Photosmart scanning faults

[ian_richardson]

My Photosmart B110 is the best printer I have ever had and I'm running it from a PC with Windows XP Home Edition.  The printer gives excellent sustained print quality and used to give a great scanning function until it degraded and became useless. 

The first sign of degradation was that I could not initiate a scan from the printer TouchSmart screen, only from the HP Solution Center. 

Then the ink status readout on the PC became intermittent and now always says something like "Ink status not available at this time". 

Then I had difficulty getting a scan even from the HP Solution Center.  The scan can be initiated and the scanned image is displayed as it comes over the USB link.  But only the start of the image appears to be transmitted.  The Solution Center scanning program hangs and the printer appears to think that it has completed the scan.  To have another try, I have to terminate all the HP processes using Task Manager.

I have followed the HP advice for scanning problems - shut down printer and retry - shut down PC and retry - reinstall the HP software and retry.  None of these solves the problem.  I reinstalled the software from the CD provided with the printer.

Printing has been fine throughout, which makes me think it's not a communication problem.  Or at least there isn't a problem from PC to printer, but perhaps there's a problem from printer to PC.

[mohammed_lok]

try performing a photocopy from the printer, if you cannot perform this then the printer has really degraded and has hardwre issues

[ian_richardson]

I tried a photocopy and it worked just fine, both colour and black & white.

I also tried connecting the printer through the USB ports on the front of the PC that I use to download photos from my camera.  The scanning behaviour was the same as when using the USB port on the back of the PC.

Unfortunately I don't have wireless connection on this PC, so can't try that option.

It looks like the printer can't send data to the PC, so seeing that my camera can, is it a firmware / hardware fault on the printer?

[mohammed_lok · Accepted solution]

well it could be for a couple of resons, either ur port is damaged or there could be a problem with ur cable. Try connecting with another cable and see if the issue is resolved

[ian_richardson]

I've just fitted a new printer cable and that's fixed it!  Scanning to computer is working and I'm getting the ink status displayed.

Many thanks for your help mohammed_lok - brilliant, well done.

[mohammed_lok]

hey no prob.. good that the issue is resolved... however dude one kudos for my solution would be kind! thanks!