[SOLVED] Wireless HP Printer Won't Print Color

Deemoney14 · 2011-08-15 23:26:37

So my printer is now acting up after I had to change its wireless credentials. I don't know if it's directly related, but this is just irritating.

On the Windows computer that I changed the credentials with, it prints no problem. On my Arch computer, after I made the change, it started by printing very glitched results: a big black, ink-sucking square in the middle of the page, over and over, printing little fragments of the test pages eventually before I canceled the jobs. Rebooting Arch helped, but now it only prints in grayscale, no colors.

I've tried turning it off and on, no good. I've tried deleting and re-installing the printer, no good. I've tried plugging it in via USB and printing that way, same problem.

It's an HP Deskjet 3050. I'm running the latest hplip and cups from pacman (wondering if those are problematic). Any suggestions here are welcomed.

Last edited by Deemoney14 (2011-08-22 23:37:52)

bernarcher · 2011-08-16 06:53:02

This is a bit vague. Can you please tell more detail on what you have done.

Deemoney14 · 2011-08-16 16:34:02

Okay, I've had a chance to test some stuff out. Here's a full step-by-step of what I did:

1. I changed the encryption on my wireless network (I had people mooching, never using WEP again). This knowingly screwed up my wireless printer since its credentials were now out of date.
2. I tried to fix the printer's credentials from my Windows computer. Once I saw that the blue wireless light on the printer was solid (connection established), I aborted the "setup" and tried to print test pages.
3. Windows printed fine. My Arch installation did not. It printed nasty, ink-filled solid black squares in the middle of the page for a few pages before I realized it was not unique to the test page I was trying.
4. I "fixed" the configuration in Windows and rebooted my Arch computer. Arch prints fine now, but only prints in gray scale, no color. I have not touched ANY settings on my Arch computer, and I've gotten it to print color test pages before, so there's no immediately obvious reason why it's doing this.
5. I tried power cycling the printer, including unplugging it. Did not help.
6. I tried deleting and reinstalling the printer a few times on my Arch computer using every tool possible (CUPS, hp-setup). Did not help.
7. I tried plugging the printer into a USB port on my Arch computer and printing pages from the wired connection. Did not help.

And just now:

8. I tested other printers that I have set up on this computer via CUPS (which happen to be networked as well, although via SAMBA instead of hplip). They print color fine.

This leads me to believe it's something screwy with hplip, not CUPS. I updated hplip to the latest version, 3.11.7, on August 1st, and I did print something around that time, but it was only text (but no nasty black squares or anything). I'm inclined to delete the printer and uninstall/reinstall hplip to see if that helps.

Hopefully this makes things a bit clearer.

Deemoney14 · 2011-08-16 22:23:48

Bump. Uninstalling and reinstalling hplip didn't make a difference. Probably equivalent of deleting and reinstalling the printer.

I'm tempted to try downgrading hplip and see if that makes a difference, seeing as I'm running out of other possible sources of problems. The black squares also unnerve me a bit, because I wonder what all went wrong when I "upgraded" the printer before. I know it sounds absurd that altering the wireless settings of the printer could cause other problems, but I'm not putting anything past myself (or Windows, if you wanna get snippy).

bernarcher · 2011-08-16 22:27:24

Why not? Try downgrading hplip and report back if it helped.

Deemoney14 · 2011-08-16 22:50:56

No good. Downgraded to 3.11.5, first version I had installed, and it still prints a gray scale test page.

I have a hunch. Lemme try printing on my Ubuntu Linux section.

EDIT: Ubuntu printed fine. It hasn't been touched in three weeks at least. I had to run a decent-sized system update, but I didn't see CUPS or hplip or anything like that in the mess. Maybe I'm way off, and CUPS needs to be downgraded. Guess I'll give it a shot, got nothing else to lose here except printer ink .

EDIT 2: CUPS 1.4.7-4 doesn't fix the problem either (downgraded from 1.4.8). This is maddening. I have zero clue what could have possibly happened at any point along this timeline that broke my support for this one printer this badly.

EDIT 3: Okay, I'm getting increasingly desperate here. I have a feeling that something completely unrelated to printing, something deeper, has broken my functionality. What it is, I have no idea. And the fact that my other printers still print without problem just pokes even more holes in that hypothesis.

That being said, I'm going to do something stupid: I'm pasting all the packages I've installed with timestamps that come after the last time I successfully printed something off this computer without error, which was August 2nd. I was out of town for a week or so, but I ran -Syu every day like a good borderline-OCD nerd (except when the 3.0 kernel was released, I held off on that update until I was home). I've been poring over log files, and I can't seem to find anything that would suggest there's an issue at the CUPS level, if not the OS level (trying to provide as much information as humanly possible for anyone that might see something wrong). I did an ls -lt /var/cache/pacman/pkg and I'm taking the most recent entries:

