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#1 2011-08-28 17:14:16

Schoktra
Member
Registered: 2009-09-03
Posts: 21

Printing in b/w only?!

I'm not sure what happened, but sometime recently it appears that my printer is now only capable of black and white printing only. I've checked my ppd file and it is still correct and I just changed the color cartridge, but it has no effect. My default options on the printer are set to the proper color scale and even manually selecting it does no good. Cups even prints the test page in black and white only. If it helps I'm using an HP Photosmart C4440 printer and have both cups and hplip installed as well as any and all optional dependecies any of which may have.

[Edit]I forgot to check prior to posting if the color copying works, and it does so it's not a printer issue as far as i know[/edit]

Is anyone else having this issue or know of a fix for it?

Last edited by Schoktra (2011-08-28 17:16:50)

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#2 2011-08-28 17:38:38

Deemoney14
Member
Registered: 2011-07-27
Posts: 70

Re: Printing in b/w only?!

I had a similar issue a few weeks ago.  My HP Deskjet 3050 j610 stopped printing color, would only print grayscale.

I spoke with the hplip people about it, and just as it seemed we were making good progress, the problem fixed itself on an update.  It was a problem with Ghostscript, the utility that converts your print data into .ps format for spooling to CUPS (I think).

Here are a few things you can try if you want to be as paranoid as me:

1.  Find another color printer and test it.  In my case, other color printers printed fine.
2.  Find another computer/OS and test it.  In my case, another computer on Windows printed fine, and on the same computer I was having problems with, Ubuntu was printing fine.
3.  If your printer is wireless, try printing both from a USB connection and from wireless.  In my case, both USB and wireless printing printed in grayscale.


If this sounds like what you're experiencing, try updating/downgrading ghostscript.  Versions 9.04-1 through 9.04-3 were the ones that did NOT work for me; the first version I had installed, 9.02-2, worked fine, and after 12 days of frustration, 9.04-4 was released on August 22nd and fixed my problems.

Ghostscript is going through updates after almost two to three months of nothing happening (9.02-2 was dated in mid May, for the record), I wouldn't be surprised if that's the source of a lot of printer issues.


This isn't the signature you're looking for...  Move along...

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#3 2011-08-28 17:50:03

Inxsible
Forum Fellow
From: Chicago
Registered: 2008-06-09
Posts: 9,183

Re: Printing in b/w only?!

search the forum before posting. There is already a thread on this.


Forum Rules

There's no such thing as a stupid question, but there sure are a lot of inquisitive idiots !

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#4 2011-08-29 06:09:24

Schoktra
Member
Registered: 2009-09-03
Posts: 21

Re: Printing in b/w only?!

Deemoney14 wrote:

If this sounds like what you're experiencing, try updating/downgrading ghostscript.

That was exactly it. I updated a few weeks ago and it was just before the 22nd ghostscript update which fixed the issue.

Also to the admin. I apologize, but I searched the forums and found a bunch of unrelated posts to my specific issue. I didn't go through all of them, just the first 20 or so that popped up. I have a history of searching vaguely or too narrowly and never finding what I am looking for. I'll try to be more vigilant in the future.

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