HP printers hit by mass cartridge error

Dutch printer ink vendor 123inkt has accused HP of intentionally reprogramming its printers to reject third-party cartridge.

“Affected printers will continue to work with refilled cartridges if they contain the original HP security chip”. As reported by Myce, Dutch ink cartridge retailer 123inkt.nl investigated the problem and has been told by the manufacturer of the chip used in its ink cartridges that the problems are worldwide. HP stated that it made changes to the firmware in a number of its printers in order to “protect the printers and to protect the communication between the cartridge and the printer”.

Consumers have not shied away from sharing their anger and frustrations with HP and have flooded the printer brands’ message forums with posts on the topic. “When I open the door, the carriage does NOT move, and the error message now says to close the door to print”.

How about not trying to sell additional product and not screwing with folks that have bought an HP printer? It said “one or more cartridges appear to be damaged”.

But history repeats itself: Boing Boing’s Cory Doctorow pointed out the similarity between HP’s “ticking time bomb” and one installed in Lexmark printers over a decade ago. 123inkt had received reports of malfunctioning printers from companies that had not connected these printers to the Internet and couldn’t have received this update.

The ink seller alleges that the mass-rejection was set up in March of this year with a firmware update from HP; this software activated in September 13 to reject unofficial cartridges.

Some customers are angry, and many feel like they are being strong-armed into paying for HP’s own-brand ink cartridges, which are markedly more expensive than third-party alternatives. Third-party ink cartridges can often cost half as much as genuine cartridges (or even less) while providing similar, if now indistinguishable performance. “HP’s statement that the problem is caused y a recent firmware update is in our opinion incorrect and misleading”. Fed up with HP, some users are choosing to jump ship and take their chances with a different manufacturer.