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   310884 Aug 16 17:19 libvpx-0.9.7.p1-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 13379420 Aug 16 13:15 thunderbird-6.0-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    66408 Aug 16 12:43 vpnc-0.5.3.svn457-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root     2206 Aug 16 10:58 pacman-mirrorlist-20110816-1-any.pkg.tar.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 38488664 Aug 16 03:57 linux-3.0.2-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  1438680 Aug 15 18:50 util-linux-2.19.1-3-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   369288 Aug 15 08:46 oxygen-gtk-1.1.2-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  1967856 Aug 14 22:22 imagemagick-6.7.1.6-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 11846912 Aug 14 07:37 firefox-6.0-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  6311476 Aug 14 03:35 flashplugin-10.3.183.5-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   168560 Aug 13 19:34 mkinitcpio-busybox-1.18.5-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   258196 Aug 13 19:00 v4l-utils-0.8.5-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   588780 Aug 13 18:33 lvm2-2.02.87-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   128344 Aug 13 18:32 device-mapper-2.02.87-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    64548 Aug 13 05:06 vpnc-0.5.3-4-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    90160 Aug 12 15:30 libedit-20110802_3.0-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   408756 Aug 12 10:50 sdl-1.2.14-7-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  8042420 Aug 12 06:06 smbclient-3.6.0-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 10403352 Aug 12 06:04 samba-3.6.0-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 10966248 Aug 12 02:38 ghostscript-9.04-3-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   879776 Aug 11 16:02 pacman-3.5.4-3-x86_64.pkg.tar.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  4055520 Aug 11 12:58 kdebindings-python-4.7.0-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  2442820 Aug 11 12:57 python2-pyqt-4.8.5-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  2634380 Aug 11 12:56 pyqt-4.8.5-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   181832 Aug 11 12:55 sip-4.12.4-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    67568 Aug 11 12:55 python2-sip-4.12.4-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   119280 Aug 11 03:15 libxfont-1.4.4-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 11266088 Aug 11 01:20 ghostscript-9.04-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  1966928 Aug 10 19:54 imagemagick-6.7.1.3-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  6311188 Aug 10 09:41 flashplugin-10.3.181.35-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   879677 Aug 10 09:31 pacman-3.5.4-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   163116 Aug 10 05:32 gstreamer0.10-base-plugins-0.10.35-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  1185972 Aug 10 05:32 gstreamer0.10-base-0.10.35-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 11410468 Aug 10 01:53 ghostscript-9.04-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root     4144 Aug  9 19:41 filesystem-2011.08-1-any.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    71192 Aug  9 19:37 dash-0.5.7-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   365468 Aug  9 19:34 flac-1.2.1-3-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   425616 Aug  9 18:11 wget-1.13-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    71572 Aug  9 16:12 libogg-1.3.0-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   493912 Aug  8 13:31 grub-0.97-20-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  1282776 Aug  8 04:40 xorg-server-1.10.3.901-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    25356 Aug  8 04:40 xorg-server-common-1.10.3.901-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   738800 Aug  7 13:00 networkmanager-0.8.9997-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  5373504 Aug  7 12:49 icu-4.8.1-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   944632 Aug  7 12:21 alsa-utils-1.0.24.2-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   493740 Aug  7 08:17 grub-0.97-19-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  1457736 Aug  7 06:19 gnupg2-2.0.18-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   638512 Aug  7 06:13 pam-1.1.4-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   181344 Aug  6 15:14 fluidsynth-1.1.4-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  2540680 Aug  6 14:06 libreoffice-writer-3.4.2-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   286556 Aug  6 14:04 libreoffice-math-3.4.2-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    49592 Aug  6 14:04 libreoffice-kde4-3.4.2-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   105708 Aug  6 14:03 libreoffice-impress-3.4.2-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   184084 Aug  6 14:03 libreoffice-gnome-3.4.2-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   320812 Aug  6 14:02 libreoffice-extension-presenter-screen-3.4.2-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  7154608 Aug  6 14:01 libreoffice-en-US-3.4.2-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 61748140 Aug  6 13:59 libreoffice-common-3.4.2-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root     3456 Aug  6 13:59 libreoffice-draw-3.4.2-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  4371420 Aug  6 13:39 libreoffice-calc-3.4.2-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  1945756 Aug  6 13:38 libreoffice-base-3.4.2-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 38488344 Aug  6 11:11 linux-3.0.1-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   231612 Aug  6 09:05 taglib-1.7-3-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  2110404 Aug  6 04:23 soprano-2.7.0-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   188060 Aug  6 04:18 redland-1:1.0.14-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    16124 Aug  6 04:18 redland-storage-virtuoso-1:1.0.14-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   240800 Aug  6 04:14 raptor-2.0.4-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   276556 Aug  5 14:36 libcups-1.4.8-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  1924780 Aug  5 14:36 cups-1.4.8-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   220120 Aug  5 13:15 lib32-curl-7.21.7-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   101544 Aug  5 13:14 lib32-libssh2-1.2.7-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   310272 Aug  5 09:20 libvpx-0.9.7-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  8929036 Aug  4 13:06 smbclient-3.5.11-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 11518236 Aug  4 13:03 samba-3.5.11-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   202928 Aug  4 06:00 file-5.08-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   166520 Aug  4 02:41 dirmngr-1.1.0-3-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   111704 Aug  4 02:38 libksba-1.2.0-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   782968 Aug  3 16:41 compiz-core-0.8.8-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   116620 Aug  3 16:36 libsasl-2.1.23-7-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    58544 Aug  3 13:25 lxappearance-0.5.1-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    19036 Aug  3 12:55 pcmciautils-018-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    54648 Aug  3 10:53 system-config-printer-common-1.3.5-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   461084 Aug  3 10:44 lib32-freetype2-2.4.6-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    29812 Aug  3 10:42 lib32-bzip2-1.0.6-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    23204 Aug  3 07:21 dbus-1.4.14-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   401820 Aug  3 07:21 dbus-core-1.4.14-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  4477696 Aug  3 06:17 lib32-libgl-7.11-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    14576 Aug  3 06:17 lib32-libglapi-7.11-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   408720 Aug  3 06:17 lib32-intel-dri-7.11-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    66592 Aug  3 03:12 libmpeg2-0.5.1-3-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   245632 Aug  3 02:57 mdadm-3.2.2-3-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    11424 Aug  3 02:03 mime-types-8-1-any.pkg.tar.xz

