Disable Duplex HP MFP m477fdn

[abtcolstech2017]

I'm having an issue where a shared MFP printer using both a generic HP driver and printer-specific driver are duplex printing.

The web console for the printer has been set to single-sided printing and duplex printing has been disabled.

The duplexer has been uninstalled in all drivers on all PC's assigned to this department's printer.

When the client goes to print anything but primarily Adobe PDFs the printer still manages to print two-sided.

I need the printer options to actually obey the user or permanently disable this functionality, and the issue does not seem to be workstation-specific.

I've had this issue with multiple HP printers but have listed this one in order to find an answer to this issue dated within this year as searching the Internet finds answers in 2014, 2012 and older that may not be relevant.

Has anyone encountered this problem and knows what setting is overriding everything else?

[dansdaduk]

>> ... what setting is overriding everything else?

Explicit 'set plex' 'commands' (if present!) in a print job should always over-ride the printer's own default setting.

I understand that some (Windows) printer drivers:

• Include the requisite 'set duplex' control sequence in the generated print job when the user selects duplex for a print;
• Do not include the requisite 'set simplex' control sequence in the generated print job when the user selects simplex for a print;
• Hence the 'simplex' jobs do not override the printer's own default simplex or duplex setting; if this default is set to duplex, the job will print on both sides.

What you should be able to do is change the printer's default from duplex to simplex.

Easiest way to do this will probably be via the Embedded Web Server interface: on the System tab, select the Paper Setup page, and change the Duplex setting from On to Off.

Of course, this may be what you meant when you stated "... The web console for the printer has been set to single-sided printing and duplex printing has been disabled ...", but (from this description) I'm not sure.

If you have done this, or your print jobs do include the relevant 'set simplex' sequences, then I can't offer an explanation, sorry.

[abtcolstech2017]

I am sitting down with the client to view the discrepancy between a desktop that is not overriding these settings and laptops that are.

I will post back with further information soon. But yes, the EWS on the MFP printer itself is set to disable duplex.

I'll take a look to see if it's all jobs or only some jobs doing this, and try to narrow it down to whether an application is an issue based on your response.

[dansdaduk]

Just to be clear about the relevant setting on the printer:

This example is for a LJ Pro 400 Colour MFP M475dn, but I'd guess that the EWS on your M477 model  looks similar:

[abtcolstech2017]

That is set to off, yes.

[dansdaduk]

>> ...That is set to off, yes. ...

Then if you are still getting jobs printed in duplex mode, the only explanation is that those print jobs contain explicit 'print language instructions' to set duplex mode.

[abtcolstech2017]

I will review after I've had a chance to compare the machines printing simplex beside the machines printing duplex, I don't want you to have to get stuck troubleshooting PDF readers but if I can find a solution, Google is rather sparse on the information you just outlined regarding print setting overrides regarding duplex printing and it's a good Tier 2 tech support issue to have documented.

I'm surprised it can just ignore the duplexer being completely uninstalled in the driver on the workstation level, however.

[dansdaduk]

I've no idea what default settings different PDF viewer applications might use within their Print functions, sorry.

Bear in mind also  that some printers (almost certainly including your M477)  natively understand 'raw' PDF (probably at either level 1.4 or 1.7).

So the content of PDF files can be sent directly to the printer port without going through a printer driver to convert the document into a 'standard' Page Description Language (usually PCL5, or PCL6 (a.k.a PCL XL) or PostScript).

In this situation, I don't know if the 'raw' PDF could contain anything to set the expected 'plex' mode.

You said originally "... when the client goes to print anything but primarily Adobe PDFs the printer still manages to print two-sided ...".

So what exactly does happen with (for example) simple Notepad or Word documents, rather than PDF documents?

[abtcolstech2017]

I found the problem.

In my particular domain environment, there are limitations as to what changes a user account can make, and even some admin account changes are restricted. For most casual printer installations we use the generic HP universal printer driver.

I had uninstalled the duplexer at the driver level in order to stop this problem prematurely. For some reason the generic HP printer driver was either insisting on printing double-sided with the duplexer disabled, or with the duplexer enabled it would lock the driver to select 'Yes, print on both sides' and gray the field out.

The solution was to use the print driver specific to the MFP m477fdn which has a slightly different layout, to get around domain restrictions that ordinarily I should have the rights to change on an admin account for the service desk. Notably the double-sided printer settings under the Printing Shortcuts tab worked properly and provided the duplexer was left installed, allowed you to set the default double-sided print settings.