Watch out: dangerous firmware upgrade HP printers rendering 3rd party cartridges useless

[pharmacist]

I received a mail from 123inkt.nl.

Affected printers:

HP Officejet Pro 6830
HP Officejet Pro 8610
HP Officejet Pro 8615
HP Officejet Pro 8620
HP Officejet Pro 8625
HP Officejet Pro 8630
HP Officejet Pro 8640
HP Officejet Pro 8660
HP Officejet Pro x451dn
HP Officejet Pro x451dw
HP Officejet Pro x476dn
HP Officejet Pro x476dw
HP Officejet Pro x551dw
HP Officejet Pro x576dw

The latest firmware update was March 22, preprogrammed to become effective Sept 13 .
Even printers from their stock who had firmware from 2015 were affected.

They managed to reinstall previous firmware, but not practical for customers.

New chips solving the problem are already in production.

It looks like HP disables the professional printer, for which a high turn-over of the consumables is very profitable and not the low end printers containing only minute amount of inks (ink + print head integrated cartridges). I would suggest like in Star Trek: Shields UP !!!

 

[The Hat]

In this ongoing battle of unintended firmware upgrades with HP, can the users not protect themselves my simply keeping their printer off line.

It just not nice to find your printer refusing to work for you, so which is easier or quicker, use it on another computer or purchase all new cartridges...

 

[palombian]

In this ongoing battle of unintended firmware upgrades with HP, can the users not protect themselves my simply keeping their printer off line.

It just not nice to find your printer refusing to work for you, so which is easier or quicker, use it on another computer or purchase all new cartridges...

Not very practical to run a business offline nowadays.
If the story is true, the most scaring is that it was preprogrammed: you sell a nice office printer at an attractive price, it is bought "en masse" since it can be refilled cheap, and then bang !
Or they shoot themselves in the foot or Canon does the same with the Maxify .

HP still depends too much on it's printer business, for Canon I is maybe less vital, the printers are more associated with their camera's.

 

[The Hat]

Again if you run a business, you have to make these decisions every day, do we keep the printers offline or do we go with OEM, there is always some price to pay with every decision.

I only hope they don’t do that with the Maxify, it’s a really great all-rounder, when my iP4500 print head goes, I am thinking of getting a Maxify, because the iP4500 is the only Duplex printer I got left, I have retired my iX7000...

 

[stratman]

The logical fix is to block the HP, Canon, whatever printer from communicating with their manufacturer's server for these updates. You should be able to block this traffic, either incoming and/or outgoing communication, in the settings of your firewall. Knowing what to block is the question as well as how to blacklist these connections in your firewall are the questions to answer.

 

[palombian]

Again if you run a business, you have to make these decisions every day, do we keep the printers offline or do we go with OEM, there is always some price to pay with every decision.

I only hope they don’t do that with the Maxify, it’s a really great all-rounder, when my iP4500 print head goes, I am thinking of getting a Maxify, because the iP4500 is the only Duplex printer I got left, I have retired my iX7000...

Guess what, the IX7000 I've given away 2 years ago is coming back home.
Also had a bid of € 20 accepted on a MX7600 (still have to pick it up).
These old clunkers are not so fast, but have a very good output quality.

 

[websnail]

This is actually not all that new... HP were doing this with their driver updates last year and it stalled the HP970/971 CIS systems we were building at the time.

As noted earlier, the rub is that Windows 10 doesn't block the updates so it could make life interesting. That said, most of those affected can use converted original carts as CIS systems with the driver only installed rather than the full software package (complete with its chicken little warnings of the sky falling down).


Wonder if blocking Winupdate for driver installs would be a solution to at least block driver updates?

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

that's the game, spoiling the business of 3rd party cartridge manufacturers and suppliers with firmware upgrades , they need to scrap or upgrade their inventory, loose money this way, and force the endcustomers to buy new ones. I'm glad I'm not running such affected hardware, Epson started the firmware upgrade game with the R285's, I'm using the predecessor R265 (ref printer hoarding...), or the Ectotank models L300, 800, and an old Brother DCP-195C with unchipped cartridges...(a backup unit is available)

 

[The Hat]

You can always try visiting Windows\System32\drivers\etc and locate this Host file and put in this blocking method.

The trick with the host file is to insert this line with this code:
127.0.0.1 ............................ canon.com/support/index.html?model=%model%

When this line is inserted just save the file, don’t “save as” of course if its HP you want to block then use their support website address instead of the Canon address.

If you have any trepidation about doing this then copy the host file first and save it and you can always to back if you don’t like it...

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Epson typically let you install drivers via a CD, and the install program comes up with some option list for installation - drivers, manuals, other software like CDprint, Easyprint, scan software whatever and an Update Installer. Typically most people just do an install (all), and then during the installation are asked whether they want to participate in some product/customer relation/enhancement program, and accepting this you let the software transmit printer usage data to Epson, and you get updates in return....
If you don't use the CD and connect the printer the first time to the PC, Win7 and up will try to download the driver (only) from the internet, and when you start using the printer a window pops up asking you whether you want to participcate in that same customer relation etc program which you can deny at this time, and if you agree the driver will trigger the download and installation of this update installer.
Some Epson drivers, depending on the model and software version you might find a button in the driver utitilty tab 'Software upate' which can be both the driver and/or firmware update. This is printer dependant, not al models show this button in the driver utility window. so, yes, there is a way to prevent Epson to update your printer firmware without your consent.
When you look up drivers at the Epson support pages you typically will find the driver, scan software, CD print etc as separate software items, but you'll find as well a compressed install all file which then includes as well the update installer.