HP Z3200 won't gloss whole page

[jrp55262]

On occasion we find ourselves needing to apply gloss enhancer with our HP Z3200 to a print after it has been printed (don't ask).  In the past, we've been able to do this by creating an all-white image of the same size as the print, and "printing" this with Gloss Enhancer set to "Whole Page".  We tried to do this today and it's not working anymore.  It's acting as though I have gloss enhancer set to EconoMode.  This, of course, happened after HP made me update my print driver while trying to fix a hardware problem.  Is this a known issue?  Driver bug?  Any way to force it to gloss the whole page?

FWIW, we're using Photoshop CS5 and printing via the HP print driver (We don't use a RIP or Qimage or anything like that)

Thanks!

[Mark Lindquist]

Try creating a new custom profile for your paper and make sure “use gloss enhancer” is included in the print properties. When the new ICC profile is installed, being careful to choose that new profile in PS5 when you print, there should be two options, GE ON, and GE OFF.  Choosing GE ON, check “entire print” and you should be good to go.

Mark

[jrp55262]

I'm not sure a custom profile would help.  In desperation I tried the preinstalled photo glossy paper type and it still did exactly the same thing... one would think THAT would work!

[Mark Lindquist]

I'm not sure a custom profile would help.  In desperation I tried the preinstalled photo glossy paper type and it still did exactly the same thing... one would think THAT would work!

OK, so I think I gave you good advice.  If it was my printer, I would probably uninstall it, turn it off, unplug it, leave it sitting unplugged overnight.
I'd reinstall the printer driver and the utility, restart the computer, then in the morning restart the printer and see what comes of it.

More often than not, this will solve the problem, and I say this from many years experience working with these printers.

A good uninstall and reinstall is sometimes needed, then it runs like new again.

That's what I do when my system goes haywire, but that's it, how I do it.

Good luck jrp.

Mark

[deanwork]

Try uninstalling the firmware you are using and try going back to the previous version.

But like Mark said I’d uninstall everything while I’m at it.

OK, so I think I gave you good advice.  If it was my printer, I would probably uninstall it, turn it off, unplug it, leave it sitting unplugged overnight.
I'd reinstall the printer driver and the utility, restart the computer, then in the morning restart the printer and see what comes of it.

More often than not, this will solve the problem, and I say this from many years experience working with these printers.

A good uninstall and reinstall is sometimes needed, then it runs like new again.

That's what I do when my system goes haywire, but that's it, how I do it.

Good luck jrp.

Mark

[sportmaster]

What is the process for firmware installation on a PC?  I have tried using HP Utility, but get the following error:   We are very sorry. The server encountered a problem when serving your request: Try the request again using your browser's 'back' button or the 'Go Back' button below.
If it doesn't work, please try rebooting your printer. If the problem persists after rebooting, please contact HP Support. For technical information and online support you can visit HP Designjet Online.
 
 

[jrp55262]

Try uninstalling the firmware you are using and try going back to the previous version.

Right... and when a piece of hardware breaks and I'm on the phone to Costa Rica and they're trying everything in their power not to send a tech, the third thing out of their mouths will be: "Have you installed the latest firmware"?

I *had* a workflow that was working just fine for me, but when my hardware broke HP insisted that I "update" everything first.  I'm sure that's part of why I'm in this pickle.

I'll do as you suggest and uninstall/reinstall the drivers and all that, but I swear I'm never buying another HP again...

Thanks

[Mark Lindquist]

Right... and when a piece of hardware breaks and I'm on the phone to Costa Rica and they're trying everything in their power not to send a tech, the third thing out of their mouths will be: "Have you installed the latest firmware"?

I *had* a workflow that was working just fine for me, but when my hardware broke HP insisted that I "update" everything first.  I'm sure that's part of why I'm in this pickle.

I'll do as you suggest and uninstall/reinstall the drivers and all that, but I swear I'm never buying another HP again...

Thanks

HP (and most other tech support companies) try to suss out problems so that they can determine what parts to order if they need to send a technician. They go through SOP in order to trouble shoot what's wrong and frequently the issue(s) can be cleared up over the phone, even though it's a pain.  They don't try as hard as they can NOT to send a technician, they try to understand the issues and get things fixed in the most expedient manner so you can get back up and running. If you fight the process, you hurt yourself, ultimately.  Work with them and you'll get your printer fixed.  After many years, I understand this and have a good relationship with HP.

It's normal to express frustration when things go wrong with printers. The Z Series printers are touchy, no question, and require user tweaking.
When they're working right, they are fantastic, when they're not, they're yacht anchors.

