Airprint intermittent issue with random symbols being printed

[ikk157]

Hi!

So I have had the HP Color Laser MFP 178nw for nearly 3 years now (bought new), and I have noticed since the beginning that every now and then, it would print tons of pages of random symbols instead of the actual printing job send to it, and so I terminate the job and re-send it, and it would work fine. I originally shrugged it off as it only occured once in a while, hence wasn’t that big of a deal.

However, since around a few months ago, this issue started happening more and more, and it’s now gotten so bad it happens at nearly all jobs and sometimes I have to re-send the job two or three times before it would finally print what it’s supposed to print, so it’s gotten to a point where it’s outright ridiculous (and don’t get me started on the wasted toner and paper).

All existing threads I could find mentioning this issue seem to be for a constant issue, not intermittent like mine where it would sometimes work and other times won’t despite not changing a thing.

Additionally, I haven’t changed anything at all throughout, so I don’t understand why it’s gotten progressively worse nor why it’s so intermittent (if it was a driver issue for example, it wouldn’t have worked after a few re-tries). 

Moreover, this happens across all of my devices, and all are apple devices (iPhone, iPad, Mac) and are running the latest version of their operating systems. They all print over Airprint and there are no drivers whatsoever that need to be installed (even the HP drivers page only links you to download the HP Print app and nothing else). It even occurs when printing through the HP Print app (not that it matters as not all things can be printed through the app, hence even if that solved it, it’s not a solution per say). 

I have tried it with the printer connected to wifi, Ethernet, and even wifi direct, and the issue occurs on all of them on all of my devices. I already tried resetting everything thag could possibly be reset and even updated the printer’s firmware to the latest version, all to no avail. 

Using the USB wire is not an option at all as none of my devices apart from my mac can use that… hence even if that solves the problem, it’s not a solution at all as I won’t be able to print from any mobile devices with no USB capabilities.

I don’t have any windows devices to test it with the printer to see if this issue is isolated to apple devices (and well again, if it is, this doesn’t solve th

Tried contacting HP directly, but it won’t even let me get through to contacting anyone as my warranty has expired. 

Genuinely have no idea what to do now. 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[ikk157]

hi! Just wanted to bump this thread as this issue is still ongoing but it seems like the post has gone unnoticed. Thanks!