Windows 7 My Printer has stopped printing, help please!

[jesb]

Just out of the blue it stopped working. My ink levels are o.k, no paper is jammed. I select to print and in the print que it says printing but nothing ever prints. I try and go to the printing spool to stop it so the que gets deleted, but when I try and print again it's the same thing, it's in the que saying printing but nothing prints.

I tried removing my printer as a device and installing again but it still does the same thing.

Any suggestions?

I'm running windows 7 64 bit and my Printer is the hp all in one F4180 series.

 

[Trouble]

First thing to check might be to open the print queue. Devices and Printers, select your printer, from the menu bar "See what's printing", then from the menu bar of the printer queue select printer and make sure that no one has accidently select "Use printer offline".

 

[jesb]

It doesn't say it's offline. It says printer Online.

 

[Trouble]

Please double check the location I specified in my initial post using the steps I outlined and make sure there is not a check mark next to "Use Printer Offline", it's an additional Window's control to check outside of any HP print management utility that you may be using. And is very often the cause of the exact problem you are experiencing.
If that is not the problem, then I suggest you go here Link Removed - Invalid URL select your version of Win7 (64 or 32 bit) and download the full feature driver package to a folder on your computer.
Then uninstall any existing photo smart software using the control panel. Then open device manager and from the view menu choose show hidden devices, expand printers, select the problem printer, right click and choose uninstall, when prompted check the box to delete driver software for this device. Unplug the USB cable from the printer, reboot the computer, run the software that you have downloaded from the HP site and when prompted (not until) connect the printer.
Hope this helps.

 

[jesb]

I tried everything you suggested and nothing is working. I'm really confused because it was working perfect just the other day. I didn't do anything different for this to happen.

 

[Trouble]

Have you tried an alternate usb port and or a replacement usb cable?

EDIT: Also make sure that the problem persists in all programs. Test a simple text document print job from notepad. As well as attempt to print a test page from printer properties.

 

[jesb]

Tried all 3 usb ports nothing, also tried a notepad file, word file, and test print and nothing. This is hilarious because I needed to print something important and this happens....

 

[jesb]

This is really not making any sense to me. I scanned a photo and was able to print that. And I saved my doc I need to print as a pdf and it printed that, but the quality wasn't very good. It seems I can print a image, but not anything with fonts.

Is this a font issue? I cant understand how it can be a font issue when I didn't do anything differently with my fonts, what can be causing this issue with Word and other word processing programs?

 

[jjumala]

Double check the ink cartidge, it may dry or expired .....

 

[jesb]

Ink is not the problem. I can print a image, but just nothing off a word processing program.

 

[Trouble]

When you send a print job from NotePad, does the job remain in the print queue indefinitely, until you physically delete it, does it ever produce an error of any type. If you go into the services console and restart the print spooler service when a document seems stuck in the queue, does anything happen or is the queue just cleared and the problem remains. Does the printer itself ever reflect an error state, blinking lights, amber lights, whatever? Try going into the printer properties and dumbing down the driver, uncheck Enable advanced printing features, select Print directly to printer, see if that makes any difference. Finally check the event viewer, Application and service logs, Microsoft, Windows, PrintService, see if there are any recent error logs which may help determine what the problem is.

 

[jesb]

Right now it doesn't seem to be getting stuck and not doing anything. but what happens now, whether it's word, notepad, or any other word processing program, it just brings me a blanc document. The paper is being fed to the printer like it's going to print, but it just comes out as a blanc document, doesn't print anything.

The only error I see, if this is even an error, is my power light is flashing instead of staying solid when it attempts to print the document. After it's done it's back to a solid light.

But if I print an image like a pdf or scan, than it prints in full colour.

 

[Trouble]

Open Wordpad or word new document, throw a couple four words on it, change the font color on each word to a different color, red green yellow blue print it and see if anything comes out. If it does consider replacing your black ink cartridge. Open paint, create a new drawing with a couple black squiggly lines and send it to the printer. Let us know the results.

 

[jesb]

Wow, so it looks like I'm out of black ink? It now prints a document using colour. And I attempted to print some black lines in photoshop and it prints but doesn't print in black but I light green.

So the problem is I am telling the printer to print in black, but there isn't any black ink.

This whole issue could have been avoided if I could some how see my ink level. I use to be able to do that, but an update must of removed that feature.

But usually even my printer would get a flashing light that there is no black ink, but I didn't get anything. Is there anyway for me to confirm this any other way so I don't have to go through this in the future?

By the way thanks so much for your help. You've been great.

 

[Trouble]

Good news. Glad you were able to resolve your problem. Thanks for posting back and updating your thread with the solution. And hope to continue to see you around the forums.
Best Wishes
Randy

 

[James65]

An old thread yes but I just found it and helped me tremendously! Just a note that I had to restart after changing those settings! THANKYOU! :")