can send faxes but cannot receive them

[TomTambling]

Let me prefice with, I have used HP products for almost 20 years.  And in all those years I have never had such a frustrating and maddening time as I have had with this new 8620 Office jet.  I purchased an Officejet Pro 8620.  I set it up per instructions.  Everything worked fine except I could not receive faxes.  Chatted with customer service twice.  they were unable to solve my problem.  Sent me a reconditioned product (not happy about that) it did the very same thing. 

I am now on the 3rd one of these machines trying to get it to work.  I have installed and uninstalled.  I have chatted with customer service.  I have done absolutely everything possibe and the 3rd machine STILL doesn't work. 

Are these 8620 machines just junk or what?  I am ready to go to the BBB and every other agency I think of to solve this problem. 

[X-23]

Hey @TomTambling,

Welcome to the HP Support Forums!

I understand that you're experiencing an issue when receiving faxes on your HP Officejet Pro 8620 e-All-in-One Printer. I would like to assist you today with resolving this fax issue. Now, just so you are aware, faxing is old analog technology. Nowadays phone companies use digital phone lines. Digital phone lines are OK to use but there is a lot more static noise interference on those lines that fax machines struggle with. Also, the transmission rate over digital lines is much faster than analog. The faster transmission rate can cause fax packets of information to be lost during the sending or receiving process and this will cause fax communication errors, especially when recieving faxes. The ultimate goal is to eliminate as much static noise interference on the line as possible. With that being said, I do need to gather some additional information regarding your phone line in order to accurately configure this fax setup with you. 

• 1. Are you using a shared fax line with your phone, or a dedicated fax line?

• 2. Do you use distinctive ring?

• 3. Is there an answering machine or voice mail on the phone line with the fax?

• 4. Are you using a DLS or VoIP phone line?

If you're not sure you may need to speak with your phone line provider.

• 5. Do you have a splitter or modem in between the wall jack and your fax machine?

• 6. Are you using the 2-wire fax cable that came with your HP Officejet?

• 7. Who is your phone line provider?

In the meantime, can I please have you follow the two steps below to configure your HP Officejets fax settings to compliment a bit of static interference on your phone line.

Step 1: Disable Error Correction Mode:

1. On the touchscreen of your printer scroll your finger to the left and touch Setup
2. Touch Fax Setup
3. Touch Advanced Fax Setup
4. Touch Error Correction Mode
5. Please turn Error Correction Mode OFF

Step 2: Slow Down Fax Speed:

1. On the touchscreen of your printer scroll your finger to the left and touch Setup
2. Touch Fax Setup
3. Touch Advanced Fax Setup
4. Touch Fax Speed
   
5. Please set the Fax Speed to Slow (9600)

Once the setting adjustments have been made please have someone send you a fax to confirm if your fax recieving issue is now resolved. Should the issue persist, please include the answers to my questions above in your response. I look forward to hearing from you. Best of luck! 🙂

[TomTambling]

I have completed all the steps you suggested.  It made no difference.  The phone line we have is an old fashioned analog line per our request.  I attached an old fashioned fax machine and it works perfectly.  but the 8620 DOES NOT.  Very frustrated!!!!!!!!

[X-23]

Hello @TomTambling,

Thanks for getting back to me regarding this issue.

Because altering the Error Correction Mode and Fax Speed failed to resolve your fax receiving issue, we will have to perform some additional troubleshooting steps. However, I will need to know the answers to my questions from my prior post in order to accurately assist you.

• 1. Are you using a shared fax line with your phone, or a dedicated fax line?

• 2. Do you use distinctive ring?

• 3. Is there an answering machine or voice mail on the phone line with the fax?

• 4. Do you have a splitter in between your fax machine and the wall outlet?

• 5. Are you using the 2-wire fax cable that came with your HP Officejet?

For now, can I please have you attempt to manually recieve a fax to verify if that works. When a fax is sent to you and you hear the ringing on the line, hit the 'Fax' button on the front panel of your printer. This will force your machine to manually answer the incoming Fax. This will help us to isolate this issue to either a fax modem conflict, or a fax setup conflict.

