HP printer firmware update rejects my refilled Ink carts.

[Geek-9pm]

I did not know this until I did some research,. Actually, I just came across it while looking for Refills for my HP 8610
Sometimes back in September of last year HP sent automatice firmware updates to many of its inkjet printers. The sole objective was to block the use of non0HP Ink Carts.  If you refill a HP cart, it does not work right unless you do something to it. Do that  and it is no longer a real HP cart.
Here is a link that explains in more detail:
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-37408173
HP printers start rejecting budget ink cartridges
By Zoe Kleinman Technology reporter, BBC News
    19 September 2016
    From the section Technology 

Large numbers of HP printer owners found their printers stopped recognising unofficial printer ink cartridges on 13 September.

Dutch printer ink vendor 123inkt said it had received more than 1,000 complaints in one day.

HP said that during its last firmware update, settings had been changed so HP printers would communicate with only HP-chipped cartridges.

It also said some devices already had the functionality built-in.

123inkt said it did not believe that a firmware update had been issued since March 2016, suggesting the change had been pre-programmed to roll out this month.
HP said such updates were rolled out "periodically" but did not comment on the timing of the last instalment.
"The purpose of this update is to protect HP's innovations and intellectual property," it said in a statement.
It has angered some of its customers as HP branded cartridges are notably more expensive than unofficial brands.
'Cartridge problem'

Other web sties also picked this up last year.
https://www.wired.com/2016/09/hp-printer-drm/

Update 9/28: After a sustained public outcry, HP has said it will release an "optional firmware update" that will remove the DRM sometime in the next two weeks. The company said "a small number of customers have been affected," and stressed that it would continue to deploy similar "security features" in the future. Still, a win's a win, for however long it lasts.

Today I spent two hours trying to get my HP 8610 to use cheap refilled carts. It insists that they are no good. 
Here is my question. How can I know if my HP printer has the DRM  firmware?
If it does, how can I roll it back to the former version? 

[patio]

HP 's been doin this for years...if it didn't work the 1st time ...it ain't gonna work.

No need to look anything up.

[Geek-9pm]

Patio, it used  to work after giving a warning message.
Now It will refuse to work at all.

Price on eBay for the HP 950 XL:
HP 4 pack 950 XL  Inkjet cartridges.

These used to work:
Off-Brand 4 pack 950 XL

The difference in price is extreme.

So, shall I buy a new or used printer instead?   

[BC_Programmer]

HP released a new firmware in Oct. 2016 that removed this "feature".

[Geek-9pm]

Thanks, I am in the HP support page. There is a specific download for my printer and I will reboot within windows 7 so I can use it. 

[DaveLembke]

This is sort of the one main reason why i used my dot matrix Epson LQ 1050 Plus for the longest time. Sadly the neighbor killed it when he borrowed it for a term paper and his beer dumped into it. But I was that guy that when I was printing out term papers or source code everyone for about a quarter mile knew I was with that loud dot matrix printer hammering ink into the paper from the ribbon.

I've gotten rid of use of ink jet or bubble jet printers because they are too costly to use. When you try to stretch the life of the cartridges by printing less, they dry from not being used. Q-tip and a dab of alcohol and sometimes I could get them to work again, other times nope another $29.99 at the store for ink.

I invested in a cheap laserjet. A Pantum P2502W which I bought for $29.99 on Black Friday at Newegg 2 years ago. I bought 2 of these printers for $29.99 and free shipping and they both still work. Additionally I can go months without printing anything and the minute I go to print something the toner is still good. Lastly the toner replacements are cheap for this model. If you dont need to print in color and arent printing hundreds of pages a week, then I'd suggest a low cost laser printer. https://www.amazon.com/PANTUM-P2502W-Wireless-Monochrome-Printer/dp/B00N517VDK

I have put about 2000 printed pages through each of them. The only problem I had was when printing once and the lights to home flickered and the printer stopped mid-print and didnt continue. Looked online for proper method of getting paper out. Sure enough the method for this printer is not what i expected, you pretty much tug on it and hope for the best. Luckily I was able to tug evenly on it and not have it tare inside printer and the plastic gears took the tugging of the paper without snapping anything. Printer worked fine after a reboot when it homed itself to knowing that its ready to print and no jam.

This model has wifi and I have seen the wifi with my smart phone etc, but have only printed through use of the USB 2.0 connection.

