Officejet printers with 2nd paper tray not being detected

[Madison1]

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you.  I got out my notes and found your 12/29 message to remove the bottom assembly and not just the Tray 2.  Power down, remove assembly, power up, power down, replace tray 2 assembly, power up.  Went to Copy and selected legal plain paper, and now able to select Tray 2 and Print. VIOLA!  Don't have to slide legal paper into Tray 1 any more. Thank you very much!

[pcwizard]

HI Madison1,

Glad to hear the issue has been resolved. Have a wonderful day

[ekulis]

Just wanted to mention that it worked for me too.
- Tray 2 was greyed out.
-- Lifting the printer off the bottom tray assembly and then putting it back.
- Tray 2 was black again.
-- Because it had worked in the past and I'm not losing my mind at least over this.

[xor42]

Installed OfficeJet 8600 Pro as Ethernet connected.

All computers printing to this printer are Windows 7x64 Ultimate.

All computers have very recent Windows Updates.

Device Settings: Tray 1=LETTER, Tray 2 = Installed, Tray  2 = LEGAL, Tray Select = Auto.

Tray 1 and Tray 2 both have adequate paper.

OJ 8600 device dialogs confirm BOTH trays are installed and recognized.

OJ 8600 device dialogs confirm both LETTER and LEGAL sizes are available.

In short, all device dialogs, settings and info look 100% normal.

HOWEVER:

When Tray Select = Auto, as wanted, needed and the default:

    1. All LEGAL jobs ALWAYS print truncated to Tray 1's LETTER paper.

    2. If Tray 1 is removed or is out of Paper:

         ... LETTER size requests print to Tray 2 with expected white space at bottom

         ... LEGAL size requests print to Tray 2 correctly!

When Tray 2 is manually selected (i.e., Tray = Tray 2, NOT Auto):

    1. All LEGAL size requests correctly print from Tray 2 on LEGAL paper

    2. All LETTER size requests print to Tray 2 on LEGAL, as excpected, wasting paper.

Our aging OJ 7700 that we replaced for minor problems never had such a basic problem.

I also tried the power cycle / tray reset method noted in this forum but, as expected, since all trays are correctly detected, displayed, and can be FORCED to be used, that isn't the problem.  No, I didn't do a lower case removal, just a full tray removal since this is not a tray detection issue.  Tray 2 is properly detected with Legal paper.

So, to recap:

This seems clearly to be an Auto Select problem as it only occurs when Tray Select = Auto.   In that standard and required scenario, ALL print jobs, both LETTER and LEGAL, are ALWAYS printed to Tray 1 (LETTER).   Auto Select seems be completely inoperative.  The only work around is to manually select Tray 2 which is ridiculous and obviously not acceptable.

Test Scenarios

Computers:

This problem occurs identically on each of the 3 computers I just set up the 8600 print driver on, including my main W7x64 Ultimate workstation which I installed using the HP CD that came with the printer.  The other two machines are W7x64 Ultimate laptops on which I used the HP 8600 Basic driver that I downloaded from HP so it's current.

Print Applications:

The problem remains unchanged whether printing from Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, or Microsoft Word.  In all cases, I invoke Print in the application, select Printer Preferences, select LEGAL paper size, and do a Print Preview which clearly shows LEGAL sized paper.  I then execute print.  There is no error.  The printer wakes up and spits out LETTER sized pages from Tray 1.

I also tried the ePrint Settings Menu Update option.  It says the printer is up to date.

Anyone have any thoughts?   We can't have everyone fudging with the Manual Tray selection method - especially when work flows contain a mix of Letter and Legal.   We are VERY disappointed that such a basic things isn't working as it has on all our other HP models over the last 15+ years.

Thanks

[xor42]

---

pcwizard wrote:

From the control panel of the printer set tray 2 as the default tray. Open Devices and Printer, and then right click on the printer. Chose printer preferences, and then Device settings tab. Set the trays for the media you have installed into each tray. When you click print from application software it will show automatic select. If you have the trays media types set it will then print from the correct paper tray.

---

This is NOT true on our brand new 8600 Pro.  Auto tray selection based on paper format DOES NOT WORK like it did on all previous HP multitray printers. 

Settings:

Tray 1 filled with LETTER and Device Settings have Tray 1 set to LETTER. 

Tray 2 filled with LEGAL and Device Settings have Tray 2 set to LEGAL. 

When printing from the application, Printer Tray means something different.  AUTO means choose based on size.  In device settings, it means default tray to use when size not found. 

So, when choosing Printer Tray = Auto in the application, it ALWAYS prints from Tray 1 (Default, Letter) regardless of the paper size chosen.  I tested this with several different applications on several different computers and the same thing happens.  However, everything worked perfectly on the OJ 7780 I replaced with this terriuble upgrade.

Manual tray (1 or 2) works but that is totally unacceptable in a modern work flow.

AUTO = Letter in device panel and with Printer Tray Auto in the application, auto tray selection by size DOES NOT WORK!!!!!   It ALWAYS prints from Tray 1.   

I also tried reversing Tray 1 and 2.  I put Legal size in Tray 1 and set it to Legal size.  I put Letter in tray 2 and set it to Letter size.  I left Tray Select set to Auto = Letter.  It still prints ALWAYS from Tray 1 which, in that test, was Legal.   Even if that did work, it is unusable in that configuration since the larger legal tray then sticks out way over the the lower letter tray. 

