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- HP Community
- Printers
- Printer Setup, Software & Drivers
- MFP m281CDW archived firmware

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11-08-2020 09:02 PM
Seriously thank you all so much, especially Pjr2 for hosting the file. I just spent an hour in the support queue and chatted with a guy named Manish from HP who couldn't solve this. He literally said that this firmware patch breaks old cartridges and spent half the conversation chastising me for not having HP brand toner. (not kidding, I can upload the transcript) I asked him if he could help me downgrade the firmware and he spent 10-15 minutes doing something before replying that he "couldn't find anything helpful" but like, bro this issue is documented on HP's own forums! I wanna know where the heck he was looking cuz it sure wasn't here. Anyway, thanks again, it worked like a charm. (definitely HAS TO BE DONE via USB not over network connection)
11-09-2020 09:01 AM
Doubtful, as it seems there intention was to break the printers in the first place I'd guess that convenience in fixing them is not a priority for HP. My suggestion would be to bootcamp or run a temporary windows VM to run this firmware downgrade executable. (since you only need it for about 15 minutes i'd say use a trial version of windows, free for a month) I believe there are programs to run .exe on macOS but i don't think they are free and not sure how it would handle trying to access the printer over USB through a different OS than the application was written for.
11-09-2020 02:53 PM
Pjr2.
Thanks so much for the old firmware - it's nice to have my printer working again. BTW, I am using authorized cartridges and the printer bricked because of the new firmware anyway. Terrible procedure by HP...
11-09-2020 07:53 PM
I found this site with all the drivers and firmware: https://driver-hp.net/hp-color-laserjet-pro-m280-m281-driver/
I was able to finally get it loaded (my printer was so jacked up it took like 5 tries to get it to be "findable") and everything seems to be okay again.