Very Spooky Problem - does the Printer 'know'

[Bunker52]

A very odd thing happened to me over the last few days - just wonder if anyone has any thoughts.

I have had a HP 8620 printer for a couple of years, on the Instant ink Plan, and never had a problem with it. Last used it a week ago. This is connected to a Dell PC with USB.

As a keen amateur photographer, I have a 2nd PC, high spec' for editing and I have now bought a Canon Pixma Pro100S - for printing the pic's. The Canon arrived last week, and I connected to my network router via Wifi.

So now I have 2 PCs, and 2 Printers on the network. I printed some stuff on the Canon - great. Yesterday tried to print a simple page of text on the HP - (which hasn't been touched or moved for a week) - and I get an error 'Printhead appears to be missing, damaged or incorrectly installed'....WHAT !!

I removed the ink - removed the printhead - gave it all a clean - replaced with new ink ...same problem. Have reset the printer - given it a shake and a bang - but to no avail.

Does the HP 'know' that it's now not my favourite?

Has some programmer built in some code to the firmware that detects a rival on the network - and fails


A Very frustrated Phil

 

[VA1DER]

I'm a tinfoil hat kind of guy. Especially when it comes to HP. No other explanation except HP malfeasance cna explain the long and varied history I've had fighting with their products. I started off as their biggest fan, and slowly progressed to the point I will not even consider them, even when offered free hardware to review. My Officejet 7610 was the last HP I bought or will ever have.

I have experienced problems not unlike what you are, though in my case my printer had removable/replaceable print heads, and these are not covered on the plan. So it made sense (from HP's perspective) for my printheads to go since replacing them netted HP more money. The days of HP having replaceable print heads are gone, though, and it doesn't make much sense for your printer to decide its print heads need replacing as soon as it sees another printer on the network. That just means you're more likely to turf the printer entirely and go with the other one altogether and halt the ink plan. That being said, lots of vestigial code could exist in the HP drivers and/or firmware, and those little consumer unfriendly gems like you are thinking about are not likely to be widely talked about even amongst HP system developers, so I could see it making its way into a newer printer even accidentally. Had you recently switched to a non-plan ink cartridge? HP printers on ink plans know when a non-ink-plan cartridge is installed and have been known to experience various "issues" when that happens. When HP is in danger of not getting their protection money, bad things happen to their printers.

 

[Bunker52]

I'm a tinfoil hat kind of guy. Especially when it comes to HP. No other explanation except HP malfeasance cna explain the long and varied history I've had fighting with their products. I started off as their biggest fan, and slowly progressed to the point I will not even consider them, even when offered free hardware to review. My Officejet 7610 was the last HP I bought or will ever have.

I have experienced problems not unlike what you are, though in my case my printer had removable/replaceable print heads, and these are not covered on the plan. So it made sense (from HP's perspective) for my printheads to go since replacing them netted HP more money. The days of HP having replaceable print heads are gone, though, and it doesn't make much sense for your printer to decide its print heads need replacing as soon as it sees another printer on the network. That just means you're more likely to turf the printer entirely and go with the other one altogether and halt the ink plan. That being said, lots of vestigial code could exist in the HP drivers and/or firmware, and those little consumer unfriendly gems like you are thinking about are not likely to be widely talked about even amongst HP system developers, so I could see it making its way into a newer printer even accidentally. Had you recently switched to a non-plan ink cartridge? HP printers on ink plans know when a non-ink-plan cartridge is installed and have been known to experience various "issues" when that happens. When HP is in danger of not getting their protection money, bad things happen to their printers.

Thanks for your thoughts Va1der, No I hadn't changed from a non plan cartridge. I had tried to fool it some time ago by cancelling the plan, then cutting the network to the printer, and trying to use one of the new cartridges they had sent me - but it wouldn't work.

I think some clever but mischievous and malicious programmers may have done something to scupper me going rogue to another brand.

Thanks

 

[Kris2278]

the clue is that since you are on the instant ink plan, yes, indeed, it knows everything(you gave it permission when you signed up for instant ink). It relies on your printer use to send you the ink you need when you need it. How you get around this or rectify this would involve a call to HP. else I know nothing.