Officejet Pro 8600 (N911a) will not feed photo paper

[jason_h]

HP has recently released a firmware update for the 8600 series printer.  The firmware has several product fixes/enhancements.  Below is the list:

1) Enhance ePrint Diagnostic report for ePrint Setup
2) Improve ease of wireless setup
3) Enhanced Embedded Web Services
4) Improve Print Quality
5) Improve Ink Usage
6) Improve paper path performance
7) Improve Digital scan performance 

The firmware version is CLP1CN1304AR and was released 2013-03-21.

As mentioned in 6), the paper path performance has been improved and this was directed at printing with Cardstock/Photo Paper in the 8600.  

There are 3 different versions of the 8600 and I will provide links below to the download page for this firmware update for each.

8600 Base (N911a or CM749a)

8600 Plus (CM750a or N911g)

8600 Premium (N911n or CN577a)

For information about how to perform a firmware update in the 8600 click the link below:

http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c02919168

Let me know the results of updating the firmware and differences with the product's capacity to handle Cardstock/Photo Paper.

[lmonty2012]

No it didnt fix it the photo paper feed issue. This is ridiculous and I can't believe that it's still not fixed. I make the purchases for our offices and I guarantee that we will NEVER buy another HP product if this is not fixed.

[jl3dg]

Unsubscribing to this thread as no fix has come out in over a year. I gave away my 8600 to a church that didn't need to print photos, and bought a cannon 890. All these years futzting wth HP complicated setup and 500Mb of bloatware on the install makes me feel foolish after the easy wireless seutp of the cannon. Cannon's cloud print setup much much easier too. Oh, and the cannon prints on photo paper just fine.

Good luck -

[Hpfirstimer]

at last, i read somewhere in this forum from hp employee i guess,

anyway the roller need to be run in...when it is new its had diffuculties to grab/feed thick photo paper..

so here will do the trick, take a blank clean a4 paper, put it in the glass and make a copy like 100 or more,

then it should be fine

it work for me yesterday, just bought the printer 2 days ago

cheers 

[raleighnc]

Thanks for your post.  It was very helpful.  

The SW update did not fix my problem, but it seems that I can get my HP Advanced Glossy photo paper to load when using a different photo view/edit program.  I initially sent the print command through the Windows Photo Viewer app.  This did not work.  I changed to Windows Live Photo Gallery and I've only printed a few pics the paper seems to be loading properly.  I have not tried to print through the SD slot yet.  I am using the wireless connection to the printer.

For those of you that are having problems please read the steps in this post and try a few different programs to print the photo.

Really disappointing that HP can't get something as basic as feeding photo paper right.  The out of box experience is enough to make anyone pack the machine up and take it back and get the Epson Workforce.  From the posts I've seen on this it is obviously not a one off problem.  I do plan to keep the printer for now, but really frustrated with my new purchase. 

[ShanerShaneo]

I bought this printer yesterday and immediately experienced this issue with the photo papere not loading.  I read through this thread and tried it all with no results.  Then I thought to myself, why not go to HP's support website and see what's there.  The following link describes the procedure to load "Specialty Paper" in the 8600.  It worked on the first try.  All you need to do is extend the paper tray to use Legal sized paper (open it up all the way) and load your photo paper as normal.  Voila.  Not sure why you would need to do this and don't really understand the mechanical on why this make it work...but it does.

http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c02890475

[Tatiana123]

I have the same problem with my new 8600 printer.   I returned the first one to Office Depot because it would not pick up the photo paper and then the second one had the same problem.  This is crazy that HP does not seem to be aware of this issue.  I was on the phone with the HP help desk for an hour and they were clueless about this.     Clearly their QC department is worthless and their tech support is uninformed.    I will try some of the proposed solutions here because I really don't want to return it again. 

[kdorrell]

Tatiana, I found that the problem went away by itself.

It seems that when these printers are manufactured, the rubber rollers have a fine dusting of chalk that helps preserve them during manufactures and shipping.  This chalk dust unfortunately stops the printer from picking up photo paper correctly.

After you have printed a couple of hundred pages or so of normal paper, the chalk dust wears off, and the printer is able to pick up photo paper OK.

That, at least, is what happened to me.

[Tatiana123]

Thanks for the reply.  I did discover that the printer will pick up photo paper that is 66 lbs.  I don't think anything higher than that will work for now. 

[cdottin]

Moving the rear blue tab in the paper tray a few mm shorter than normal.

Your fix worked for me!

Thanks.