Not using any AUR stuff, nothing really jumps out at me as far as I can tell. I started getting suspicious when I considered the Linux 3.0 upgrade might have messed me up, but I have no idea how to confirm my hypothesis that it might have broken the printer. It might be that seeing this problem after the wireless encryption change was a coincidence, and I would have encountered this issue regardless. The fact that I see this issue when the printer is plugged into the computer, and that I can print fine from the same computer, different OS (Ubuntu 11.04) seem to suggest that SOMETHING broke my ability to print to HP printers. The fact that HP has its own layer of support as well, hplip, that has not been upgraded since Linux 3.0 came out, also seems to hint strongly at something. I guess an interesting experiment would be to try upgrading my Ubuntu section to Linux 3.0 (eek!) and see if that breaks the color printing.

Again, maybe I'm missing something glaring here. Taking any and all suggestions.

Last edited by Deemoney14 (2011-08-17 03:15:20)

Deemoney14 · 2011-08-18 01:56:40

Bump. I tested the kernel hypothesis by upgrading my Ubuntu 11.04 installation to the 3.0.2 kernel from the PPA. Test page printed fine.

Not sure what else could have affected the printer. I didn't touch the Arch laptop at all while I was trying to fix the printer's wireless credentials. Part of me wants to try to blank the printer and start the printer from scratch, but I don't exactly know how to do that, or if I broke something while I was trying to do so previously. I can't find anything wrong with this computer's setup, particularly because other printers print color fine, and other OSes on the same kernel print color fine. Guess I'll just have to keep plugging.

EDIT: So I tried to replicate how I broke the functionality in the first place. With my Arch computer and my printer powered off, I changed the wireless key on the router (although this time I didn't go from WEP to WPA, WPA to WPA) and tried to go through the setup process for changing the network credentials on the printer. It successfully picked up the credentials and I was able to print a (color) test page from the Windows computer I was working from. Next, I powered on the Arch computer, deactivated the wireless at the login screen, changed the key, then turned on the wireless. It connected, and I tried to print the test page. Still only printing gray scale. I'm running out of possibilities. I mean, the one other thing I could try would be going back to a WEP encryption, but here's the catch: I don't think my printer's supposed to use WEP encryption. I'm afraid I broke something by having it set up that way first, then trying to switch it and aborting my installation while doing so. I tried restoring the wireless defaults and configuring the printer from scratch, but that didn't work either. I don't think this is an issue on the printer's end, but the way to be sure of that would be to "nuke" it, wipe it clean, restore it to ALL defaults, and try again after that's taken care of.

EDIT 2: I've filed a report with the HPLIP people. I'll update this thread as I find things out.

NECRO-EDIT (Because I don't want to bump this): It was Ghostscript! I updated it today and my printer is back to normal. It got updated on August 10th, same day that my printer started acting up. Still not used to Linux, didn't realize THAT was the component that broke everything. But order has been restored.

Last edited by Deemoney14 (2011-08-22 23:39:44)

rhyven · 2014-10-23 02:16:17

@Deemoney14:

Greetings! I come from the future to thank you, not only for persisting, but for coming back to post your necro-edit!! Thanks!

Arch Linux

#1 2011-08-15 23:26:37

[SOLVED] Wireless HP Printer Won't Print Color

#2 2011-08-16 06:53:02

Re: [SOLVED] Wireless HP Printer Won't Print Color

#3 2011-08-16 16:34:02

Re: [SOLVED] Wireless HP Printer Won't Print Color

#4 2011-08-16 22:23:48

Re: [SOLVED] Wireless HP Printer Won't Print Color

#5 2011-08-16 22:27:24

Re: [SOLVED] Wireless HP Printer Won't Print Color

#6 2011-08-16 22:50:56

Re: [SOLVED] Wireless HP Printer Won't Print Color

#7 2011-08-18 01:56:40

Re: [SOLVED] Wireless HP Printer Won't Print Color

#8 2014-10-23 02:16:17

Re: [SOLVED] Wireless HP Printer Won't Print Color

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