Test Page prints a truncated line and thats it

[gardengal5]

Printer is Photosmart 6380, installed latest driver/software  (from online download) this summer.

I was running low on a few inks recently and wanted to print a test page to determine what absolutely needed to be replaced.  (I've learned the ink warning alerts are very premature and not to be believed).  Anyhow, all I got was one line with about 5% of the top of the letters showing.  Its completely non-readable.

I assumed that this line truncation was related to the low black alert, so I reluctantly replaced all the colors with an X on them.  (seen from the printer web service and the LCD display).

Then I printed a test page again, and GOT THE SAME THING!!!     arg.

The Printer Diagnostic page prints perfectly.  (wish I had noticed that choice first... it has the color info I was looking for.  I don't even know if the test page is supposed to show color)

Whats up with a broken Test Page?

[ikkiphenix]

Hello gardengal5,

I searched a long time for this problem and thought at the end I was the only one... But no, I read your post

I encounter exactly the same problem as the one you described. The test page displays half the line of letters and no color squares are shown as it should be.

Did you get some more informations about it ? Or could someone help me to understand ?

Thanks.

[gardengal5]

I think when I wrote that, that was my old PC with Windows XP.  I am now at Windows 7 (64bit) and using a different driver (plain vanilla basic driver supplied via MS Windows).  Test Page prints okay now.

In general the HP printer driver software is pretty bad.   Possibly resetting the printer (shutdown and unplug for 2 minutes) and/or rebooting the PC may clear up the gremlins.    That's what I have to do whenever I try to cancel a print job.  It gets wedged easily.

Good Luck