Auto Tray Select DOES NOT WORK! 

Many, many people in these forums all have the exact same problem.

Our Office is at a stand still.  This is ridiculous!

You cannot effectively use a multitray printer in an office without Auto Select.

I will be happy to learn of what I am missing if I am wrong.  If not, I am anopther user returning this printer as suprememly defective in the most important feature of a multitray printer.

Please enlighten me. 

Please show me I am wrong!

Ps. The touch control panel is so bad we have "reset to factory defaults" every time we try to swipe the screen since that is the last option.  This dangerous and tragic.  We have lost hours of config set up all in the 1st day!

Pps. The control panel freezes and touching it doesn't do anything.  You have to bang it repeatedly when it freezes only to find you then inadvertently change all kinds of options.

That's enough horrors for tonight!

[pcwizard]

Hi xor42,

What you need to do for your setup to work correctly is the following steps.

1. Set tray 2 as the default tray from the printers control panel

2. In the printer preferences under device settings set tray 1 to Letter media, and tray 2 to legal.

When you print from an application it will be set to automatic detect. As long as you have the trays setup correctly in the device settings of the print driver then it will pull the correct media into the printer.

[xor42]

So, you are saying to change just one thing compared to what I showed you. That is, on the printer, we change Default Tray to Tray 2. We didn't see how that would make any difference. But we did it. The ONLY difference is that it now ALWAYS PRINTS from Tray 2. So, we simply swapped one wrong operation for another.

[pcwizard]

Hi xor42,

Now that you have the default tray set to 2 . Follow the steps below to set the print order

1. Open Printers folder

2. Right click on the printer, and chose printer properties

3. Click on the device settings

4. Set tray 1 for Letter, and set tray 2 for legal

When you print a letter document it will pull the paper from Tray 1, and when you print a legal document it will pull from tray 2

[xor42]

DELETED

[xor42]

Reply to comment by "pcwizard":

> you need to do for your setup to work correctly is the following.
> 1. Set tray 2 as the default tray from the printers control panel

YES, it is set that way!

> 2. In the printer preferences under device settings set
> tray 1 to Letter media, and tray 2 to legal.YES

YES, it is set that way!

We also have defined the tray paper sizes.
Print dialogs show correct sizes in correct trays.

> When you print from an application it will be set to
> automatic detect. As long as you have the trays setup
> correctly in the device settings of the print driver
> then it will pull the correct media into the printer.

1. IT DOES NOT CHOOSE TRAY BASED ON DOCUMENT SIZE!
2. IT ALWAYS AND ONLY PRINTS TO DEFAULT TRAY!

Why don't you explain ALL the settings required to make this happen!
Here are all of our settings. Please review and correct.

Settings on Printer
Settings Tab
Paper Handling Section
Default Tray: Tray 2
Tray Lock: None

Control Panel / Devices and Printers
Printer Properties / 8600 Printer
Device Settings Tab
Form-to-Tray Assignments:
Print Auto Select? (what is this? we have "Letter")
Tray 1: Letter
Tray 2: Legal
Installable Options:
Automatic Duplexing: Installed
Tray 2: Installed
Advanced Tab
Print Processor
Print Processor: winprint (only other is "hpzpp58a")
Default data type: RAW

Printing application (e.g., MS Word)
Create single Letter Size page
File / Print Menu
Printer Properties
Layout Tab
Orientation: Portrait
Print on Both Sides: None
Page Order: Front to Back
Page Format: Pages per Sheet = 1
Paper/Quality Tab
Tray Selection Group
Paper Source: Printer Auto Select
Paper Size: Letter (filled by Word based on doc size)
Media: Plain Paper (filled by Word as its default)
Quality Settings Group
Normal (filled by Word as its default)
Page Setup
Paper Tab
Paper Size Group
Letter (selected by Word based on doc size)
Width: 8.5" (based on Letter being chosen)
Height: 11" (based on Letter being chosen)
Paper Source Group
First Page
Choices are (Def tray, Auto Sel, Prt Auto Sel, T1, T2)
Set to: Auto Select
Other pages (same choices)
Set to: Auto Select

With those settings and a simple Portrait/Letter page on screen.
We click File / Print and ...
IT ALWAYS PRINTS TO DEFAULT TRAY (2) on LEGAL PAPER!
If we manually select Tray 1, it prints Letter in tray 1 (but this is MANUAL)
If we manually select Tray 2, it prints Legal in tray 2.
So the trays are working.
The AUTO SELECT IS NOT WORKING.

We tried all settings in Word / Print / Page Setup / Paper Source:
"Default Tray (Printer Auto Select)" ... Prints LEGAL from Tray 2
"Automatically Select" ... Prints LEGAL from Tray 2
"Printer Auto Select" ... Prints LEGAL from Tray 2
"Tray 1" ... Prints LETTER from Tray 1
"Tray 2" ... Prints LEGAL frpm Tray 2



What is difference between 1st 2 options?

Which of 1st 3 options is "supposed" to Auto Select based on Doc Size!

So, again, IT DOES NOT AUTO TRAY SELECT.
IT ALWAYS PRINTS FROM DEFAULT TRAY!!!!!

It's your turn.
Have you REALLY seen an 8600 auto tray select based on doc size?
If so, please comment on ALL the settings above.
Tell us EXACTLY which settings are wrong?