I use to see dot matrix printers for $5-$10 at yard sales etc and wish i bought a spare to have on hand as for I could get through about 5 cases of tractor feed paper on a single ribbon for $9. Additionally the ribbons I was getting was from a generic ink company saving myself about 50% of the cost of Epson branded ribbons and the printer had no detection of what ink was being used.

If I find a good deal on a low cost dot matrix printer that works, I will grab it up and get a case or two of tractor feed paper. I didnt mind the noise to save money! 

However I have gone about 99% paperless using doPDF version 7 to save stuff as PDF's which saves money as well as saves me space from having to have 3-ring binders on shelves with stuff in them and filing cabinets, then having to find some old programming projects source code etc, its nice to find that PDF and get to it all fast. I think the only problem i have is trying to remember which computer I used that I saved a project on sometimes. I had a NAS a while ago, but have to get another. FreeNAS I used years ago, but the cost of electric to keep a computer idling as a NAS wasnt realistic. I end here before I get way off subject. 

If you need to print in color.... your probably going to be stuck with the inkjet printers that nickel and dime you... or I should say they demand about $30 or more, often.  Thats how they are able to sell the printers at such  low cost is that they regain the profit in almost a royalty to print basis. Sell a printer to you for $50 that would normally be $150 or more knowing that they will make more than that on a royalty to print with their printer basis. They might as well sell a printer vending machine with a coin op etc and have some guy going door to door to add ink and collect the money, but this method they have essentially does the same thing with a far greater profit gain and you get to be the one adding the ink when it needs it. As well as they arent completely lazy, they added a ink monitor to the software/driver that informs you when you (might) be getting low... with some cartridges stopping to print to paper because they are .... concerned that you might have a lesser print quality if you ran it down to completely empty as they have claimed, so you might have 20% ink left in them and they flag as empty!!!

I have 2 inkjet printers HP Officejet 5610 ALL-IN-ONE's but ... I should really call them scanners. I only use them now when I need to scan documents as for other than that they are no longer used! I refuse to get ripped off in ink that drys up from not being used and tells me its empty when there is still plenty of ink inside them. 

[Geek-9pm]

Unless you print a lot, the Inkjet is more cost-effective.
Here are the bad things about Inkjet
  They're not great if you plan on printing a lot.
  Generally slow compared to laser printing.
  Inkjet ink is water-based, so it's susceptible to fading and running.
  Automatic ink cartridge cleaning wastes a lot of ink

Anyway, I spent a lot of money on laser years ago and now my money is gone.

Bax k to topic. Found the firmware un-update and did it. But now the color cartrs have lost ink because every time I time to fix something it primes the all the carts, not just the one I installed. Now I have only a full black cart. It will not print with any empty color  carts., even if I say I only want black. 

[Salmon Trout]

I use to see dot matrix printers for $5-$10 at yard sales etc and wish i bought a spare to have on hand as for I could get through about 5 cases of tractor feed paper on a single ribbon for $9. Additionally the ribbons I was getting was from a generic ink company saving myself about 50% of the cost of Epson branded ribbons and the printer had no detection of what ink was being used.

I used to prise open the top of the ribbon cartridges and spray a little (not too much) WD-40 onto the ribbon and then spool it back and forth a few times. That would mobilize the ink that had not yet been hit by the pins in the print head and spread it around evenly. Also you could get cans of ink. Eventually the fabric of the ribbon would get too frayed, but I saved a lot of money.

[DaveLembke]

I used to pry open the top of the ribbon cartridges and spray a little (not too much) WD-40 onto the ribbon and then spool it back and forth a few times. That would mobilize the ink that had not yet been hit by the pins in the print head and spread it around evenly. Also you could get cans of ink. Eventually the fabric of the ribbon would get too frayed, but I saved a lot of money.

Cool... Never thought about doing that. The fabric of the ribbon took quite a beating from the pins hammering it to the point that sometimes it would get a hole in the ribbon worn thru and text or matrix graphics would fade and disappear and come back as the ribbon advanced. By the time I got through 4 or 5 cases of tractor feed paper the ink would start to print lighter and lighter. There was an adjustment to move the head position closer to strike the ribbon that much harder into the paper to get it to darken a little, but the ribbon would eventually punch through in places or fray badly.

I dont recall ever seeing a ink refill or ribbon wetting with ink kit before for these. I thought the inkjets and bubblejets were the start of that because of how badly people were jabbed in ink prices as for ribbons were very affordable and lasted way longer than any inkjet or bubblejet cartridge for black printing. The only spray i remember was for the print head itself to un-gunk dry ink from the pins when a pin would get stuck etc.