It may not be the printer for you - who knows.  Choose any of the other printers and eventually after a lot of use after so many years, they will have problems too, and maybe worse issues. 

We are happy to give our opinions on what we would do with our printers, but you are under no obligation to act on our comments.

Good luck with your printer - I hope you get it going.  I have 4 Z3200's and 1 Z3100 so I know the frustration you speak of well.
But I will stay with HP after having had the others.

Best,

Mark

(Edit to explain HP tech support protocols)

[jrp55262]

HP (and most other tech support companies) try to suss out problems so that they can determine what parts to order if they need to send a technician. They go through SOP in order to trouble shoot what's wrong and frequently the issue(s) can be cleared up over the phone, even though it's a pain.  They don't try as hard as they can NOT to send a technician, they try to understand the issues and get things fixed in the most expedient manner so you can get back up and running. If you fight the process, you hurt yourself, ultimately.  Work with them and you'll get your printer fixed.  After many years, I understand this and have a good relationship with HP.

I think I suddenly realized the source of my frustration: when it comes to *hardware* the vendor works really hard to suss out the problem and zero in on the failing part so they only replace what they have to.  With *software*, though, they don't do this -- they just throw the new software at the problem and see if that "fixes" it (I had a problem that *did* "go away" for a couple of days with a firmware fix, but then it came back because ultimately it was not a firmware issue at all).

When I call and say "I'm having this problem" they'll likely say "Oh, upgrade to the latest driver" WITHOUT stopping to consider whether my problem is caused by a known issue in the driver.  Meanwhile, driver updates aren't free.  They cost in downtime and disruption, *especially* when the new driver changes the UI or functionality in such a way as to impact my workflow.

I actually had a Z3100 since 2007 that was a real workhorse.  I did self-maintenance on it because I didn't want to pay for the service plan.  When it finally got too unreliable and I replaced it with the Z3200 I bought the Care Pack precisely so that service would be Someone Else's Problem...

[Mark Lindquist]

Point taken.  I recently had an issue where the paper preset managent button just disappeared from the 24” utility. I kept installing and unstalling the utility on both mac and indows and I was getting nowhere.
Eventually, with the utility showing up full-featured, the stuff was there but it would simply freeze.
I restarted the computer and nothing.  Then I restarted the computer again, and restarted the printer at the same time. Ugh, the printer came up, the computer came up and everything was working and working perfectly. Sometimes these things seem to fix themselves by repetitive restarts. As long as it’s not a hardware issue, wiping out the existing software and reinstalling, then restarting multiple times often works. And usually, once that happens, it lasts a good long while.
Another thing - if you have a care pack and you aren’t getting satisfactory results working with HP, you can request your case be escalated. In many cases, they will get back to you with a tier 2 or tier 3 engineer on the line and eventually get things fixed. I try to work with them very carefully and I try to just go along for the ride and be a team player without attitude or tone and gradually we get it sorted.
It can be frustrating, but I’ve found that requesting the case be escalated often yields the best results.

Anyway, that’s my experience, fwiw.  Ymmv.

Mark

[nirpat89]

I think I suddenly realized the source of my frustration: when it comes to *hardware* the vendor works really hard to suss out the problem and zero in on the failing part so they only replace what they have to.  With *software*, though, they don't do this -- they just throw the new software at the problem and see if that "fixes" it (I had a problem that *did* "go away" for a couple of days with a firmware fix, but then it came back because ultimately it was not a firmware issue at all).

When I call and say "I'm having this problem" they'll likely say "Oh, upgrade to the latest driver" WITHOUT stopping to consider whether my problem is caused by a known issue in the driver.  Meanwhile, driver updates aren't free.  They cost in downtime and disruption, *especially* when the new driver changes the UI or functionality in such a way as to impact my workflow.

I actually had a Z3100 since 2007 that was a real workhorse.  I did self-maintenance on it because I didn't want to pay for the service plan.  When it finally got too unreliable and I replaced it with the Z3200 I bought the Care Pack precisely so that service would be Someone Else's Problem...

This may or may not work.  What if you specify less than 255 - like (254, 254, 254) for the blank print - would it trigger the GO?  Would it also change the main print meaningfully? 

:Niranjan.

[jrp55262]

This may or may not work.  What if you specify less than 255 - like (254, 254, 254) for the blank print - would it trigger the GO?  Would it also change the main print meaningfully? 

:Niranjan.

We tried that.  Didn't work.

