HP Designjet T120 Unable to print A3 from multisheet tray

[EvAndyB]

I used to be able to print A3 Portrait and Landscape no problem.

But forced firmware updates by the printer and several driver updates (and now a switch from Windows 7 to Windows10) have left me at various times unable to print A3 Landscape (on Windows 7) and A3 Portrait (and this is the most recent change, now on Windows 10).

As with other folks on here I have been through ALL the settings. Whatever I do the printer tries to rotate the buffer when it should not and then complains that the image is too wide for teh paper size (which it often thinks is incorrectly 90 degrees rotated too).

I have also worked for many hours with HP Tier 3 and Tier 2 support people in India where it has taken a monumental effort to eventually convince them this is a printer/driver bug.

All the A1 Roll printing works fine.

With some driver/firmware/software updates (now updated and gone) there were workarounds that particular settings would enable it to work but since I switched to Windows 10 (trying three different PCs here, all the same) I can't find a workaround and I really don't want to get back on the phone to T3 support for hours and hours of discussion and email with Tier 2 support staff that do not even have access to a similar printer.

How do I get the attention of a HP driver developer?
... to explain to them how the buffer rotation is supposed to work as clearly the developers responsible for these drivers do not understand how the printer is used.

Any help appreciated. Thanks.

[HarryCR]

Hello @EvAndyB 

First at all thank you for your time, definitely the most recent drivers updates are affecting many of the HP customers. And HP offers support in trying to resolve the issues, as per what you said you went already with the higher support levels and invested a lot of your time, for sure they did the best to help you.

About you question in reaching an HP driver developer that is something I cannot help you with but if you shared emails with the HP higher levels of support that is something you can ask them for and they can also elevate your case to provide you a resolution in all the conflicts that you have with the driver.

Best Regards.

[EvAndyB]

Months go by with more support conversations but I am still struggling with this problem,

Every update just seems to change the problem around or bring in new problems. The latest drivers are abandoning multi-page A3 prints half-way through a page. I cannot even print an 8 page A3 document any more.

The support guys clearly are not even able to test this with a real printer. They send things to me to test instead.

It is costing me paper, ink, a lot of time, and frustration.

And now the printhead has developed a stripe where Magenta does not print. Am I supposed to now buy a £200 replacement print head for a printer that still does not work properly?

I see other people with the same printer also unable to print A3. They have my sympathy.

Level 2 and 3 support have now referred me back to EMEA Support but they have not returned my last email.

I am close to giving up on this printer to buy something from another manufacturer. My printer is still just-about under warranty. I am going to try to return it.

[HarryCR]

Hi @EvAndyB 

I am sorry to hear that you didn't get the solution of your issue, I know there is a new driver release from January the 28th and I hope  it is more stable in case you would like to test it. 

Regards.

[chris1designjet]

Dear Sir 

I am  frustrated by the numerous update and version of drivers that hp is producing and many times i found that older versions of the driver just works fine .. 

but i can advise you to use the hp click that could make it easier for you to print 

https://ftp.hp.com/pub/softlib/software13/hpdesignjetclick/HPClick-64bit-Setup.exe

so give it a try  I do have an older version of the driver but it is to be tried too  I will try to find it on a ftp server of hp and will add it 

[EvAndyB]

Hi Harry

Well I tried but no luck I'm afraid... once again they fix one problem but break something else. Clearly the driver developers do not understand the fundamentals of orientation of document, paper, and print buffer. And they did not test it either.

My previous driver was from 14th Jan 2021.

So I just installed the Jan 28th one downloaded from hp.com

and to my surprise...I just did an A3 print with orientation set to Landscape and it printed OK!

But then I tried the same with an A3 portrait document, orientation set to portrait, auto just as before (which used to work, many driver versions ago); And now I get almost the same error "document requires to be printed on 420 mm but the printer is currently using 296 mm"

You will note that the paper orientation on the multi-sheet tray is fixed (although I have at times had some difficulty explaining this to support staff). And print preview in both Photoshop and Acrobat DC  (using paper size information provided by the print driver) shows the page printing correctly, without clipping (unlike with some previous versions of the driver). The data gets sent to the printer... no more errors at the Windows end (unlike some previous versions of the driver) but then an error message pops up on the printer LCD screen (see photo).

