Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

HP Printers Have A Pre-Programmed Failure Date For Non-HP Ink Cartridges (myce.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the armageddon-for-ink dept.

An anonymous reader quotes some harsh allegations from Myce.com: Thousands of HP printers around the world started to show error messages on the same day, the 13th of September... HP printers with non-HP cartridges started to show the error message, "One or more cartridges appear to be damaged. Remove them and replace them with new cartridges"... When [Dutch online retailer 123ink] emailed their customers asking them if they wanted to check if their printer also had issues, they received replies from more than 1,000 customers confirming the issue...

Consumers who complained to HP were told the error was caused by using non-HP cartridges. A day later HP withdrew that statement and explained the issues were a side effect of a firmware update, [but] printers without any internet access started to reject non-HP cartridges. Therefore it's very unlikely that a firmware update caused the issues and the only other logical explanation is that HP programmed a date in its firmware on which non-HP cartridges would no longer be accepted.
"Printer worked fine for nine months," complains one of many angry users on HP's web site. "Then on 9/13 HP uploaded without my permission a firmware update that caused a message 'damaged cartridge' for all my cartridges and then it refused to print."

17 of 387 comments (clear)

  1. Other than Brother... by HBI · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Is there a printer vendor that doesn't play games with the consumables?

    --
    HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
    1. Re: Other than Brother... by slazzy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Thanks HP, now I know to never buy your products agaim.

      --
      Website Just Down For Me? Find out
    2. Re:Other than Brother... by CastrTroy · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Best bet is to get a laser printer. Inkjets are basically designed to have high consumable costs. If you don't print often enough, the ink will dry out. If you print a lot, the ink costs will be high. I got a cheap laser printer about 5 years back and it has served me well. I've only had to get 1 toner cartridge after the original that came with it. It's a Samsung. Of course, their printer division is getting bought out by HP. At work we use Brother printers and they seem to be very reliable. The cartridges are reasonably priced for the number of pages they print. You can use third party toner, but we don't because the price difference isn't that much.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    3. Re:Other than Brother... by xlsior · · Score: 4, Informative

      IIRC the brother cartridge has a small peephole with a mirror on the far side, and if an infrared beam reflects back it means that there is no toner in between the window and the mirror. With the dark tape in place it won't see the reflected beam, the low toner won't trigger, and you can keep on printing.

      While it perhaps triggers early, at least it requires a certain amount of toner to have been used at all. Some other vendors use a chip that simply counts the pages, and will claim that you're low/out after -x- pages regardless of how much or little toner you've actually used.

    4. Re: Other than Brother... by Jason1729 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I used HP printers for years starting with a LaserJet II. From about 2000 on, they were nothing but trouble, constant cartridge errors, clogs, etc. With both OEM and non-OEM ink. One with a scanner had the scanner self-destruct after about 20 page scans.

      About 5 years ago, I bought a canon. It's been through about 150 non-OEM cartridges. It's sat idle for a month and it's printed 200 photos in a day. And it works like a dream every time.

      This isn't really a plug for Canon, but HP is just so unbelievably bad. Nobody should buy their printers.

    5. Re: Other than Brother... by msauve · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Well,Canon's been doing it forever. They made the engine for both the original Apple LaserWriter and HP LaserJet.

      You might want to also check out Brother, who offer a lot of value these days with no DRM (at least in my experience).

      --
      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    6. Re:Other than Brother... by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 4, Insightful

      About 5 years ago, my Brother laser printer said it was low, so I taped over the window. A couple of years later, I did get off my lazy ass and ordered a new cartridge so that I wouldn't interrupt my workflow. However, the original cartridge that came with the printer still hasn't run out. I have no idea when and if I'll ever need to install the new cartridge.

      As you can guess, I don't do very much printing. However, the "low toner" light probably started blinking after printing only about 1/4 of the total number of pages I've gotten out of it so far.

      This whole episode does reinforce the decision I made before buying the laser printer: I will never, ever buy another inkjet printer as long as I live. Those cartridges seem to dry up, clog and die even if I don't use them. I got sick of spending $30 on a set of cartridges, only to get a hundred pages out of them before they became useless from age. At least laser printer toner seems to have an almost unlimited lifespan.

    7. Re: Other than Brother... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The last brother printer I bought wouldn't work out of box with windows so I tried installing the driver on the included CD. Ended up installing a "helper utility" that started showing pop ups from the system tray offer me "deals" on consumables etc. I was gobsmacked. I paid them money for their hardware and they turned around and installed adware on my PC.
      After deleting it I phoned and complained but the rep was unapologetic and argued that it was completely my choice to install the software.
      I've never bought another Brother product, because fuck them.

    8. Re: Other than Brother... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Sounds like HP owes them a fix or a new printer anyway. EU warranty is s mandatory two years. Can't be broken by third party cartridges unless those carts actually damage the printer. If firmware bricked it, the shop that sold it must either prove it was the customer's fault, fix it, replace it or refund it.

      If HP doesn't relent, retailers are going to pay the price.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  2. Re:Other than Brother... (Epson EcoTank) by Memophage · · Score: 5, Informative

    Epson makes an EcoTank printer which supposedly just has a "tank" of ink that you refill *gasp* from a bottle. They charge you more for the printer because they're not recouping costs by jacking you on ink, but once you buy it you can put in whatever ink you want.