The WD-40 trick is a good one because ink that is on an area of the ribbons outer top and bottom edges would flow towards the middle of the ribbon that was just about exhausted of ink to transfer as well. Gonna save that one in case I ever get another dot matrix printer to stretch the life of a ribbon, however the ribbons are so cheap it all depends on if I want to bother doing that or not. Aditionally ribbons did dry sometimes and this would rejuvenate them. 

I opened it up once to try to repair a ribbon that tore, but they cant be spliced easily like magnetic tape cassettes. Additionally it was a long continuous loop of ribbon folded over on itself inside the cartridge to the Epson LQ 1050 Plus with a single drive spool that advanced the long loop of ribbon. The continuous printer ribbon was loosely doubled over itself in the hollow pocket of the cartridge and a single drive spindle advanced it and the other taking up the slack and bringing the ribbon back into the hollow of the ribbon cartridge. If it wasnt a continuous loop I could have cut out the bad section and then use the longer length of ribbon and lock that to the other take away spindle. Did that before on an old accounting calculator that had the paper spool and red/black ribbon when that got messed up, just cut out the bad section and use the now shorter, but longer length of ribbon between the 2 spindles with an easy to remove plastic clip to pinch the end of the ribbon to spool and make it work again.

[Salmon Trout]

I dont recall ever seeing a ink refill or ribbon wetting with ink kit before for these. I thought the inkjets and bubblejets were the start of that because of how badly people were jabbed in ink prices as for ribbons were very affordable and lasted way longer than any inkjet or bubblejet cartridge for black printing. The only spray i remember was for the print head itself to un-gunk dry ink from the pins when a pin would get stuck etc.

The WD-40 trick is a good one because ink that is on an area of the ribbons outer top and bottom edges would flow towards the middle of the ribbon that was just about exhausted of ink to transfer as well. Gonna save that one in case I ever get another dot matrix printer to stretch the life of a ribbon, however the ribbons are so cheap it all depends on if I want to bother doing that or not. Aditionally ribbons did dry sometimes and this would rejuvenate them. 

As I recall, there weren't many products specifically aimed at the printer-ribbon rejuvenation market. You had to find some inky stuff. Some people used bottles of stamp-pad ink (not me, it has alcohol, you want oil), and I knew one person who swore by a dual treatment of black shoe dye and WD-40. You had to kind of apply it to the ribbon, being careful not to put on too much or make a big mess. I know people get oil-based ink from Alibaba. There used to be re-inking machines. I found a picture of one. It even shows a third-party Pelikan (German) ribbon packet. I bought so many of these! You see how you get the ribbon around some little pillars and it wraps around the central ink dispenser which had little holes that seeped ink onto the ribbon as it went by. One well known model was sold by a company called Computer Friends in Portland, Oregon, They were called Mac Inkers. Some people made their own, using small motors. e.g. microwave oven turntable motors running at about 3 RPM to drive the ribbon along.

Here's a pic of an Inker, not a Mac Inker.

[DaveLembke]

Thanks for sharing that... pretty cool. And that looks exactly like the ribbon cartridge my Epson LQ1050 Plus took.    Also I totally understand the reason for an oil based rejuvenation as for alcohol would just evaporate and you needed it to stay wet and oil does. I tried isopropyl alcohol once  many years ago and it made a big mess and well it was able to get ink on stuff for as long as the alcohol was still there such as all over my hands. Then the ribbon was dry when it evaporated. 

[Geek-9pm]

WD-40
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WD-40
The long-term active ingredient is a non-volatile viscous oil which remains on the surface to which it is applied, giving lubrication and protection from moisture
...
WD-40's formula is a trade secret. To avoid disclosing its composition, the product was not patented in 1953, and the window of opportunity for patenting it has long since closed

[Salmon Trout]

my Epson LQ1050 Plus

I had an LQ1050, I don't remember if it was a Plus or not. In 1997 I had a Brother 9 pin printer and I got a job at a company selling spare parts for domestic appliances ("white goods") such as fridge door seals, pumps, oven elements, hundreds of products and they had an identical Brother printer in the warehouse for printing delivery notes, pick lists, etc. They also had an Epson LQ1050. I mentioned to the warehouse manager I had the same Brother and a day or two later he came to see me at my workstation and offered to swap the Epson for my Brother, as he said it was too fussy to use and the Brother was rugged and simple, and he liked the idea of having two identical printers. I agreed and took the Epson home. With 24 pins you could get nice WYSIWYG printout from WordPerfect etc but very slowly and I still remember the noise. The sheet feeder for cut paper was handy. About 2 years later I got a Canon bubblejet and donated the Epson to a local charity that needed a printer.

