again. Oh for heaven’s sake. I hung up.

Only the computer gods know why I waited so long… but I finally reached out, and googled the issue. Would you look at that? Multiple top hits about the Brother v2.8 update. Go figure right? I should have just done that first. Anyway, people were saying that Brother posted an updated driver that fixes the issue – but that driver was only posted on Brother’s website.

Sure enough I searched for the various models we have here at the school, and they all reported the same (updated) driver, and the latest version notes listed:

Corrects the issue of being unable to do 2-sided (duplex) print. (Only for machines supporting 2-sided (duplex) print)

What’s even more problematic is that Apple posted the Brother Drivers on 12/13, Brother had a patched version on 12/20… yet they (Brother) haven’t yet sent the drivers to Apple to update the 2.8 drivers to fix the issue. Granted they may have submitted them to Apple and Apple hasn’t yet posted them… however I’m going to go with blaming Brother on this. The support people I talked to knew nothing about the issue – yet it was clearly stated on the specific driver pages that it was an issue that was fixed.

Bad form Brother, bad form.