Resetting the printing system to cure macOS "Looking for printer"

Canon MF216n

I’ve fortunately never needed to reset my printing system before, but when my macOS Monterey machine suddenly couldn’t send print jobs to the Canon MF216n sitting next to it, both connected to the same switch via Ethernet, I discovered this trick.

Even though the Mac could connect to the printer just fine (I could browse to its web interface, the control panel successfully read the toner level, etc), and everything should have worked, I tried to send a simple PDF over the wife and got this, endlessly:

Endless “Looking for printer” message in macOS

 

Frustrating. Following these simple steps‡ reset the printing system and let me get back to work. (I did have to re-add all of my printers, but since they’re all Bonjour-enabled, that was a minor inconvenience.)

‡ Distilled: System Preferences → Printers & Scanners → right click under Printers and select Reset Printing System: