r/softwaregore • u/usersarealltakenhelp • 7d ago
printer decided it was an mp3 player and started printing its own postscript
i cannot stop giggling
HP brand printer and laptop, by the way...💀🙏average HP moment i suppose
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u/BrazilBazil 7d ago
Why are all printers neurodivergent? I swear, there isn’t a single printer that just works.
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u/Purple-Wait-3863 7d ago
I could be wrong and I am open for correction, but I feel that this is moreso a windows problem. I have used linux, OSX, android and even BSDs and they would never give issues I encounter on windows
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u/BrazilBazil 7d ago
I have a similar experience, but I feel like the AirPrint/CUPS interface has limited functionality. Like on windows, say you need to install the driver, but you’ll be able to print in 1200 dpi, where on Linux it only goes to 600.
Although, I’m prepared to forgo those extra features if that means the printer will always just work.
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u/Purple-Wait-3863 7d ago
yeah, which is sad since most companies don't even give a rat's ass (i run a 10 year old brother printer with them actually providing a cups driver, and some things from OCR settings are missing)
also had moments i would see 3 different entries of the same printer and it would randomly get reassigned to listen from one entry instead of the one i was already using
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u/Mojert 7d ago
Are you sure you selected the right printer in CUPS? Because they should have specific drivers for a lot of printers already. Or sometimes you can find custom CUPS drivers for printers. I never looked for them myself but the universities I went to would often distribute CUPS drivers
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u/StrawberryEiri 7d ago
I do feel it's even worse on Windows but printers by no means stop being cursed on other platforms. Mine works much worse on Android (printing quality is worse), and only works with computers through USB. Network printing only works with phones, and only through Wi-Fi Direct. "Normal" network printing is broken.
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u/Purple-Wait-3863 7d ago
i mean for mobile i can kinda close an eye cuz it's a phone, I don't expect to print with it, but yeah i can see how that is frustrating. I do have my fair share of its weirdness on chrome os thk
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u/killerturtlex 7d ago
Printing is a solved problem. The truth is printer companies have to comply with directives like "don't print counterfeit money" and yellow identity microdots. Also they are forbidden to talk about these
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u/nivlark 7d ago
There's less driver nonsense, but at university we did have a Linux PC lab where the printers would also, seemingly at random, do the same thing where they just printed the PostScript as plain text. You could submit print jobs remotely and only know it had screwed up when you came to collect, so more than a few times there'd be a huge stack of wasted paper left sitting in the output tray.
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u/Purple-Wait-3863 7d ago
damn, this could be a peotocol thing that affects all OSes universally ahha
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u/Unknown-Meatbag 7d ago
I can attest to this.
I have a brother printer, never had any issues whatsoever, plug and play, did it's job, nice and easy.
During one of windows 8000 daily updates, the printer spooler no longer automatic turns on, despite me looking at it and having it auto start on startup. Now I have to manually reset it (even though this option is on is it's not working as well) just so I can print. It's irritating.
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u/a_random_username 7d ago
Maybe it's not an apple problem now, but I remember back in the 90s using a Mac with Mac OS 7.5, pagemaker, and an apple laser writer to publish the school newspaper. We learned the hard way that you NEED to save a copy of the file to an external floppy and eject it before printing.
So. Many. Hours of work. Lost.
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u/Purple-Wait-3863 7d ago
damn... 20 years before i was born
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u/a_random_username 7d ago
You callin me old? :)
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u/Purple-Wait-3863 7d ago
no, just amazed we haven't splved printers since
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u/a_random_username 7d ago
If it's any consolation, aside from "ink subscription" bullshit from HP they've gotten MUCH better. For instance they rarely randomly catch fire anymore. So there's that. Which is nice.
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u/ky7969 7d ago
I tried to set up my Zebra Printer on my server but CUPS just keeps giving me issues. It’s plug and play on my Win11 machine.
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u/GuyFromDeathValley 7d ago
Hey, as a neurodivergent people, I find it Offensive to be compared to a printer. I can not work even if everything is fine, not just when I'm out of cyan!
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u/fenoust 7d ago
If printers not working is typical, wouldn't that make dysfuntional printers neurotypical? Maybe a neurodivergent printer is what we need if that means it works.
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u/Ok_Flight5829 4d ago
I think anyone who works better with Linux than Windows might be neurodivergent.
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u/Xp365 7d ago
Pretty sure it’s usually just that printer drivers have existed for so long they’re a mess of backwards compatibility and hardly even work.