  3. For years now... by wbr1 · · Score: 4, Informative
    HP has played shenanigans with firmware. I once had an early 2000s HP Photosmart. It printed well, had an optional duplexing unit and an SD card slot. Pretty advanced for its time. A couple years later, someone sent me a malfunctioning HP Office jet to look at. Different color plastic, no SD card reader or LCD screen, however the frame, head and paper transport mechanisms and duplxing unit were identical. I repaired this printer (just needed the head parking area cleaned) and ran print comparisons. The Photosmart blew it away in quality.

    If you know printers, HP printers have the nozzles in the ink carts. Nozzles are the primary factor that determines DPI. This means that the Officejet's driver or firmware nerfed it to a lower DPI for no reason other than that it was a lower cost printer.

    This was when I stopped buying or recommending HP..

    When it comes to 3rd party ink, I can understand a manufacturer that has a separate print head being sensitive to the quality and source of ink. However HP printers have the nozzles/head in the ink cartridge. The nozzles are also extremely low voltage, so the chance of damage to the printer from 3rd party ink is very low. As we all know this is a money grab, as the consumables are where the money is in printing. Margins on the hardware have been driven to nothing or less.

    --
    Silence is a state of mime.
    1. Re:For years now... by omnichad · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That's the nature of inkjets. They dry out. Just print something small every couple of weeks or buy a laser. Unless you want your printed pages to smudge, you want the ink to be able to dry out. There's no easy way around it. It's the ink prices that are the only problem with this.

  4. Inkjet? by rossdee · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I gave up on inkjet printers last century

  5. I refuse to buy HP products by Nunya666 · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I filed the following complaint with the BBB over 5 years ago.

    I bought a new HP office-quality printer from Sam's Club. When the ink ran out, I replaced it with used cartridges from Rapid Refill. The printer recognizes that non-HP ink has been installed, and refuses to print. If I replace the new cartridges with the almost-empty HP cartridges, it prints fine. I Googled the problem, and found that a "fix" is to open and close the ink access door. Every time I print a document, I have to open and close the ink access door. Even if I'm standing at the printer to copy or fax a document, I have to open and close the ink access door before it will process the request.

    Last week, I ordered refillable ink cartridges from an Internet store. When those cartridges are installed, the printer refuses to print at all, even with the ink access door trick. It complains that the ink cartridges are "empty or missing."

    HP now puts a small computer chip on every ink cartridge. That chip allows the printer to recognize non-HP ink cartridges.

    This behavior is as unscrupulous as blackmail. "You must buy our overly-priced ink, or we will brick your $170 printer!"

    HP's response was to send me a free ink cartridge. That satisfied the BBB, and they closed the case.

    I haven't bought another HP product since, and encourage others to do the same.

  6. uninstaller unrunnable in safe mode by epine · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I will never tire of telling this story until the day I die, or the neo-millennials go "huh" when you mention BSODs or 404s.

    Back around 2003 (the last time I volunteered to "help" somebody with their Windows system), I was recruited by my sister to help a friend of hers install a printer driver for her new HP printer.

    I thought, "surely this won't be too hard".

    So I went to the right website, downloaded the correct driver, and clicked "install". Whirr, whirr. Time to reboot. Oh, shit, BSOD! Reboot again. BSOD.

    "Oh well, I guess I'll have to uninstall that POS printer driver."

    Boot into safe mode. No problem. Click on HP-provided utility to uninstall broken driver. Dialogue box comes up: "uninstaller can not run in low resolution". Program terminated. I forget the resolution required, but it wasn't available in safe mode. Piss around with the video mode in safe mode for fifteen minutes. No dice.

    Start reading the internet about how to manually uninstall broken HP printer driver. God knows what files I deleted or what scary reg-edits were required, but I eventually got rid of the damn thing. Computer now boots normally again, but the printer still doesn't work.

    I go to the HP support page to file a bug report, through an HP supplied URL. Many, many, many required fields. Gave them a piece of my mind in the comment box. Click submit. Result comes back: "404 not found". This is HP's own support website, as found in ancillary tools packed with the broken driver. It found the form for me to fill out, but couldn't find the server after I finished filling it out. Submission lost.

    HP forever since has resided in my colossal fuck-up bucket. I know people who purchase their expensive HA kit and swear by the organization, but on the consumer side, I can only swear at this organization.

    Despite this, I did buy a networked wide-body inkjet from HP subsequently at a huge discount from a going-out-of-business sale, and it hasn't been terrible, but I only replace the ink when I know I'm doing a lot of printing for a few months.

    I don't know any company that's fallen further or faster in consumer esteem (once upon a time, a time I still recall, HP calculators represented the pinnacle of consumer esteem) except perhaps for the Hudson's Bay Company, but to comprehend that story you have to know what it once owned: a list of assets many nation states would envy. They spun off oil companies, railroads, real estate. What did they keep? Zellers.

    I keep telling my wife that the insurance business has the rare business model of litigating its own customers (just try to collect ...)

    But just now I realize that the ink jet market is not so far behind as all that.

  7. Not bad, criminal deceptive, Dieselgate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It isn't that HP are bad printers here, it's that HP are trying to deceive their users into thinking the OEM cartridges are defective. And the timing reveals that its a trick in their software not a true fault.

    i.e. pre planned attempt to deceive consumers about the quality of third party cartridges.

    At this point the cartridge makers should sue (tortuous interference in business), and the authorities should look at this in terms of the Dieselgate scandal, since its an attempt to deceive consumers.

  8. A charge of criminal damage seems right by Bruce66423 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    An organisation causes an otherwise safely operating piece of machinery to stop operating by means of a sent message. Does that not constitute criminal damage? A few thousand convictions in courts around the world will probably do wonders for their behaviour in future. However it requires someone with imagination to bring the charge!