HP Officejet 4620 "Turn the power off, t" error

[djvanyel]

Interesting that people seem to have this problem in varying degrees of severity.  I'm writing this about 5 minutes after the printer (once again) abruptly displayed our lamentable fragmented message.  I was able to watch it from start to finish:

1. Display illumination turns on
2. Message slowly appears by pixel row
3. Power button begins flashing

I didn't pay particular attention to the WiFi indicator, however it is noted to be off.

I was particularly interested in the investigation into WiFi related causes, and I've noted that my other hp products (I own a TouchPad and Palm 3 as well) don't take particularly well to the fact that my SSID is supressed (not broadcast).  My other devices tend to drop connection unexpectedly and be unable to reconnect even when directly in front of the router, however the printer never seems to have any issue (aside from this one). 

A power cycle has again remedied the problem, this time without the scolding about not using the power button.  I did have the printer plugged directly into the wall outlet but have returned it to a power strip since it clearly doesn't make a difference.

I haven't experienced it much in the past few months, and the only thing I can think to explore at this point is whether or not Windows XP causes this to happen vs Win7 or Win8 since I've been using XP Pro more than Win 7 until recently.  I suppose I'll see if it happens any more often.  So far I'm thankful that the printer hasn't completely lost its mind like it has in other cases reported here.  It's a good printer... it just isn't quite right in the head.

[MrUp]

Hi djvanyel,

You'll see many posts in this forum thread from me. I've chosen to document my journey to resolution. I was at the point if this is going to be the printer to keep, into the trash it would go and I'd just buy something else.... but I can attest today, I truly believe it's resolved.

I've said that before so I've waited for over a week and it's still working! I'm so amazed, I got what I wanted after all. The the solution was nothing that could be done with my printer, I got another from support.

I was sent a replacement printer. Although this looks the same, the software is different. For example, during setup I could not previously setup the printer without having a computer nearby. Not easy when I printer is alongside my NAS/Router/Wireless AP and Video equipment on a shelf in my basement. The new one set itself up in one minute using the push button method.  

I sent my first one back to HP... is my assumption, there were many people with this problem and the firmware upgrade couldn't fix it so maybe is a hardware issue... defective motherboard or component. They didn't say that but I can say with some certainty, if you follow all the directions the help desk (via Chat) ask you and it still fails, maybe they will offer a replacement to you too.

Good luck. I love my printer, you should too.

[greg71]

Was sent a replacement computer  in May 2013 to fix the problem  after an hour and a half of

trying suggestions from the help desk.

Replacement computer now has the same problem.

Does HP truly have diagnostic engineers for their defects.

Very frustrated

[BoucherPrice11]

I am having similar errors and am yet to find any information regarding how to solve these. My printer is stuck in a loop where it turns itself off after about 20 seconds and the only way to get it to restart is to turn off the power and then turn it back on. I cannot perform any sort of update as it won't even stay on for 1 minute. Considering this printer has hardly had any workload and only several weeks old this is completely unacceptable. And due to other users feedback about dealing with your customer service teams I am put off going through the apparent inconvenience this involves!

[djvanyel]

So this evening I had an interesting combination of usage that may or may not have contributed to this fault occurring (any HP people out there can maybe shed any light on this?):

Firstly, was attempting to scan some documents in the feeder, and was having trouble connecting to my roommate's laptop via the WiFi stating that the connection couldn't be established.  The laptop is made by HP and is running Win 8 with Admin rights and full driver software.  A normal (soft) power cycle of the printer did not remedy the issue, so I opted to try my PC using Win XP Pro with Admin rights.  Initially, the printer would not recognize my PC as a device so I cycled the printer WiFi via the menu with no success.  I then attempted to connect to the printer via my PC using the HP printer control panel software.  As the control panel was attempting to communicate with the printer, I received the systray popup that Scan to Computer had lost the connection to the printer and I looked over to find that our friend the error message had appeared on the printer display.  However, this time with a twist: the default menu display could still be seen where the message hadn't printed.  This is as opposed to earlier incidents when the display was blank, however those incidents were all when the printer was asleep, and therefore the display would have been otherwise blank. 

After power cycling the printer via the power strip (usual 30 sec delay included) it booted back up with no error message and was fully functional, however it could still not scan to the Win8 laptop.  Once it powered up, it did receive a print job from the Win8 laptop and printed it virtually immediately after the printer startup had completed.  I then did the scan job to my XP PC, which received the file with no issues. The printer is now sleeping quietly beside me after receiving a fresh paper supply and I see no issues at this point.  I have noticed an increase in popups from Scan to Computer reporting the communication to the printer had been lost, but they usually aren't persistent. 

The printer did go through a brief phase a week ago where it appeared to have insomnia and would continually wake up for no apparrent reason.  I soft power cycled the printer on that occasion, but that didn't seem to have any effect.  It eventually worked itself out with no further intervention on my part.  I'm still wondering what triggers the issue, and am not really any closer to determinig whether or not the OS/driver software plays a part in it somehow.  Guess we'll see what happens next.

[jkntp]

I have now had my printer on and running perfectly for nearly three weeks. How? I turned the wifi off. There is clearly a problem with the printer's wifi software/hardware, or both. This is really aggravating because I bought the printer so I could easily print wirelessly. I would really like to keep this printer, so to any HP employees reading this (if they even do), please get to the bottom of this. I would hope it can be fixed with a relatively simple software update.

[OrnahP]

Thank you for visiting the HP Support Forums. I'm sorry but this is a peer-to-peer community of HP customers, and not a venue to contact HP directly. Most of the users here are consumers like yourself who are offering solutions because they like to help others, and any HP employees you see are here on their own capacity and not representing the company.

If you have additional or direct feedback for HP about their products or services, or questions about repair, you can use the link below for contact information.

http://www8.hp.com/us/en/contact-hp/ww-contact-us.html

If you have other questions and concerns about using the forum, please feel free to send me a private message.

[jkntp]

Thanks for the help.

[skibum952]

I've been having this problem intermittently for months but got so bad this week that the unplugging reset only lasted a minute.  Finally discovered HP has a firmware upgrade to fix this issue that was released November 2012.  Followed their steps exactly and so far so good.  If anyone wants to try this here is the link http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=0&...

Thanks to everyone for their input.  Saved me having to re-do the same steps and hassle with support techs.

[chilli1327]

I did the firmware update as I was having a big issue with this error.  

But, I kind of fixed it already.  I couldn't even use my printer so I decided to start over.  I uninstalled all the printer software exept a couple that would just not uninstall(one of them was the basic driver set).

I went through the printer install process and the error went away.  My printer had been working for over a week before you posted the firmware update, but I went through and did the update anyway.  Can't hurt.