HP Officejet Pro 8610 "One or more cartridges appear to be damaged."

[basic126]

Good Day,

I have been wrestling with ink issues for the last couple weeks as I had purchased a set of 3rd party color cartridges that for some reason my printer refused to use and claimed there was a print system error so I finally broke down and bought a genuine HP cartridge to replace the color I needed.

Now my printer is claiming that the cartridge is damaged, upon inspection there are no defects/issues visually. So I decide to refill and reuse my old perfectly fine genuine HP cartridge since I had no issues with that one for the years I had it. I install it and the same message pops up "One or more cartridges appear to be damaged." clearly that is not the case and again there aren't any visual defects.

I have also inspected the print head and again everything is visually fine. I cannot perform a print head alignment or cleaning as the printer detects a "damaged" cartridge. I have done a bit of digging and apparently there was a firmware update for this printer a couple years back that made using 3rd party or refilled cartridges not an option not that the update notes for said firmware come out and say that was part of the update.

I have ALREADY tried ALL of the troubleshooting steps for these errors on the support site as well as others around the internet. I have worked in IT for years and know my way around devices. I can also tell when community solutions have been scrubbed from the internet by corporations.

Please supply me with the last viable firmware that allows the use of 3rd party/refilled cartridges and the tools to install that firmware on my printer. I need this printer for finding work and cannot afford to buy a new printer or an entire set of new cartridges just to get back on my feet.

Thanks.

[basic126]

Hello, 

I have now been awaiting a reply about this issue for almost a week with absolutely no response, in the meantime I have tried even more troubleshooting steps as well as retrying other all to no avail the issue still persists. Since this is the case I took the liberty of looking through similar issues posted around the same time for the same printer and they have received replies that were sadly of no help in my case, I realize this printer is old and apparently no longer properly supported by HP but this is just sad. The firmware on my printer cannot be updated by the tools on your website as the firmware version available is older than the one on the printer itself. This is a common suggested solution.

I have tried looking for a way to perform a full factory reset (another common solution) that would revert the unit to older firmware but that appears impossible on this unit either from factory or due to recent firmware/software updates removing that functionality. The restore factory defaults option in the setup menu is useless aside from getting the unit to forget my wifi SSID and password. Other "solutions" I've seen suggested by HP representatives for factory resetting this printer clearly are from instructions for other units as this one has no physical buttons aside from the power button.

Looking into further proposed solutions to fix the "Cartridges appear to me damaged." prompt include printing reports like the printer self test which is impossible to do as the printer refuses to print anything if the printer somehow detects a damaged cartridge.

How is it possible that HP doesn't have a set of full instructions on how to fix a known issue on a nearly decade old printer!? None of the reps responding to the same issues with the same printer give the same solutions or troubleshooting steps. 

I need this otherwise good printer back up and running, with the ability to use 3rd party cartridges and refilled 1st party ones as there is absolutely no way HP will ever be getting my money again after an issue this severe and after there was a firmware update that supposedly allowed the use of non-HP/refilled cartridges.

Get back to me with next steps as soon as possible.