Bricked? - "Update required: A problem has occurred ...."

[Gynzer]

Purchased this printer to occasionally print at a remote office.   Usage s extremely low, but the need for reliability is high.   Thus I went with HP instead of what I used to think of as a lower quality brand.   Almost a year to the day of putting this printer into production I come in to see the following message.

Update required

A problem has occurred with one of the printer's critical system files. A printer update will be installed to fix this problem.

The screen is unresponsive and the system cannot be found remotely.   This situation is reported often in boards, but never any resolution that I have found.   So is this system literally bricked?

There is no way to access the system.   Restart results are the same.   Hard reboot (unplug for 60+ seconds) results are the same.    Not seen on the network.   At this point, it looks like it is heading to the trash unless there is a back door that HP knows about that I haven't seen anywhere.

This situation frustrates me. I've been in IT for almost 40 years.   I miss the days of hard-coded firmware.   You bought a system (printer) with known specs and capabilities (and quirks), but they would run for 10+ years with no major issue.  Now that everything wants regular updates, the reliability is so low that it is almost laughable. 

Any out-of-the-box ideas would be appreciated.   Otherwise, the next printer will not be an HP.   If I am throwing away a printer every year, I'll go with a cheaper brand that truly is a throw-away.    Thanks all.