HP Color Laser MFP 178nw bricked by firmware 3.82.01.17

[AccoBo]

Thank you, but the printer, with the ‘buggy’ firmware installed, is no longer visible from the PC, it reboots all the time, so how is it possible to install another firmware? Is there a way? Thank you.

[Ilja_P]

First connect your printer using USB cable and download the firmware v16. Unpack it and get ready to update. Then you have to go into "wait image" mode by turning the printer off (unplug it from the wall for few seconds), then press the cancel button and power-on button at the same time and hold them until the ''wait image" message appears. Then you'll have few seconds to start updating (or rather downgrading) to V16 of the firmware. Just drag the firmware file(***.hd) and drop it down on the file usblist2.exe.

[ferRX]

Yes, you need to connect Laser printer with a USB cable to computer.

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Then you need to press buttons until the "Wait Image" message appears on the printer screen.

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• >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8R-ar-W2kPo&ab_channel=GusanDaniel

* Click YES   to say thank you, 

Best regards,

ferRX.

[AccoBo]

Thank you, 

I had already tried this solution, even initially to try to re-install the buggy version of the firmware I had downloaded days ago. The problem is that in ‘wait image’ mode, the PC simply does not see the printer and therefore cannot install the firmware:

I already had the printer drivers installed, of course: the PC is the same one on which I had installed the previous buggy firmware, but it seems that the ‘wait image’ status is not enough for the PC to see the printer. Or ... I have no other ideas.

[AccoBo]

But no. Thanks to a new post I found on the forum (https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Printer-Setup-Software-Drivers/HP-Color-Laser-MFP-178-179-problem-with...), I discovered that if the PC does not see the printer in ‘wait image’ mode, you have to restart the PC with the USB cable plugged in. It doesn't matter if the printer is switched on, at least it did for me.

However, the instructions say to have usblist2 load the SWUPGRADE_ON.prn file. But then I would get this result in 1 second:

and the printer would get stuck indefinitely on the ‘wait image’ but without having loaded the firmware.

On the contrary, running this command:

everything worked, the firmware was uploaded to the printer and now it works again! Thank you all for your help! Too bad I already bought another printer, but I had to use it everyday for work.