Watch out: dangerous firmware upgrade HP printers rendering 3rd party cartridges useless

[pharmacist]

The Dutch consumer organisation Consumentenbond has received complaints about many people who suddenly cannot use theire third party cartridges anymore, because of a firmware upgrade.

NEVER upgrade if your printer is working well and if there is no reason to upgrade the firmware: stay with it !!!

 

[mikling]

Was there also not a firmware upgrade via cartridge chips as well patented by HP?

I see an inflection point in printing where the dedicated printing people will WANT a printer and they will pay for it even as the mass appeal for a printer drops. As the mass appeal drops, the requirement for affordability wanes as well. This could well be a pattern we will see.

I've seen it in LP sales and playback. There used to be inexpensive turntables when many owned LP records. As that medium died off, only the pricey turntables remained for the die hards who were willing to pay for them. I chuckle when I now see used quality turntables priced multiple times what they cost when LPs were mainstream back then.

Maybe, just maybe those printaholics will be millionaires from hoarding printers!

Also for example. priced out a good heavy enameled cast iron pot lately?

Let's face it. With a shrinking printing market and requirement to keep dividends up, they must react to this reality. It means preservation of profits.
The physical delivery on ink is really simple most times...it is simply a container of ink. It is the electronics that will stop the aftermarket down the road. So look around for refillable good printers that will stand the test of time. Those will be real keepers.

On the one hand, it sounds bad. On the other hand, retiree incomes are somehow tied to corporate profits one way or another. Even if you're not retired now, your future retirement will hinge on private profitability one way or another. What a conundrum!

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Firmware updates - the Win10 home version does not let you block the regular updates anymore with the latest anniversary version 1607, the same could happen to firmware updates - you just won't be able to block them anymore....other than disconnecting your computer from the interent as long as the printer is active.

Printer hoarding - I saw an Epson R800 new recently at Amazon ..for 750$....I'm not sure that one will be sold but that's a sign of a trend - the prices for the IP4000/5000 doubled for a while after they got unlisted by Canon, and I sold 2 IP4000 printheads for more than the printer price each, I probably sold them years too early. Or you go for printers like the Epson L.. and ET.. series with a CISS, Canon and Brother are restricting the sales of their equivalent models even more than Epson to countries where the refill business pressure is probably higher than in the U.S. or Western Europe.

 

[W. Fisher]

In Windows 10, you can go into "Windows Firewall with Advanced Security" and keep programs from going out and also incoming both. Ain't easy to get there, but there is a bunch of stuff in there once you find it. There is one popular printing program that has an optional annual renewal that calls home when started and will put up a line in it saying your subscription has expired, new version, or similar that I have blocked in the past to keep the notification debris off the title bar. Just when you renew, you have to enable it again.

I'm sure someone savy enough could also block the HP stuff from doing things in the background as well in the above area. Even my HP scanner (HP is super nosy for some reason!) does all sorts of background stuff which gets annoying at times so I can block them in those Inbound Rules, Outbound Rules, and Connection Security Rules settings. If one enables those "Help us make our program better" on installing comments, then the inbound and outbound is wide open on what they can access and do.

W.F.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I guess only a minority of users is firm enough to setup rules for the firewall to prevent printers calling home

 

[palombian]

I can't imagine Canon will spend time to block my old printers.

@mikling has a case, sooner or later people will realise their value (let's hope before I am declared insane because of printer hoarding ).

 

[flyboy]

If your printer has downloaded these firmware updates can you reset it back to the original firmware?

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

there is a WicReset utility which lets you to restore older firmeware for a range of Epson printer, against a charge, but I have not seen anything similar for any other printer types and models. It may be part of a internal service/maintenance software which is not available in the public.

 

[flyboy]

Thanks ISF,

i just forund this link which led to the YT


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2s8RsA6iF4

I have managed to get my refills to work for now.


Edited: by Moderator

 

[palombian]

I received a mail from 123inkt.nl.

Affected printers:

HP Officejet Pro 6830
HP Officejet Pro 8610
HP Officejet Pro 8615
HP Officejet Pro 8620
HP Officejet Pro 8625
HP Officejet Pro 8630
HP Officejet Pro 8640
HP Officejet Pro 8660
HP Officejet Pro x451dn
HP Officejet Pro x451dw
HP Officejet Pro x476dn
HP Officejet Pro x476dw
HP Officejet Pro x551dw
HP Officejet Pro x576dw

The latest firmware update was March 22, preprogrammed to become effective Sept 13 .
Even printers from their stock who had firmware from 2015 were affected.

They managed to reinstall previous firmware, but not practical for customers.

New chips solving the problem are already in production.