Please respond to this post with the answers to my quesitons above. Also, be sure to let me know if your HP Officejet is able to manually receive faxes. I look forward to hearing from you! 🙂

[TomTambling]

I have been through all the steps and the questions that you asked.  1. Dedicated line; 2. No distinctive ring as this is a plain analog line.  Nothing special on it no other machines, etc.  3. No  4.  No.  5.  Yes. 

'

I have had a case manager on this problem, she finally told me it was the phone companies problem and basically don't call back.  HP has NO problem with their fax machines.  The phone company has been here 3 times and finds nothing wrong.  We plugged in another fax machine and everything worked fine. 

This is definitely an HP problem.  At this point I am ready to return the 3rd machine to the store.  VERY dissatisfied with this 8620!!

[X-23]

Hey @TomTambling,

I have brought your issue to the attention of the appropriate team within HP. They will likely request information from you in order to look up your case details or product serial number. Please look for a private message from an identified HP contact. Additionally, keep in mind not to publicly post serial numbers and case details.

If you are unfamiliar with how the Forum's private message capability works, this post has instructions.

[gulfjack]

I recently upgraded from ringmaster to uverse phone voip, shared line with voice and fax.

 I am having trouble with incoming faxes. The phone line is attached to the line and the answering machine is attached to the phone outlet. With no answering machine attached outgoing faxes and incoming faxes work. When the answering is attached the outgoing works but the incoming does not work. The rings to pick up on the fax is 6 and the answering machine is 4 but the with the answering machine is attached the incoming fax is dropped when the answering machine picks up. It seems that the 8620 is not listening after the answering machine picks up. OS is win 10.Can you help?

[X-23]

Hey @gulfjack,

Welcome to the thread! 🙂

I see that you are not able to automatically receive faxes on your HP Officejet Pro 8620 e-All-in-One Printer since upgrading to a VoIP service through AT&T U-verse. I would like to offer my assistance today with resolving this issue. However, I just want you to be aware that your printer may not be able to automatically receive faxes with your current phone line setup as "using a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephone service can cause faxing to fail because fax transmissions are sensitive to the timing of the signals used to transmit the fax. If using a VoIP digital line is necessary, changing the Fax Speed Adjustment setting to Slow might improve the ability to send a fax over a VoIP telephone line." Also, "the printer is designed, according to international standards, to work with traditional, analog telephone services and might experience some difficulties when connected to phone lines with digital services. HP cannot guarantee that the printer will work with a VoIP service." (Source). With that being said, below I will guide you through the process of adjusting the Fax Speed and Error Correction Mode settings to compliment interference on your phone line. Please follow the steps below.

• How to Adjust Fax Speed:

1. Press the Power button to turn on the printer, if it is not on already.
2. On the printer control panel, swipe the display to scroll to Setup, and then touch the Setup icon ().
3. Touch Fax Setup, and then touch Advanced Fax Setup.
4. Touch Fax Speed.
5. Touch Slow.
6. Touch the Home icon () to return to the main screen.

• How to Adjust Error Correction Mode:

1. Press the Power button to turn on the printer, if it is not on already.
2. On the printer control panel, swipe the display to scroll to Setup, and then touch the Setup icon ().
3. Touch Fax Setup, and then touch Advanced Fax Setup.
4. Touch Error Correction Mode.
5. Touch OFF.
6. Touch the Home icon () to return to the main screen.

Source: Cannot Send or Receive Faxes

Once the settings have been adjusted, have someone send you a fax so you can test the automatic receiving. Ideally, the line will ring 4 times and your answering machine will pick up. The fax machine will now 'listen in' on the fax line and if fax tones are detected your fax machine will accept and answer the fax. Should interference and speeds still be an issue on the line, your fax machine will not be able to 'listen in' and successfully receive the fax.

Please respond to this post with the result of your troubleshooting. You may also click the 'thumbs up' icon below to say "Thanks for responding!" Good luck! 🙂

[gulfjack]

Thanks for the info. I had all the fax settings you suggested and it still it would not work. My last resort was to try an earlier model panasonic answering machine attached to the circuit in another location, swapped them out and amazingly the fax was able to listen after the machine picked up. The panasonic model that works is kx-tg6441 and the one that does not work is kx-tg7641 which is bluetooth enabled. Now both machines are working, one on the fax and one on the house circuit. I dont know what the difference is but its close to Halloween. Cheers...Jack