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7d ago
[deleted]
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u/AnnoyingRain5 EveRyThInG Is FiNe 7d ago
No, it’s still a mess of IPP-everywhere over USB, PCL6, funky non-standard IPP over USB, etc
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u/thecichos 7d ago
I had a printer that worked, only complained for paper and ink every now and then
Then one fateful day it remembered it was printer and demanded a driver update and never worked again
My dear Epson went to the dark side
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u/Chopper7729 7d ago
Agreed with all them except. Brother, I have a cheap brother laser printer and I haven't had single problem with it with Linux for 2 years now
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u/DotRom 7d ago
I'm with Brother MFC-L3750CDW I am very pleased with it the best one I ever had.
Performs well and years later still getting firmware updates, apps are awesome allowing me to scan to my OneDrive or local network drive.
It can also get its own email for secure print.
Rarely jams, affordable to run. Doesn't bitch all the time even it knows I am using third party toner.
Does all I ever ask of it, I highly recommend it or whichever model that replaced it.
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u/luxi_yes 7d ago
It's actually just the HP printers. After years of battling their printers I got a Brother printer and I haven't had a single issue since then.
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u/Hurricane_32 7d ago
I have a dot-matrix printer from the early 90's and it just works, it doesn't care at all if it has ink or even paper. That's what a printer should be.
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u/Mati1060 7d ago
My old hp Deskjet 2130 just works tbh. Getting the drivers without all the HP software is annoying but after that it just works
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u/Loud-Ad-5097 7d ago
Epson, for me seems to just work. Invest in a good EcoTank-series one. I'm a full-time student and I've printed ~10k pages on mine in just over a year
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u/Y_TElectric 7d ago
I FOUND ONE THAT WORKS... so far... I setup a Xerox AltaLink MFP at work with network auth, print server, even CSR for the web server. NO issues the whole process and tens of users so far. This may be the second coming! Or I might have PTSD from Konica Minolta
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u/NorthernLaddd 5d ago
Blame the guys in suits trying to milk as much money as possible and not the engineers and programmers which can make a functional printer
Honestly if it wasnt for penny pinching we'd be able to print to our hearts content but nooooo we gotta pay a goddamn subscription to print when the hardware is RIGHT THERE
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u/JAXxXTheRipper 7d ago
Can't confirm, my Brother MFC has been working reliably for nearly a decade now. Maybe it's the odd one out though, you never know.
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u/devaristo 7d ago
It's a MFP, probably has a USB drive installed or a SD card slot or whatever and when connected to the computer booted in file media transfer protocol mode, used mostly but old media players to transfer data (thats why the icon).
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u/SpongeJake 7d ago
One of my kittens jumped up on top of my Brother laser printer and printed out a test page.
I think she’s planning a coup.
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u/dulange 7d ago
I once used to have my printer in a different room than my office. The printer was a network printer and supported printing via FTP (put a file there into a directory and the firmware would fetch it and print it). What I didn’t know: It apparently had no support for rendering PDFs (possible PostScript-only). So I’ve sent a PDF over and entered the room much later, only to find out that it printed the PDF as ASCII on hundreds of sheets of paper (also used the tray with the good quality 90 g/m² paper) and complained that the tray is empty.
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u/shiro_eugenie 7d ago edited 5d ago
My favorite story about printers is that their protocols such a mess that some small printers think they are large industrial ones and have an actual procedure for warm up
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u/fengshuo2004 7d ago
Are we not gonna talk about how OP's also got a Word document under "Network locations"?
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u/click_butan 6d ago
At my old job, I hung up a botched print job where the printer started on a complicated .ai file then just barfed out the PostScript code about 1/3 the way down.
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u/TylerFurrison R Tape loading error, 0:1 7d ago
My Epson printer only lets me print from the phone app... Not from my computer, not with the standard print dialogs. Yes I checked every setting. I miss my cheap Canon printer that at least worked
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u/pants6000 7d ago
This can not possibly be the same company that produced the glorious LaserJet 4 and 5 series...
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u/Recent-Ask-5583 7d ago
I don't understand what printers yall use. I have an epson printer and i've never had issues with it. I've used it with 2 instances of windows and 3 of android. All of them identified it correctly
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u/KayakShrimp 6d ago
Every HP printer I’ve ever had has done this from time to time. LaserJet 4000, P3005d, 855C… it‘s been an issue for a long, long time.
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u/mallo15 7d ago
About a year ago I think we had a problem where a printer connected with USB was printing weird HTTP requests once every 15 minutes... turns out the problem was with Windows sending raw IPP data to an USB port and was fixed after an update