HP Printer wont print

Hassan170 · November 22, 2022

NOTE:

i recently bought black ink refill (laser refill idk) form a 3rd party seller because im not paying HP 50$ to be ripped off

i have used a 3rd party ink refill before this (new one is from a different seller) but i really hope that isnt the case.

I have a HP LaserJet M102a (non wireless) printer and its being a naughty printer.

Tried to print some files on PC, windows recognizes there is a printer,

windows print queue sends the print job to the printer, but it immediately errors out

the printer doesn't make any attempt to print either.

i have HP Smart, but it does not detect the printer is there at ALL, windows does but not HP's own app.

Same thing happened a few weeks ago (i dont print very often) and when i switched to my laptop it printed fine

I tried to print from my laptop this time and my laptop is having the same issue. Hp smart doesnt detect but windows does.

I went to HP's own site to downlaod any drivers i might need or missed. downloaded it and i get this error from the installer

In windows update there is this HP USB driver that keeps erroring and wont download

So this driver is either already installed or less compatible basically making it moot in my problem.

It doesn't strictly seem to be a software issue since windows should have completed the print anyways.

The only thing i can think of is maybe the cable but if so the printer wouldnt be detected by windows at all in the first place so im at a complete loss at wtf is going on

Any help and advice is much appreciated

manikyath · November 22, 2022

the lovely adventures of printer drivers...

because i know people are gonna hop on the hate train.. this has nothing unique to HP, nor has anything to do with the 3rd party cartridge mess.. (which.. for goodness sake, stop buying 3rd party cartridges, you KNEW how much cartridges cost before you got the printer, if you want cheaper cartridges, you should have bought a brother.)

uninstall any HP crap related to the printer you have, uninstall the device driver (no idea where windows burried that in win11.. probably even deeper down a cesspit), unplug the printer, let windows update do it's thing.

then download the latest version of the simplest driver package HP has available (probably PCL-6 or something like that), plug in the printer, and run trought the installation of the driver package.

that *should* get you back on the rails.

at least HP's still got decent driver installer packages, relying on windows update for my brother has been a nightmare...

EDIT: PS i do prefer to clarify... the issue isnt that your printer wont print, the issue is that the driver is fucked up to hell and back, and your computer doesnt manage to send anything to the printer.

Hassan170 · November 23, 2022

23 hours ago, manikyath said:

the lovely adventures of printer drivers...

because i know people are gonna hop on the hate train.. this has nothing unique to HP, nor has anything to do with the 3rd party cartridge mess.. (which.. for goodness sake, stop buying 3rd party cartridges, you KNEW how much cartridges cost before you got the printer, if you want cheaper cartridges, you should have bought a brother.)

Is brother's ink really that much cheaper? (gawd that sounds so wrong) cuz in Malaysia HP's ink is ~14x more than 3rd party.

$USD 70 for ink, i bought the printer for $100 something, yeah so i definitely was not going to be buying the orignals.

damn and here i thought i escaped ripoff ink by getting a laser printer. Brother's printers seem to quite expensive but the ink is surprisingly affordable so maybe when this one kicks the bucket for real ill upgrade to brother.

On 11/22/2022 at 11:59 PM, manikyath said:

uninstall any HP crap related to the printer you have, uninstall the device driver (no idea where windows burried that in win11.. probably even deeper down a cesspit), unplug the printer, let windows update do it's thing.

then download the latest version of the simplest driver package HP has available (probably PCL-6 or something like that), plug in the printer, and run trought the installation of the driver package.

Roger that.

On 11/22/2022 at 11:59 PM, manikyath said:

that *should* get you back on the rails.

at least HP's still got decent driver installer packages, relying on windows update for my brother has been a nightmare...

EDIT: PS i do prefer to clarify... the issue isnt that your printer wont print, the issue is that the driver is fucked up to hell and back, and your computer doesnt manage to send anything to the printer.

Ah ha so it WAS a software issue, so the driver has gone wacko. alrighty then ill get on it see how it works out