HP printer will not work, will not uninstall

1/21/16

[IC Ken]

I generally find when this happens it is my wireless router.
I reboot it and its fine. I keep getting printer offline.

[PA Engineer]

Wireless printer?

If it is, I have run into that problem with other models.

I have WiFi repeaters around my house. Had to unplug all of them, shut off the computer WiFi and restart the printer. After restarting the printer a new local network IP address is set.

I then plug the repeaters back in and turn computer Wifi back on.

If there is a power glitch with the printer it tends to reset to the one of the repeaters and is not recognized by the computer.

Doesn't hurt to restarter the router also. Do that first before turning the printer back on.

[BBB333]

Try to boot in ‘Safe mode’ - the procedure depends upon what version of windows you have.

I have TOTALLY given up on HP printers - they are a menace!

We have three Brothers and one Canon in this house (I print 30,000 copies on my one Brother a year).

The one HP I do have is an old portable which is worthless and is used only a spacer under a cooler when we put a cooler in a particular car for a road trip - it prevents the cooler from rubbing on the door :-)

I have two phantom HP printers that reinstall themselves on my Mac and Windows devices.

It’s an HP thing...

Small wonder the last three printers I have advised my clients to purchase were Brother...

Good luck!

[gundog]

Ha! That’s what I came here for. Thanks!

[johncatl]

1.Turn off printer and unplug from PC

2. Restart in safe mode, press F8 key immediately when it restarts and keep pressing until splash screen. Select safe mode

3. Go to control panel and uninstall printer and all drivers

4. Restart PC in normal mode. Go to HP site and download latest drivers and software package for printer

5. Start install, plug in and power on printer when prompted.

[Noumenon]

Unless you’ve got windows-specific software that you can’t do without, you should install Linux Mint with the Cinnamon desktop and never look back. Otherwise, install Win 10.

[Vendome]

[minnesota_bound]

Start button> Run and type: regedit
Open the folder full screen to make it easier to see everything.
Delete registry entries to remove instances of the printer.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Printers\Connections

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SYSTEM > CurrentControlSet > Control > Print > Providers > LanMan Print Services > Servers > Printers

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Printers

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Monitors

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Environments\ Windows NT x86\ Drivers\Version-2”

[2harddrive]

DUMP Win XP. GET Win 10. FREE.

[FourPeas]

Bad cable?
Bad port on your PC or printer?
Are you using a USB hub?

[Roses0508]

Most likely the print spooler is stopping.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

A good test of whether it is the printer or XP would be to try to get it to work on a Linux Mint machine. Any old laptop will do. Download the ISO, put it on a DVD and boot with that. Install Linux Mint (recommend 17.2 32 bit)

That distro comes with a driver package called HPLIP. Once Mint is installed, all you do is plug in the printer to the computer and power up the printer. That's it.

Then see how long it runs. I'll bet it works great. If it does the same thing, well, there's your answer.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Agreed. I'll never buy another HP printer.

That hasn't been my experience. I've had the same HP C4180 for over ten years. Not a lick of trouble. Maybe the newer gen HPs suck. Dunno.

[Some Fat Guy in L.A.]

Trashed my last HP wireless printer for similar issues that always happened when I really needed to print something important. Would take hours to reinstall the software from scratch (because of all the reboots built into the process), then it would crash again. The install process would run for 30 minutes then inform you that an error occurred and you had to start over. If the wifi crashed, it took way too long to get the printer back online. And worst of all, it would not accept refilled cartridges.

Bought a Canon, still some issues but way better than HP.

[bytesmith]

Same story here.