MEPIS Community Forum

I am using Mepis 11 64 bit with an HP Office jet Pro 8500 910a.

HPLIP 3.11.1-1mcr110+1 is the version I am using in order to support the printer.

When printing color the BLACK does not print. If I print greyscale it seems to be fine.

I have tried this on 2 different types of laptops so it is not hardware related to one particular machine.

When I use the printer on one of the laptops but booting Win XP there is no problem. The printer prints 100%.

So it would appear that there is something not right in the driver.

Another thing that does not work is the WIRELESS connection, I am forced to connect USB but this is not a big problem for me.

Does anyone have any suggestions or should I just wait for a new version in the community repo or should I try load latest HPLIP (3.11.7?) direct from the HPLIP site?

Thanks in advance for all suggestions.

Mike

Have you installed hplip-gui ?
hplip-gui adds HPLIP Toolbox to your System menu. Running HPLIP Toolbox brings up the HP Device Manager.
under Print Settings -> General you should find a Print Quality setting that allows you to choose between a number of options including
etc.

It appears the second option is being used instead of the first.

I've sometimes found that the CUPS options & the HPLIP options get mismatched. Make sure you've got the same setting in the HP Device Manager and the print menu from whichever program you're printing from.

If things still don't work, try deleting the printer from CUPS (open a web browser to localhost:631), then from HP Device Manager, and then add the printer using the HP Device Manager. I've had to do that with some printers when upgrading to the Community Repository hplip version from the squeeze version. It seems CUPS retains some settings from the older version if the printer isn't removed and re-installed.

Good Luck!

@ timkb4cq
Thanks for the tips! Yes I have HP-GUI and I tried various settings. Apart from the settings in the <General> tab, I also had a separate <Print Quality> tab with a shed load of settings which I tried some of.

I then tried the deleting and re-installing as suggested. Now I don't have the separate <Print Quality> tab and the only options I now have in <general -> Print Quality> are - Normal - draft - Best - High Res. Photo.
No settings make any difference to trying to print color. I have tried printing using Okular, Gwenview and Firefox.

Also still get I/O error when trying to set up wireless connection.

Should try to de-install HPLIP and re-install via synaptic?

p.s. Also after deleting printer and the fax, fax is no longer detected!!!

I forgot to ask, do you have hpijs & hpijs-ppds installed?
Not having hpijs-ppds installed can lead to the loss of options you are experiencing.

If you do need to install them, remove the printer first, install the two packages, then reinstall the printer with the HP Device Manager.

Oh, and they should match the hplip versions (3.11.1)

Yes they are installed and are all same ver (3.1.11-1mcr110+1).

OK, I'm stumped.

Your suggestion of removing all the hplip/hpijs packages & reinstalling them is worth a try.

I'd add to remove with configs.

@ lucky9

Can you explain how to remove configs?

Thanks

In Synaptic under the Package menu. Click ' Mark for Complete Removal '. Or right click on a program/whatever in the Synaptic installed list.