Printer won't print saved files

[Jesse M]

Hello everyone,

I just had a regular client that just started having issues that he can print email attachments to his printer fine, but anything actually saved on his hard drive it will print some color and no black ink.

We have already tried reinstalling the drivers, printer, taking the ink out and back in, recycling the printer.

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Jesse

 

[mr m]

Is just one saved file type not printing correctly or do multiple file types fail? Are any of the color/B&W cartridges empty?

Create a small test file using notepad, save as txt and print. What happens?

 

[Jesse M]

it is all the saved files, plus the 'test print' page only prints the HP logo. It is brand new ink, plus what is really really strange to me is that if we send the same file as an attachment in an email and print the attachment it prints fine. but have it saved on the PC and open it in word or something it doesn't. This client has really strange things going on. I am starting to wonder if next steps would be a virus scan. It started happening a few weeks ago, but the only restore date is for yesterday.

 

[mr m]

This is a weird one. Don't use Windows but use the HP's operator control panel to print a test page or network settings page. Even the cheapo printers have this capability. If that works I'd look at Windows/driver corruption or like you said possibly some malware.

If it didn't print the attachment OK I'd say you had a dirty black print head/cartridge but since it does I'm stumped.

You can try the HP Print and Scan Doctor. It might pay to also let the Printer Install Wizard look for the latest driver.

http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c02073861

 

[Jesse M]

@mr m Yep, I used HP's control panel to print and it gave us just the HP logo and a blank page. I will try the HP Print and Scan Doctor. The drive is up to date from what I can tell, but I will try the Printer Install Wizard. I might have to go on site for this one to truely see what the heck is going on with it. I did check Autoruns and process explorer and only found the 'driverwizard' program in there that is out of the normal. I removed that program and all their crap saying 39 drivers are out of date, and they will fix it for $30, lol. If I figure it out, I'll let you know.

Any other suggestions. It will be a day or two before I can remote back into the machine.

 

[mr m]

Laser or inkjet? Networked with a print server or stand alone? Wireless, USB, Cat5?

It doesn't sound like a Windows/malware issue since the test page failed via the control panel. Just for grins and since I can't think of anything else I'd remove the USB/Cat5 cable and try the self-test again.

If the printer fails the self test while it's disconnected from the server/PC it has to be an issue within the printer.

You are going to earn your money with this crazy service call!

 

[mraikes]

Hate to intrude on the "M family" printer discussion , but post the make, model, how it's connected, the OS, email client and browsers involved. Give us a little more to chew on.

Is this webmail? Any chance the successful print jobs are actually coming through something like HP's e-print or Google's cloud print?

 

[glennd]

It strikes me that the prints are coming from different sources, email, word, whatever. Have you checked for multiple installs of the printer, printer profiles, default settings etc via Control Panel - Devices and Printers. Are you really using the same printer driver when you print from each source?

 

[johnrobert]

Need a new black ink cartridge

 

[Digital Micro]

Are the ink cartridges the recycled ones? I have had issues with then in some printers.

 

[mraikes]

How does a depleted or recycled black ink cartridge explain printing OK from an attachment (however it's being done), but not printing OK if saved locally and then printed?

 

[Digital Micro]

How does a depleted or recycled black ink cartridge explain printing OK from an attachment (however it's being done), but not printing OK if saved locally and then printed?

Had a Lexmark that wouldn't copy with recycled ink, but printed fine. Sorry I brought it up

 

[Jesse M]

Hello Everyone,

The HP Printer is CC335A printer, He is using Outlook 2003 that prints attachments fine (black white/color), connected via USB only, OS is Windows 10 with Edge as the browser.

There was only one install of the printer, I also checked device manager yesterday as well and uninstalled the printer and reinstalled it again after checking that the computer had the latest drivers.

I have not tried completely uninstalling the actual driver in device manager and redownloading it yet and installing that one, I just did tried a windows update of the driver.

 

[Altster]

What has changed to have caused this problem to occur? Something has.

Did your client upgrade from a previous version of Windows and then see this issue start happening?

Have you or your client paid a visit to HP's support web site to see if anyone else is having issues of this nature?

Are the proper drivers / software package from HP installed for this particular printer (via the manufacturers website?) You cannot always rely on what Micro$oft puts out for drivers as many times they will not work properly (I have experienced this from the past.)

 

[mraikes]

Had a Lexmark that wouldn't copy with recycled ink, but printed fine. Sorry I brought it up

? No need for apologies - I've never encountered a situation where the cartridge determined what would or wouldn't print. For me, cartridges either work or they don't and I didn't know that there may be another possibility. So I learned something today.

 

[Digital Micro]

? No need for apologies - I've never encountered a situation where the cartridge determined what would or wouldn't print. For me, cartridges either work or they don't and I didn't know that there may be another possibility. So I learned something today.

To be far I thought my printer was bad. I learned it was a somewhat common issue from the OfficeMax employee. I bought new Lexmark cartridges and everything worked.

 

[Jesse M]

SOLVED!

I went to printer properties and selected the drop down list for the drivers and selected another driver for the same printer. This one actually printed everything everywhere with black and white / color.

Thanks everyone for your help!

 

[mr m]

Thanks for following up. Nice fix!