HPLIP

HP Officejet 4500 no longer working

Asked by Ted Doolittle on 2011-10-22

Ubuntu 10.04
HP Officejet 4500 wireless

I bought this printer in June or July, and it immediately started working just fine, both printing, scanning and fax were fine. A few weeks ago, perhaps due to a Ubuntu update or an HPLIP update glitch, this suddenly started having problems.

Test page prints fine
Other print jobs (ODT files and DOC files) the printer seems to print it out and I hear it making the normal whirring and printing sounds, but the output is actually just a blank page.

I deleted the printer and then reinstalled it. I also tried installing the HPLIP toolobox, but that won't even recognize the printer in the "device setup" phase.

Further detail on symptoms:

1. I opened a PDF file, and that printed fine.
2. I opened a DOC file, using OpenOffice, and that did not print.
3. From Firefox, web pages printed partially; it appears that the images from Firefox printed fine, but not the text or print portions.
4. I opened a PPT document, and it printed fine, including text.
5. JPG printed fine, but with some color issues.
6. I went into OpenOffice Presentation, and had no trouble printing a test page, which included some text.

Did this particular 4500 printer somehow suddenly stop being supported either by Ubuntu or HPLIP?

Here is the output of hp-check -t:

ed@ted-desktop:~$ hp-check -t

HP Linux Imaging and Printing System (ver. 3.11.5)
Dependency/Version Check Utility ver. 14.3

Copyright (c) 2001-9 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, LP
This software comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
This is free software, and you are welcome to distribute it
under certain conditions. See COPYING file for more details.

Note: hp-check can be run in three modes:
1. Compile-time check mode (-c or --compile): Use this mode before compiling the
HPLIP supplied tarball (.tar.gz or .run) to determine if the proper dependencies
are installed to successfully compile HPLIP.
2. Run-time check mode (-r or --run): Use this mode to determine if a distro
supplied package (.deb, .rpm, etc) or an already built HPLIP supplied tarball
has the proper dependencies installed to successfully run.
3. Both compile- and run-time check mode (-b or --both) (Default): This mode
will check both of the above cases (both compile- and run-time dependencies).

Saving output in log file: hp-check.log

Initializing. Please wait...

---------------
| SYSTEM INFO |
---------------

Basic system information:
Linux ted-desktop 2.6.32-34-generic #77-Ubuntu SMP Tue Sep 13 19:40:53 UTC 2011 i686 GNU/Linux

Distribution:
ubuntu 10.04

Checking Python version...
OK, version 2.6.5 installed

Checking PyQt 4.x version...
OK, version 4.7.2 installed.

Checking for CUPS...
Status: scheduler is running
Version: 1.4.3
error_log is set to level: warn

Checking for dbus/python-dbus...
dbus daemon is running.
python-dbus version: 0.83.0

------------------------------------
| COMPILE AND RUNTIME DEPENDENCIES |
------------------------------------

note: To check for compile-time only dependencies, re-run hp-check with the -c parameter (ie, hp-check -c).
note: To check for run-time only dependencies, re-run hp-check with the -r parameter (ie, hp-check -r).

Checking for dependency: CUPS - Common Unix Printing System...
OK, found.

Checking for dependency: CUPS devel- Common Unix Printing System development files...
OK, found.

Checking for dependency: CUPS image - CUPS image development files...
OK, found.

Checking for dependency: DBus - Message bus system...
OK, found.

Checking for dependency: gcc - GNU Project C and C++ Compiler...
OK, found.

Checking for dependency: GhostScript - PostScript and PDF language interpreter and previewer...
OK, found.

Checking for dependency: libcrypto - OpenSSL cryptographic library...
OK, found.

Checking for dependency: libjpeg - JPEG library...
OK, found.

Checking for dependency: libnetsnmp-devel - SNMP networking library development files...
OK, found.

Checking for dependency: libpthread - POSIX threads library...
OK, found.

Checking for dependency: libtool - Library building support services...
OK, found.

Checking for dependency: libusb - USB library...
OK, found.

Checking for dependency: make - GNU make utility to maintain groups of programs...
OK, found.

Checking for dependency: PIL - Python Imaging Library (required for commandline scanning with hp-scan)...
OK, found.

Checking for dependency: PolicyKit - Administrative policy framework...
OK, found.

Checking for dependency: PyQt 4 DBus - DBus Support for PyQt4...
OK, found.

Checking for dependency: Python DBus - Python bindings for DBus...
OK, found.

Checking for dependency: Python devel - Python development files...
OK, found.

Checking for dependency: Python libnotify - Python bindings for the libnotify Desktop notifications...
OK, found.

Checking for dependency: Python XML libraries...
OK, found.

Checking for dependency: Python 2.3 or greater - Required for fax functionality...
OK, found.

