Officejet 8720 Firmware Downgrading

[geogolem]

Tonight (March 17th 2020), my HP printer alerted me to the fact that ther was a new update available for my printer. I have 2 of these printers - so I always apply the updates carefully on one, and wait until I am sure the update is OK and then apply it to the second one.

Both of the printers were running WMP1CN1919BR without issue.

I remember when I updated to this firmware about a year ago, there were issues with aftermarket cartridges. I ended up having all my cartridges replaced with new ones (that apparently had an updated chip) by the supplier. So I did end up updating both printers to firmware: WMP1CN1919BR.

Both have been funcitoning properly without issue since. 

I applied the new update that apparently became available towards the end of Feb 2020 to one of the printers. Everything seemed to work OK except that the printer no longer provided ink level guage and instead jsut indicated that non genuine cartridges were in use. Other than the lack of ability to see the remaining ink level in the carts they functioned ok.

I decided not to apply the update to the 2nd printer since the ability to see ink remaining is a nice feature. i google searched possibility to downgrade the firmware and was able to follow the instructions at this link:https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Inkjet-Printing/Firmware-downgrade-for-HP-8720/td-p/7090924/page/2

with slight modificaton as I was downgrading to WMP1CN1919BR and not from WMP1CN1919BR.

The downgrade was successful and I now have perfect functionality again.

The reason I am writing this post is in case anybody else has this issue and is looking for help but also I wanted to question/call out HP for this very  poor behavior.

Why are you releasing firmware updates that remove features or create problems  for users using third party ink cartridges. It is very poor behavior in my opinion.