HP ENVY 6055e amber light even after firmware update

[JanayBengal]

My HP ENVY 6055e has a glowing amber light bar and will not print anything.

Upon startup, all the lights are on, the left copy light is flashing different colors, and a zero stays on after the countdown. Once I try to print, the light bar goes amber and nothing happens. I can still print diagnostic pages, but nothing I actually want to print.

Things I have tried:

- Unplugging the power cord from the back and the wall outlet for long periods of time and replugging it back in

- Restarting my wifi router

- Installing the latest firmware update on the printer

- Entirely replacing the ink with more HP ink even though the ink wasn't empty

- Removing and reinserting the paper tray

- Factory resetting the printer

Nothing has worked.

I've also tried calling customer service twice during the hours they state they're open, only to be told that the customer service center was closed (?) and I'm unable to find other support options online since as soon as I enter my printer's serial number, the website says "This service is temporarily unavailable," although "temporary" doesn't seem like the best word to use when it's been like that for over a week.

Another interesting piece of information: this issue only started happening once I let my Instant Ink subscription expire.

The printer is plugged directly into the wall, not a surge protector.

[sandytechy20]

@JanayBengal 

Welcome to the HP support community.

I have brought your issue to the attention of an 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 personal information (serial numbers and case details).

If you are unfamiliar with how the Community's private message capability works, you can learn about that here.

Thank you for visiting the HP Support Community. 

[JanayBengal · Accepted solution]

Wanted to update in case anyone else runs into the same issue so that they hopefully don't have to go down the rabbit hole I did. Skip to the end if you just want to get the solution.

I ended up getting in contact with customer service (never received a private message as the other comment promised). The call was useless anyways -- they told me to call back after 24 hours to see if the problem resolved itself. After I said I've had this issue for weeks, I was still told to call back after 24 hours because "the system is down." I asked if it was their internal system or specific to my printer. They said it was specific to my printer. Ok, so I asked if we could do some troubleshooting. They said they "don't have access to their system to troubleshoot, call back when it's resolved" (even though I thought it was my printer's system that was down, not theirs?). I asked when the "system" would be back up and they didn't know (are we surprised?). It was honestly an impressive call; I've never heard such a long string of excuses that weren't even the least bit believable!

Anyways, took matters into my own hands and did more digging online and FINALLY found the answer on a random third party website with no HP affiliation. Why does a third party website know more than HP's literal customer service? Who knows.

The issue was caused by me letting my Instant Ink free trial expire after I switched credit cards. For some reason, HP assumes you want to keep the subscription, and they SUSPEND your printer until you update your payment information. As soon as I put new card info in, my printer went from amber to its happy blue color within minutes. I cancelled the subscription, but now I'm stuck with a final bill that I have to pay for a subscription I never even signed up for in the first place. 

Oh, and one last thing I learned: once your Instant Ink subscription expires, you can no longer use those ink cartridges! Yes, the ones you already paid for! You have to go out and purchase new, non-Instant Ink cartridges if you want your printer to work. And whatever's left in your Instant Ink cartridges? Just goes to waste 🙂

anyways, rant over.