Checking for dependency: Python 2.2 or greater - Python programming language...
OK, found.

Checking for dependency: Reportlab - PDF library for Python...
OK, found.

Checking for dependency: SANE - Scanning library...
OK, found.

Checking for dependency: SANE - Scanning library development files...
OK, found.

Checking for dependency: scanimage - Shell scanning program...
OK, found.

Checking for dependency: xsane - Graphical scanner frontend for SANE...
OK, found.

----------------------
| HPLIP INSTALLATION |
----------------------

Currently installed HPLIP version...
HPLIP 3.11.5 currently installed in '/usr/share/hplip'.

Current contents of '/etc/hp/hplip.conf' file:
# hplip.conf. Generated from hplip.conf.in by configure.

[hplip]
version=3.11.5

[dirs]
home=/usr/share/hplip
run=/var/run
ppd=/usr/share/ppd/hplip/HP
ppdbase=/usr/share/ppd/hplip
doc=/usr/share/doc/hplip-3.11.5
icon=/usr/share/applications
cupsbackend=/usr/lib/cups/backend
cupsfilter=/usr/lib/cups/filter
drv=/usr/share/cups/drv/hp

# Following values are determined at configure time and cannot be changed.
[configure]
network-build=yes
pp-build=no
gui-build=yes
scanner-build=yes
fax-build=yes
dbus-build=yes
cups11-build=no
doc-build=yes
shadow-build=no
hpijs-install=no
foomatic-drv-install=no
foomatic-ppd-install=no
foomatic-rip-hplip-install=no
hpcups-install=yes
cups-drv-install=yes
cups-ppd-install=no
internal-tag=3.11.5
restricted-build=no
ui-toolkit=qt4
qt3=no
qt4=yes
policy-kit=no
hpijs-only-build=no
lite-build=no
udev-acl-rules=yes
hpcups-only-build=no
hpijs-only-build=no

Current contents of '/var/lib/hp/hplip.state' file:
# hplip.state - HPLIP runtime persistent variables.

[plugin]
installed=0
eula=0

Current contents of '~/.hplip/hplip.conf' file:
[last_used]
printer_name =
working_dir = .
device_uri = "hp:/usb/Officejet_4500_G510n-z?serial=CN14CJ30CJ05HR"

[commands]
scan = /usr/bin/simple-scan %SANE_URI%

[installation]
version = 3.11.5
date_time = 10/22/2011 18:04:35

[settings]
systray_messages = 0
systray_visible = 0

[fax]
email_address =
voice_phone =

[refresh]
rate = 30
enable = true
type = 2

[polling]
enable = false
device_list =
interval = 5

--------------------------
| DISCOVERED USB DEVICES |
--------------------------

No devices found.

---------------------------------
| INSTALLED CUPS PRINTER QUEUES |
---------------------------------

HP-OfficejetOct.2011
--------------------
Type: Unknown
Device URI: usb://HP/Officejet%204500%20G510n-z?serial=CN14CJ30CJ05HR
PPD: /etc/cups/ppd/HP-OfficejetOct.2011.ppd
PPD Description: HP Officejet 4500 g510n-z, hpcups 3.11.5
Printer status: printer HP-OfficejetOct.2011 is idle. enabled since Wed 19 Oct 2011 08:23:51 AM EDT
warning: Printer is not HPLIP installed. Printers must use the hp: or hpfax: CUPS backend to function in HPLIP.

Officejet_4500_G510n-z_fax
--------------------------
Type: Fax
Device URI: hpfax:/usb/Officejet_4500_G510n-z?serial=CN14CJ30CJ05HR
PPD: /etc/cups/ppd/Officejet_4500_G510n-z_fax.ppd
PPD Description: HP Fax hpijs
Printer status: printer Officejet_4500_G510n-z_fax is idle. enabled since Tue 11 Oct 2011 07:37:15 PM EDT
error: Unsupported model: Officejet_4500_G510n-z
error: Communication status: Failed

PictureMate-Deluxe
------------------
Type: Unknown
Device URI: usb://EPSON/PictureMate%20Deluxe
PPD: /etc/cups/ppd/PictureMate-Deluxe.ppd
PPD Description: Epson PictureMate Deluxe - CUPS+Gutenprint v5.2.5
Printer status: printer PictureMate-Deluxe is idle. enabled since Sun 09 Oct 2011 08:10:23 AM EDT
warning: Printer is not HPLIP installed. Printers must use the hp: or hpfax: CUPS backend to function in HPLIP.

----------------------
| SANE CONFIGURATION |
----------------------

'hpaio' in '/etc/sane.d/dll.conf'...
OK, found. SANE backend 'hpaio' is properly set up.

Checking output of 'scanimage -L'...
ted@ted-desktop:~$ hp-check -t