Printing to roll paper is OK. It's just the driver handling of the multi-sheet tray that is screwed up. This was broken by a driver and/or firmware update somewhere around May 2020. I have tried over 12 different updates working with three different PCs during these support cases. Some of those updates have taken hours as they insist I remove old drivers, reboot, re-install from scratch (which is not straightforward since moving to Windows 10).

HP's policy of forced firmware updates (and pushed driver updates (through windows update, sometimes with multiple failures requiring reboots and manual installs) and then incompatibility of some versions with various utils (such as the HP DesignJet Utility) is REALLY messed up and does not give a good impression of organised software development at HP. The  Printer Driver Installer for the Designjet being a whopping 1.1GB (Yes, Gigabytes!) is also a pretty poor impression.

I'm still waiting to hear whether my warranty rights (as described in the terms that came with my printer) will be honoured. No response yet.

[HarryCR]

Hello @EvAndyB 

Try following this: 

let me please know the result.

Thank you.

[EvAndyB]

Hi Harry

Well that table is a pretty clear indication that the driver is buggy.

Note that many apps do not have an "Autorotate" option, they are usually fixed with just portrait and Landscape... that is the only setting you should need. If printing from CAD the "original file" setting is irrelevant as you only print a view portal (in my case often a section of a larger A1 document) and that portal is defined by the paper orientation in the print dialog of the application. Orientation in the driver SHOULD follow the orientation in the print dialog. ie. You should find that if you give the dialog a chance to redraw between then changing it in one place changes it in the other. That is because these are changing the same setting via the driver API.

I should not have to provide any indication of orientation other than selecting Portrait or Landscape in the print dialog. That is enough for other manufacturers printers. I definitely should not have to open printer properties, look things up in a table,  and tell the printer to do an additional rotation or not.... and possibly getting it wrong, walk to the printer, see the error on LCD, abort the print job, remove and re-feed the paper, change the setting in the printer properties, and try again.

I do not consider that lot to be an acceptable workaround.

In any case, this changed with the last driver. With my T120 that table is correct for the November version of the printer driver but for the new Jan 28th version it is inverted. ie. I used to have to set "Rot by 90" in the printer preferences if I was printing Landscape. Now, since 28th Jan driver I do not. But now I have to set "Rot by 90" for Portrait prints instead.

There have been workarounds for earlier drivers (since it first became broken in May last year) but this is always wrong again when there is another driver update. Check my support case feedback... it's all in there, I have provided feedback on all of them and then just when I get used to working with a workaround (usually with some caveat) a new driver comes along that changes things again.

It's been 10 months now. At least twelve drivers tried. At least three firmwares tried. Countless hours on the phone. Lots of "can you just try..." for things that are really just clutching at straws. Many photos and screenshots. Quite a bit of waste paper and ink and now I am apparently cursed with a failing print-head. I have been very patient. HP are clearly not able to fix this problem. Please do not try to start me off afresh down this whole crazy and useless support process again like a new case... I am done.

I am fed-up. Please just take this printer away.

[HarryCR]

Hello @EvAndyB 

I haven't try to start from the scratch with you, I was sharing the table that most of the users use to fix that same situation you are facing.

I understand you and I wish HP higher level support can provide you with a resolution to your case as you went with them.

[EvAndyB]

Hi Chris

No HP Click does not do what I need. That is just a document printer.

Acrobat DC does a better job of handling PDFs. I also use Photoshop to pull extracts from large PDFs for convenience. I also use CAD quite a bit and I also need to print directly from MS Excel.

I use various printers and having to use special apps just for the DesignJet is not convenient.

I have tried lots and lots of drivers working with your support for the last several months. Some worked better than others. All had problems of one sort or another. I did at one point have a fairly OKish working setup with an old firmware and driver combo from 2018 (but it was not compatible with HP DesignJet Utility) but I was asked to replace that in later support conversations.

My case has been assigned 47 different CRM numbers (I can post them here if you like) through Level 3 and Level 2 support in India. The latest CRM was assigned to me on 29th January when I was moved to HP EMEA and I am still waiting since then for HP EMEA to reply... I have not heard anything since then... hence I took another look on here to see if there was anything.

Please, I do not mean to offend any HP support staff but in all this time no-one has really been able to help... we just keep going over and over the same things. Nothing ever seems to get fixed.