HP Laserjet 4100N not printing

[Member roland]

My son gave me an HP Laserjet 4100N printer recently, I could not connect it via the wlan due to distance from my internet adapter, so I connected it with a usb cable and a Centronics/USB cable adapter, plugged into a usb socket behind the pc.

I installed the Hewlett Packard printing package, HPLIP and printing extras, and set up the printer as usual, for A4, auto tray, etc.

I cannot get dependable printing, although when it decides to, the printer is obviously working as it should and the quality is good despite the toner cartridge not being of HP manufacture. On occasion it will print immediately, on others it will wait maybe 10 or 15 minutes then print. On yet others it never gets started printing. The printer queue shows jobs processing normally but they usually never reach the paper stage. Printer status is ‘waiting for printer’ but it is available, having just printed a page. It is apparently connected to the server. When I got tired of waiting for the jobs in the screenshot and logged out, the two print jobs then came out on paper. Something was holding them up.

Am I missing some secrets in the setup of this printer? Has any member installed this model printer and can pass on any advice please? I attach the text file produced by the troubleshooting option in control panel printer setup.

I am running release 19.3 in this example but get the same behaviour under release 21, which indicates that the problem may be some printer setup parameter wrongly chosen. Sadly the printer in installed with Spanish language which does not help.

• This topic was modified 10 months ago by roland.
• This topic was modified 10 months ago by roland.
• This topic was modified 10 months ago by roland.

Attachments:

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   HP4100N_no_print.jpg
   

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   HP4100N_waiting_for_printer.jpg
   

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   HP4100N_troubleshoot.pdf
   

[Member stevesr0]

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Hi roland,

Strictly a noob without any hp printer expertise, but I looked at your pictures and on line and offer these. Apologies if they are “stupid”.

(1) It isn’t clear to me – are you connecting the printer to your computer via usb or to a router via usb?

(2) I notice that there are two entries for the HP 4100 printer in the screen shot. What happens if you select the other one?

(3) Does the printer have/need an ip address?

(4) HP has a utility to create a URI in linux – if your printer doesn’t have one. Link: https://developers.hp.com/hp-linux-imaging-and-printing/tech_docs/man_pages/makeuri

stevesr0

[Member greevous]

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Hello, Roland!
Try using a different driver when connecting the printer.

[Member roland]

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It is connected by cable, there is no wlan connection, that I am aware of.

The driver appears to come with the HP printing extras that are available under ‘printing’ section of the software installer package. This driver seems to be a global driver that also enables my MFU HP PSC 1510 All-in-one scanner printer and copier to work. I only use this to scan due to the cost of print cartridges.

I think the second instance of the same installed printer with a different name arose when I re-installed the HP printing extras package as a precaution. I chose the short name 4100N the first time I installed the driver, but when I re-installed it the full name HP-Laserjet-4100-Series was generated by the installer, which I chose to leave. I think I will start again, deleting all printers, and re-install the driver again to see what printers it locates.

I am unaware of any other drivers for HP printers.

[Member madibi]

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@roland
have you tried to use hplip?
This is a program made from HP for linux.
This program on my antiX 21 came already installed.
To make it working properly, you must have set a root pw in advance

good luck!

m

PS: I have a HP4580 that works without issues for 6 years
I try to have only HP printers given the existence of hplip 🙂

• This reply was modified 9 months, 4 weeks ago by madibi.

[Member roland]

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I believe I am already using hplip. I just tried an experiment, with a document waiting to come out held up by ‘waiting for printer’, I ran a re-install of the HP printer package from the software installer. Immediately this completed the stuck document came out on paper. There is some reason why the connection between server and printer is either not being made or is being interrupted. Sadly I know nothing whatever about unix printing, as when I was a system developer such things were handled by the system administrator.

Any further suggestions opinions etc will be most welcome.

[Member greevous]

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roland wrote:

… I am unaware of any other drivers for HP printers.

Maybe I’m wrong, but I see several drivers for your printer.

Attachments:

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   Screenshot_20220709_132625.png
   

[Member roland]

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Thanks I shall look into these, although the characters MF often signify multi-function unit like printer/scanner/copiers, which this isn’t, it’s just a very well known laser printer. But I’ll leave no stone unturned, I’ll try these drivers.

[Member greevous]

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Sorry, I inattentively read your message above, so I gave a list of drivers for MFPs 🙂

hplip is the only way to install the right driver. The support on the official HP website says so.

[Member stevesr0]

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Hi roland,

The reason I suggested looking at the URI site HP has is your screenshot indicated that the printer URI was unknown.

stevesr0

[Member madibi]

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@Roland

to use hplip, you first have to open your terminal and digit:

sudo hp-setup

and the follow the following instructions: https://developers.hp.com/hp-linux-imaging-and-printing/install/manual/hp_setup

HP sw does all the job for you, also if your printer is wifi or eth

good luck
m

[Member roland]

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This problem is now resolved, thanks to all contributors. I suspect in reality there was never a problem, only the very long time the processing took maybe due to the connector cable I am using, a centronics parallel on the printer to a usb on the pc. This I suspect is running as a serial not parallel connection and takes for ever to print a document or at least to get it as far as the printer, while the actual print itself comes out at normal speed. complex pdf documents are a worst case and can take 15-20 minutes to appear on paper. This caused me to suppose the processing had stalled in some way.

This is not the end of the story however, as I wish to network the printer using old router/switches, with which I am receiving valuable help from contributors in another post in the hardware section.

Thanks again.

• This reply was modified 8 months, 2 weeks ago by roland.

[Member roland]

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Just to report a postscript to this problem which has only now become clear to me, Hplip is apparently not the software to use to introduce a new printer on the PC I’m using, with the 40-pin Centronics socket on the 4100N cabled to a Usb port.

Running ‘sudo hp-setup’ does not locate any printer on my system apart from the HP PSC 1510 cabled via Usb, which I only use for scanning, using all 3 available modes of printer detection in Hplip the 4100N is not located.

However the routine ‘introduce new printer’ option in control center/hardware/print settings/add does find the 4100N if switched on and configures it correctly, the test page offered during the procedure coming out as expected. In fact I would like to try not installing hplip at all, but only Cups, to see if the ‘add’ option still finds and configures it.

[Member olsztyn]

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roland wrote:

However the routine ‘introduce new printer’ option in control center/hardware/print settings/add does find the 4100N if switched on and configures it correctly, the test page offered during the procedure coming out as expected.

Are you still connecting your printer via parallel connection or you connected it via JetDirect ethernet port?

Live antiX Boot Options (Previously posted by Xecure):
https://antixlinuxfan.miraheze.org/wiki/Table_of_antiX_Boot_Parameters

[Member roland]

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It’s still connected via the parallel port (a centronix 40-pin socket much used in the past for printers and scanners) with a centronix/usb adapter cable bought from AliExpress, so the Pc sees it as a usb connection (I suppose?).

I have an almost identical Pc and plan to remove all printers via the print setup routine, purge cups and hplip, then install cups only, and let the print setup ‘add’ routine locate this printer as described above. If the 4100N is located and works, it will (for my purposes) confirm that hplip does nothing useful and indeed may have been the cause of the trouble I have been having in the past.

I am still working towards a proper wlan connection for this printer but my lan does not reach the upstairs printer/pc location This printer is very large and heavy and cannot easily be positioned elsewhere.

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