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- HP Community
- Printers
- Printer Ink Cartridges & Print Quality
- HP Color Laser MFP 178nw random symbols printed on multiple ...

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09-29-2020 04:14 AM
Hello,
I am using the HP Color Laser MFP 178nw connected via Wi-Fi in my office to a MacBook running macOS 10.15 Catalina.
When sending a print job (either an image, text via a pdf or an image file) the printer prints multiple pages with just one or two lines of random characters.
It happens occasionally and I am wasting a lot of paper because of this issue.
I also tried to search for a solution on the community, but even if someone else had the same issue, I could't find a solution.
Can you please help?
Also, when I registered the product, I got the following message:
"This product is no longer serviced by HP. You may search for possible solutions on this support website."
Therefore I cannot directly contact a Hp support agent for this issue in the UK.
Which is quite shocking considering I bought the printer less than a month ago...
09-29-2020 08:19 AM
Hello, usually the random symbols print out when you have a print driver that does not specifically match the printers model number. You can go to HP.com and download the Full Solutions driver for your HP CLJ 178nw. Here is the link for that,
When you are installing the driver make sure you are using LPD (Line Printer Daemon) protocol instead of IPP (Internet Printing Protocol). You may also try the JetDirect protocol if the LPD one is not working correctly.
Hope this helps, thanks.
10-18-2020 06:09 AM
Hello, Thank you for your reply.
As I Said I am using the printer connected to a MacBook over WiFi. The link you sent just recommends to install the HP Smart app from the app store, which is what I have already done.
The printer is correctly identified by the app and operating system, but the problem still persist.
The waste of paper is significant as is the frustration of having an unreliable (brand new!) printer...
Any other suggestions?