[DaveLembke]

Yes the 24 pins was nicer quality than standard 9 pin. Printing out screen shots of internet in the late 1990s was slow and loud and greyscale image of screenshot etc. That trade you got seemed really good. The brother was probably just a base model that took the smaller ribbon cartridge. My Epson LQ 1050 was never fussy. I had one of those 2 to 1 Parallel adapters that was powered off the LPT1 port and you could have 2 computers share a single Parallel port printer. Still remember the red LED blink where it would blink left to right as its waiting to get a print task, and then whichever computer sent a print job that LED for that port 1 or 2 would blink fast to indicate which computer the printing job was coming from. When I set up my first home LAN on 10mbps with printer share the need for that went away, as well as I ended up getting an Epson Stylus C60 inkjet when the neighbor killed my LQ 1050 and that was USB. Only gripe I have with the C60 was that one day it failed to print anything after used a lot. Couldnt figure out why it died the way that it did. Later I found out that the C60 has a counter chip in it and after so many print jobs it bricks itself to die. And looking into why, Epson claims its because after x-many prints its probable that the sponge in the tray to the side where the ink purges itself, the pad is probably filled and so the printer then is disposable. They dont give you a warning that hey, you just need to check the pad or replace it with a new pad and then you can unlock you printer to work again. I caught this fact when watching a video which is on Planned Obsolescence called "The Lightbulb Conspiracy - Planned Obsolescence" as linked here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdh7_PA8GZU

The guy in the video has an Epson the same as I had the C60 and his fault is the same fault I got. He showed how the counter could be reset by a russian hardware hacker program and the printer would work again.  I havent bought an Epson product since getting burned on their time bomb counter to kill the printer after x-many prints. In desperation to get my college paper printed I ended up buying a $35 Lexmark from Walmart and that was a piece of junk too. Paper jams and all sorts of fun. But hey... I got my college paper printed to get it turned in on time thank goodness. But I wont forgive epson for nearly costing me a college grade on a major project due to their stupid printer doomsday counter! 

Had I known about this death counter, I would have just reset it, but it got thrown away which is what Epson wanted me to do, but I didnt go and buy another Epson so they lost out. Additionally finding out after the fact that they had this doomsday death counter it made me lose trust in Epson. Here is utility that can reset all sorts of counters etc for Epson is anyone is still running any of these old inkjets or saved one when it died this way. http://fix-your-printer.blogspot.fr/2011/12/ssc-service-utility-software-to-reset.html

[Salmon Trout]

I had a succession of inkjets until 2008 when I got a new Brother mono laser for 39 UKP, (almost exactly $50 US) and that lasted for 7 years on the original cartridge (!) and just seemed to die (not detected by PC). I fancied a budget colour laser and settled on one that my local Staples had in stock for 100 UKP. I think it was a Brother. I was aware of the limitations of budget colour lasers. I called up my local Staples and guess what? It was out of stock. The manager said "Did you specifically want that model, or are you just after a cheap colour laser printer?" I said I was open to suggestions. He said "We have an ex-demo HP printer, unboxed, with a full set of unused starter toners (half capacity, 500 page). You can have it for 50 pounds, and I'll throw in a 3 year warranty for 10 pounds. It's never printed a page.". I said "What model?". He said "Its an m251nw." I hit up Google while I was talking to him. I saw the first search results and said "Hold it for me, I'm coming over." This printer is a small to medium size office printer. Reviewers said it has the engine of a bigger printer but a single 250 page paper tray which would limit its popularity. Office suppliers were selling them for over 200 pounds at the time. It is a huge beast for a home printer. Now, 2 years later, the page count is 74 mono-only pages, 443 colour and mono pages, and the toner levels are 8% black, the colour ones are all on 43%-46%. I can find complete sets of 3rd party 1,000-page toners for around 70 pounds, or genuine HP for around 200. I will take a punt on the cheap ones. I don't expect I'll be needing a fuser kit or any other stuff like that for a long while.