<p>Suddenly, my HP printer won’t print. I’ve tried absolutely everything - I reinstalled the printer, rebooted everything dozens of times, tried every single step of the trouble shooting sequence, even switched out the printer cable, etc. Tried for over an hour, nothing works - cannot even print from the command prompt.</p>
<p>Then, I tried the exact same thing and all the same steps on my second laptop - and got the same results. The green light is on the printer; my system tray indicates documents are in queue and printing, but, nothing actually prints.</p>
<p>I finally called my IT person; he says the printer is done. I’m not understanding how this could be so, since it’s only six months old and hasn’t had a lot of use. Plus, the lights come on the printer; it appears to be in working order, so, it’s hard to accept. </p>
<p>The only thing I didn’t do is uninstall and reinstall the printer port - but that’s not likely the problem because I have the same results on two separate laptops…anyway, the printer worked just fine yesterday…can anyone think of anything else I can try? I’m not wild about running out and buying a new printer considering this one is still fairly “new”.</p>
<p>I have had this happen many times with HP printers and invariably all I have to do is literally unplug everything (in other words, unplug the computer itself, the printer cable that leads to the computer, the plug that goes in the wall) and, voila, it’s fixed. This has worked every time but remember, I’m not talking about just rebooting…I’m saying that you have to unplug everything. Give it a try…can’t hurt!</p>
<p>No luck. I can tell the printer wants to print - when I plugged everything back in, it ran through its sequences. And the print queue on my laptop says “printing”. But no printing actually happens…</p>
<p>Try deleting the print job. Also, make sure that you unplugged the printer from the back of the printer, from the computer, and from the wall. Make sure you unplugged the computer from the wall, too. I’m sorry but this is the extent of my computing abilities but I have to tell you that it has ALWAYS worked on the HP printer.</p>
<p>What type of documents are you trying to print? We have had problems printing pdf documents on several different HP printers from several different computers. Sometimes the printers print them, sometimes they don’t. The worst problem is printing pdf documents from websites. When I need to print those files from websites, I have to save them to my hard drive and then print the saved files. That works better but still not 100% of the time.</p>
<p>All the above “unplug everything” is what always works for me (I work with kids, they can mess up things in ways you can’t imagine).
When you get to the point of throwing it into the recycle bin, I have had some success with a gentle 3" drop onto a firm surface. Wasn’t “percussive maintenance” one of the new terms added to the dictionary this year?</p>
<p>delete anything in the printer que and reboot your computer. visually check and see if anything’s in there, are cartridges good? If it’s only 6 months should be under warranty give em a call.</p>
<p>O.K. - I tried everything suggested here, unplugging everything, and even dropping the thing (gently) on the floor. Still exact same results. Lights are on, it wants to print, laptop system tray shows it’s printing, but, nothing prints. How frustrating. The last thing I feel like doing is calling the manufacturer…the problem with front line tech support people is they know far less than I do about ANY system or product, so, it takes some time to patiently say “no, we’re not going to reinstall, etc., have done that x 10 already, etc.”…</p>
<p>Wonder if I uninstall everything all over again, then, unplug, then, reinstall, then it might somehow magically work…</p>
<p>Ncepf, for the purpose of testing it, I resorted to just trying to print very simply email out of outlook, no graphics, etc. But I cannot even print from the command prompt…</p>
<p>The last thing I feel like doing is running out and buying a new printer, what a hassle…</p>
<p>CGM, there’s no copier associated with it, I have never been a fan of all in one machines. I’m debating though if I am going to buy a new printer what to buy next.</p>
<p>If my daughter were here this would have been fixed in subsecond speed. She’s a tech guru. Why isn’t there a college grad around when you need them?</p>
<p>HP has an online chat support system and if you have only had the printer 6 months it is probably still on warranty – they are pretty good about replacing printers with any sort of unfixable problem, no matter how minor.</p>
<p>Go into “my computers” on your main screen, and make sure that the correct printer is selected (with a little check mark) and that it says “ready”. You might have accidentally selected a wrong printer, or you might have accidentally taken it offline. Also double-check that there is noting in que to be printed. Sometimes there is a job “stuck” there. Everythig will sy it is going to print but it diesnt wher there is a job that says it is printing or deleting and it is “stuck” in never-never land. When you’ve done all this. Turn the printer off and then back on again. Good luck!</p>
<p>LTS - Your problem is probably different than the one we’ve encountered, but I would add that after the pdf documents got stuck in our queue and even after we cleared them out, no other documents would print until after we had cleared the queue and rebooted the computer. </p>
<p>In addition to using the HP online chat and calling their customer service, you might try Googling a bit to see if you can locate some other discussion of similar problems with HP printers. Perhaps someone on Metafilter has had a similar one? When we’ve had problems with various electronic devices, we’ve hunted around online and have been amazed at how many discussions, some with very helpful suggestions, there are regarding problems and glitches with such items. Somewhere there’s probably a whole website just devoted to griping about HP printers. Or at least it wouldn’t surprise me if there were.</p>
<p>I periodically have similar issues w/ our hp multi-function printer. Won’t get another hp for that reason. For no reason, certain functions will spontaneously “dissapear”. For instance, I can no longer scan from the machine. I have to go through multiple layers via the computer to find the scan function. Here’s what we’ve done:</p>
<ol>
<li>Turn off and unplug EVERYTHING as suggested. Wait about 30 sec. to 1 min. and restart. That usually solves the problem about 75% of the time.</li>
<li>Make sure the documents you want to print are not huge files. For some reason, documents over 3-4MB take forever to “travel” from CPU to printer. It says it is printing, but nothing happens. I waited about 15 - 20 minutes for one such document to finally get to the printer. Others never seem to transfer at all. Perhaps a faulty or cheap cable? We’ve rarely had any trouble with simple 1-2MB documents.</li>
<li>Wipe out all the printer software, and start over, installing the printer and drivers as if it were new. This is the only step that solves our lack of scanner function. I’ve done it about 2x now, and it is a pain, so I’ve quit. For the few times I use the scanner, I just go through the multi-step process through the computer. Problem is I rarely remember what that multi-step process was by the time I need it!</li>
</ol>
<p>OMG - Juba2jive - I soooooo owe you!!! You must be some sort of genius - where do I send a check, seriously? I am on a plane early Saturday, desperately needed to be able to print my stuff, took Calmom’s suggestion and went to HP tech support but they were clueless as well, and “escalated” my case (we checked and triple-checked everything - drivers, ports, etc.) - </p>
<p>Do you even know how much time I’ve spent on this…and my IT person told me the printer was done, almost causing me to ditch a perfectly good printer and rush out and buy a new one, and/or send all of my files to Kinkos before Saturday morning (this is almost never turns out well as they mess stuff up) - anyway, thank you soooooo much - you deserve a prize for this, or payment…my stuff is printing as we speak…</p>