Cannot print in colour from PC

[Geoff187]

My printer has stopped printing documents in colour from my PC, to which it is connected via Wi-Fi.

When opening the print menu, on the second page of printing options, I notice that "Monochrome" has become the default setting.  When I change it to "Colour" and click "OK" to return to the first page of options, if I click then print, I still get a greyscale document - my changing it to "Colour" made no difference.  However, when I open the print menu again, even for the same still open document, the output is showing "Monochrome" again.  It's as if the default setting has gone to "Monochrome" and will not accept changes, whether for one document or permanently.

I have opened every system settings or tools menu to do with the printer that I can find and I am unable to find anywhere where the default output (Colour/Monochrome or Greyscale/B&W) can be set, anyway.

I ran HP Print & Scan Doctor and it found no issues.  However, when I printed the offered test page, it was in greyscale.

I then looked at tools on the printer itself and followed instructions for printhead cleaning, which results in a test page being printed and that was in colour.  When I print via e-printing directly from my smartphone, it comes out in colour.

This is presumably, therefore, a glitch with the computer, rather than with the printer.  However, if required, the printer details are HP Office Jet 4658.  Please advise.

[Chimney_83 · Accepted solution]

Greetings @Geoff187,

Thanks for the post.

I understand that you are able to print in color from mobile, but are unable to print in color from your computer. 

Not to worry, I will be glad to assist you. 

Kudos to you for trying a lot of troubleshooting steps on your own. 

Request you follow the exact procedure mentioned below to uninstall the printer software and settings from your computer and then install the latest version from www.hp.com/drivers

Uninstall the printer from "programs and features" which can be accessed by doing a right-click on the Windows button (Please have the printer Off and disconnected during uninstallation.)

Check in device manager, if the printer is listed there, please delete it. (Right click on the Windows button to access device manager)

Go to devices and printers, select any printer listed there and you will get some options on the top. 

Click on print server properties. 

You will get a popup, click on the drivers tab and delete all the HP printer drivers listed there, if any.

Delete all the instances of your printer listed in devices and printers.

Restart the PC.

Once the PC is on the desktop, press Win + R, it would bring a Run dialog box, 

Type %temp% in the run box and click Ok or hit the Enter button.

It would bring up the temporary files folder. Delete the files in the folder (You might not be able to delete all the files, ignore them).

If possible, delete the printer from the registries using Regedit or using any other 3rd party application.

Restart the PC again. 

Download the latest full feature driver from www.hp.com/drivers and install it on the computer.

Connect the printer to your computer only when the setup prompts for the printer. 

Let me know if this helped. 

[Geoff187]

Broadly, thanks for the advice on how to fix the issue of my HP Pavilion 23 PC no longer allowing me to print in colour (or to use the duplex double-sided printing feature) to my HP OfficeJet 4658 printer.

Procedural point:  It was no possible to delete the print driver until I had deleted the temp files.  So, as I worked through your instructions, I had to leave the print driver undeleted, re-started the PC, deleted the temp files, restarted the PC and then was able to delete the print driver.

I did not do anything with registry, as that is way too complex.

Which brings me to the issues of

(1) Why did I have to spend at least an hour when I had a schedule of other - important to me - tasks to get on with?  Why was the correction of this error not available as an update or a patch/repair download of some sort?  I saw your soultion given to someone else on this forum, so it is a problem you are familiar with that probably afflicts a number of HP equipment users, so an easily (and for many, automatic) update to the software would surely have been more appropriate?

(2) There has been no answer as to why this error occured in the first place:  One day it is printing fine, the next day, it will only print B&W and single sided.  Something went wrong.  What?  WIll it happen again?

[Geoff187]

Well, I never received an answer from chimney83 as to why my computer/printer had suddenly stopped printing in colour or being to print duplex (double-sided) or whether, having fixed the problem back then, it would happen again.  Guess what?  It's happened again.  I shall now eat another hour of precious evening free time to fix it using the procedure outlined previously.  Thanks!

[AmanQA]

Thanks This solution worked for my printer 4670 as well which was having same problem, And while installing the software i preferred the HP Smart windows App which is recommended software.

[Onneb]

This is a joke!! It is 2019 and still the same problem with the HP printers why has this not been fixed by patch? I tried all that they said I should do but still not working.

[DGGprinter]

What a joke! As it has been said it is 2019 and my HP printer suddenly cannot print in colour when connected by WiFi but plug in a USB cable and all is well! 

The answer from HP is to delete temp files, edit the Registry and re-install - and it looks like they've been giving out this advice for years.