HP Officejet Pro 8600 N911g Firmware Update Fails

[Dave-AUS]

Progress update:

HP support phoned me directly, we ran through a few steps and I sent off some screenshots of the existing firmware and updater etc.  The issue has been escalated to the next level of support which I'm told may authorise and provide the procedure to force the update.  I've been assigned an HP case number.  I'll post any further progress here once they're back in touch with me.

[Felixcloudy]

@kumar0307 

Printhead was delivered and I installed it and it worked.  Very expensive part...but hopefully it lasts a while and give the 8600 more time and I will use up the HP ink I have.

[Hymar]

Hello, I have just seen all the messages posted on this subject, having the same problem with the update of the blocked firmware, I think that we should organize ourselves to make a collective appeal, because it is inconsevable that the we end up with deleted services while it's printers are working fine. It's called programmed obsolecense...

[angelmtallo]

You're absolutely right. I'm in.

[alex1744]

Hi,

i'm in too.  Perhaps it was my fault, but there should be a fix nonetheless. And definitely a "legal" way to apply the latest firmware and enable web services again.

Long story: After changing a yellow cartridge to another non-hp refilled fake  chip brand, i  thought i had a firmware related problem with the printer rejecting those . It reported this yellow Cartridge was malfunctioning. I put in the empty one, that had been in before, and now the printer also reported it as malfunctioning.

I researched and read about similar problems with "firmware banned" non-hp supplies and therfore decided to downgrade  firmware. This is only possible by directly binary copying the firmware file to the printer share  (copy / b xxxx.ful \\localhost\printershare ) where xxx.ful is the unzipped firmware file. The firmware file  is packed in the downloadable .exe firmware updater package from hp. It can be extracted using zip or killing the genuine .exe and looking at the temporary folder.

"printershare" is the share name of the printer installed on the pc and shared in network, to make it available as target for direct copying files over network to it. It definitely  took a while to find an older firmware package on the hp ftp servers . But then this hack downgrade (the original procedure won't allow downgrading) actually  worked. After the copy command the printer first first reported "printing" like an accepted print job  but the rebooted, showing  a 5 step firmware upgrade progress on display and after automatically rebooting once again and printing an alignment page it was back to old firmware CKP1CN1545AR.

But reverting to this old firmware did not fix my problem. Meanwhile -during my searches in internet - automatic online firmware upgrade - i forgot to turn it off -  applied latest firmware 2011AR again.

Finally - when  putting in a new  genuine yellow HP 951 XL Cartridge, which my printer still reported as defective, I  recognized that the problem was related to the printhead, which might have run dry in the yellow chamber. Having  not much  to lose anymore, I  decided to try the tin foil hack : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlKwGVq4MSE

After this my printer works perfect again - except web services.

And- in spite this happened automatically after first downgrade -  it won't let me update firmware any more. Not even by directly copying the new firmware file , as i did with the old one. It just won't accept this file. The original updater reports not applicable and the .ini hack (change check download from 1 to 0) only  leads to "sent failed" in the log.  Just like an attempted hack copy /b fails.

A "semi full" reset procedure didn't change anything. And I think I won't risk a full reset bricking my printer, because it seams to me, that firmware - due to my hack - might be somehow "inconsistent" / corrupted. And I have a brand new  expensive set  of genuine cartridges and even the refills work again.

I always can apply firmware 1545A the "hack way", but as it seems I'm somehow stuck to this.

Regards

Alex

[alex1744]

Sorry,

in my logn story i omitted, that i reverted to old fimrware again, after automatic upgrade happened. I thought that my cartdridges would work with older firmware.  But that was not the problem.

Regards,

Alex

[jjraffa]

How to organize to make a collective appeal?  Perhaps a Google doc?  Or a social media group we can all join so that we can amplify our voices on this issue?  Or can anyone think of an influencer that HP cares about that we could inform about this issue?  (Influencers know how to make a lot of noise!)

[GregCH]

No stress guys 😉 still not working and no solution yet... disappointed 

[SomaP]

Was anyone able to get a resolution on this with firmware updates or downgrades?

[Dave-AUS]

I haven't yet.  HP support spun up a case and I've been working on it with them on the phone over the last few weeks.  It's now been "escalated" to another level again.  All the troubleshooting steps so far seem to have been either trying to get the software set up on my Mac (which I didn't need) or get the web services working with different network settings, hot spotting through my phone etc. which seems absurd given the firmware update fix notes would imply that it's a known issue with the old firmware (and they wrote the new firmware to overcome it).  The last support rep told me that "the firmware update utility was the manual process" for forcing an update, but I hope this isn't the case.  I'm hoping if I jump through all the hoops I can get to somebody who can recognise the firmware updater is faulty and request a fix.  It's been a frustrating waste of time so far though.