Previously posted this question on 11/20/2020. All of a sudden one day the printer would not print more than 3 copies. If I tried to do a 4th, the printer would start making a "recycling" noise as if it was trying to pick up the paper. After the 4th or 5th time, it would printout but the color documents might have color in one corner and black and white documents would be lighter in sporadic areas on the page. If I go back to the document and print 1-3 copies again, it would print normally. I repeated the print job using various programs with the same result. About a week ago, things suddenly went from bad to worse. The behavior that was happening on the 4th copy began happening on the first so basically the printer became unusable. Was about to toss it when I decided to try a few more things. I uninstalled all of the HP software, drivers, and any other associated files. Then I reinstalled just the driver from the HP site. Improved somewhat but still having enough problems that I thought maybe there were some bad registry keys somewhere but before I dug into that I came across an article about resetting the engine. The first step was to turn printer OFF, press and hold both right arrow key and cancel key, and turn printer On. The instructions said to keep the 2 buttons pressed untill you see Permanent storage initialization message appearing on the front panel. (That did not happen with mine; it just went to ready). Then on the right side of the printer is an engine test hole. I was instructed to use a fine-point tool to press the engine test button when the printer is powered ON and paper is loaded in the tray.The instructions said it should print a page with multiple lines if successful. (It did) I printed a test page directly from the printer and from the preferences and it was fine. I am now back to printing multiple copies from all of my programs however I will be replacing the pick up rollers just because the printer is old even though it did not appear to be the problem. So far so good.
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