I'm going to uninstall/reinstall the driver this weekend.  Couldn't do it sooner because we had other jobs (that didn't need GO) to get done...

[jrp55262]

No joy.  I uninstalled and reinstalled the driver, and even deleted and re-created the paper profile for the semi-gloss paper we're using.  Same thing.  I also tried printing a conventional photo with lots of white areas to see what it does; even though I printed with gloss set to whole page it did the job in econo mode.  Very frustrating...

[Mark Lindquist]

I’m beginning to think that possibly it could be a faulty GE printhead and/or faulty cartridge. I’d start with cleaning the printhead and contacts, and if no joy, replace the printhead.

It may sound excessive, but I’d pull the printheads and the carts, then do a startup.  The printer will ask for the carts first. If it was my machine, I’d put in a replacement GE Cartridge, then the rest, then the printer would ask for the printheads next.  Given the issue discussed, I’d put in a new GE printhead along with the others staying as they were.

The printer will initialize and ask for a sheet for printhead alignment and proceed with that. If it does work, great, if not, it will be a reseat and printhead alignment which is good to do occasionally anyway.

Before I print, after such a heroic measure, with paper loaded, I go into the embedded web server> service support>printer information and go to current information checking to see that the gloss enhancer is on.  Then I check event logs to see if there are any errors. After that, I run a solid color patch the size of the page and print borderless to force full page coverage even if in economode.  I check that print then try a standard print in full coverage mode.

I don’t know if I’d assume this is a software only issue. I can think of a number of ink supply scenario issues that could cause this problem from print mech board to bad cable, etc. If you have a current HP care pack, it might behoove you to stick with it and use tech support to find the issue.  There should be a district manager/supervisor for your area and if you are not getting satisfactory results, they should be in touch.

If it was my machine, I’d ask to have the issue escalated.

At this point, that’s about all I’ve got without putting my hands on the printer and that’s not going to happen.  I hope the retelling of my experiences will prove helpful to you in some way, and I wish you the best with getting your issue resolved.

Mark

[jrp55262]

Okay, problem solved, but it brings up another mystery.

Turns out it wasn't glossing in econo mode; it actually wasn't glossing *at all*.

I installed the print driver on another computer in the shop and tried to print from there, and got exactly the same result as before.  This suggested to me that the problem was in the printer, not the driver.

Go to the printer front panel and start cycling through the options seeing if anything pops out at me.  Under "Setup | Printing Preferences | Print Quality" I see "Gloss Enhancer".  Lo and behold, it was set to "Off".  Set it instead to "Whole Page", and voila, I"m glossing again!

Here's the thing, though: shouldn't the choices made in the print driver override the settings in the printer?  What *other* settings could the printer potentially be overriding on me and I don't even know it?

[deanwork]

Usually each time you create a new paper preset or make a new profile all these media settings are synced into the printer and anything that is set differently within the printer head board will be updated. I have never heard of this problem in 12 years. It has always been a printhead that needs replacing or a damaged inkcart, but even those are extremely rare.  I’ve never heard of anyone setting the gloss channel on and off in the printer menu itself.

If someone created a new media setting from the computer and accidentally had gloss enh off and then updated to the printer, maybe. But having this happen when updating the software only is really strange, if that is what happened.

Okay, problem solved, but it brings up another mystery.

Turns out it wasn't glossing in econo mode; it actually wasn't glossing *at all*.

I installed the print driver on another computer in the shop and tried to print from there, and got exactly the same result as before.  This suggested to me that the problem was in the printer, not the driver.

Go to the printer front panel and start cycling through the options seeing if anything pops out at me.  Under "Setup | Printing Preferences | Print Quality" I see "Gloss Enhancer".  Lo and behold, it was set to "Off".  Set it instead to "Whole Page", and voila, I"m glossing again!

Here's the thing, though: shouldn't the choices made in the print driver override the settings in the printer?  What *other* settings could the printer potentially be overriding on me and I don't even know it?

[Mark Lindquist]

Before I print, after such a heroic measure, with paper loaded, I go into the embedded web server> service support>printer information and go to current information checking to see that the gloss enhancer is on.  Then I check event logs to see if there are any errors.

Mark

OK - so checking that the setup settings were set to off.  Nice.  Front panel, embedded server, it's all the same.

Quite frequently many issues are pilot error and result in:  "...but I swear I'm never buying another HP again..."

But when the sun breaks out and the light shines, it's a brand new day.

Congrats on getting your printer going, doing what it's designed to do, and the way you want and expect it to.

Mark