Color Laser Jet Pro M254dw stopped duplex printing

[Carabalda]

Came into my office and found the printer was powered off. Turned printer on and sent a duplex print job from Adobe Acrobat. But instead of printing on both sides of the paper as requested, first the odd numbered pages came out (1-11), followed by the even numbered pages (2-10). Printer says no updates are available.

What's happening?

[Carabalda]

Here's the real problem: The newest driver for the M254dw - which is 8.00.1329.6508 is not configured for automatic duplexing, even though the printer is fully capable of automatic duplexing (it's what the "d" in the model M254dw stands for, after all!). When I look at Printer Properties for this reinstalled printer, I see the following:Manual duplexing only in driver 6508Finishing tab - MANUAL DUPLEX ONLY

All options for printing on both sides of the paper - known as "duplexing" or "duplex printing" - show MANUAL as the only option. That means I'm supposed to take the odd-number pages that come out of the printer, printed on one side, and place them back into the paper tray, so the printer can print the other side, the even number pages. THIS IS ABSURD; IT'S A DUPLEXING PRINTER! And it's completely unacceptable, because I used a different computer I have at home (since all worn has halted) and THAT computer prints duplex pages perfectly. The difference is that the spare laptop has an "older" version of the driver software: 8.00.1329.4742. This older software shows something different in Printer Properties:

Now the Printing Shortcuts and Finishing tabs no longer say (manually) whenever they are describing Duplex Printing. There are no more links to instructions about how to do manual duplexing.

HP HAS SIMPLY TURNED OFF AUTOMATIC DUPLEXING IN THEIR NEW SOFTWARE, AND THAT STINKS. The printers can do it; the software won't let them do it. DESPICABLE!

[Carabalda · Accepted solution]

Final answer: After speaking to a Customer Support agent, she got me to open the Windows 10 Control Panel, select View Devices and Printers under the Hardware and Sound section. In Devices and Printers I right-clicked on the M254dw printer and selected Printer Properties. The Properties window has several tabs, the last of which is Device Settings. Selecting that displays a window with Installable Options, under which is Duplex Unit. The setup program that installed this WiFi enabled duplexing printer DID NOT INSTALL THE DUPLEX UNIT BY DEFAULT, as every other version of the software has done. So once I changed the Duplex Unit to Installed (see below) duplexing was back to normal. Case closed.

Printer Properties > Device Settings > Installable Options