HP printer now asking to create an Account and register...

[nzoomed]

It appears HP is getting more and more aggressive with the registration of their products and forcing people to create an account just to use their printers.

Ive been working on this printer for someone that I set up a few months ago, it is an HP laserjet m110w and one of their more cheaper consumer models. At the time I was able to install it with no issues, but today the user contacted me to say that it was not printing. When I looked at the computer, all the drivers were gone. I thought that was a bit odd and I doubt anyone using it had uninstalled the driver.

Anyway, I went to HP to download the latest driver, this one is supposed to be the full offline driver package, but note how it says "HP easy start" on the file name despite it being labelled for offline use.
https://support.hp.com/nz-en/drivers/sel...l/30190476
"Installation Software and Full/Basic Driver-Supports print and scan functionality only"

Now perhaps I have to disconnect the LAN from the internet to force it into installing the driver without an account(I cant as i was working through teamviewer), but im sure in the past there has always been an option to skip registering (in small print in the corner) when installing the driver package.
But this time round it is basically forcing me to register and says that you have to create an account to use this product. (it now seems to be called HP+ when it was running the install)

In the end I just used 7-zip and extracted the driver out of the installation package and could run the manual setup from the files it contained, but the printer would now say out of paper (with a fully loaded tray), but it was communicating successfully.

I thought I would log into the printers web interface through the browser and there was this message:

"Check your account. A problem has occurred with your HP account and you will be unable to print very soon unless the issue is resolved. To learn more, open the HP Smart app or visit www.hpsmart.com and sign in to your account."

Now the weird thing is that this message seems to be related to HP instant ink subscriptions or something along these lines. Either way I know there has never been an account created to begin with, and a quick google search is showing people with the same issue and only being told to sort out their ink subscription that they never had or want to ask for. I suspect this could be a reason for the out of paper message, but I think I might need to physically look at the printer and perform a factory reset and then reconnect it

I dont recommend people purchase HP consumer printers anyway, but it seems a common theme with many products these days that they ever force users to register an account to use their products or at the very least make it difficult to do so without.

[king1]

yep HP printer software is ugly...

Everything I read suggests it is a billing issues - you could try the clients email addresses in the login form here to test if an account does exist
https://instantink.hpconnected.com/subscriptions

otherwise factory reset and pray...

[Wainuitech]

Its rubbish like this that basically force people to create fake accounts linked to a fake name.
Theres a few places over the years Had to use throwaway (10 minute temp) Email addresses to register, then people dont get hit with advertising offers all the time.

Dont know if this has been tried -- https://support.hp.com/in-en/document/is...4995651-16

[nzoomed]

Turns out the paper had been put into the wrong tray and it prints OK now, but spat out this page below!
Never seen anything like this before.

Wainuitech, yes I had done that but in this instance it didn't even give me the option for the full driver installation.
It's probably worth checking what email accounts they use just to be double sure no HP account exists, but nothing showing from what I can see.

[king1]

it's very Big Brother 'ish is it not...

Now we control your printer - who in their right mind at HP thought that was a good idea? At the very least they could be more descriptive about it.

Assuming it is a ink purchase issue, something like this would seem more appropriate...

Currently you appear to be ordering ink through HP but there is an issue with your account, specifically, we don't have a valid credit card number. Because of this your ink may run out which will leave you unable to print...

[nzoomed]

it's very Big Brother 'ish  is it not...

Now we control your printer - who in their right mind at HP thought that was a good idea?  At the very least they could be more descriptive about it. 

Assuming it is a ink purchase issue, something like this would seem more appropriate...

Currently you appear to be ordering ink through HP but there is an issue with your account, specifically, we don't have a valid credit card number.  Because of this your ink may run out which will leave you unable to print...

Yeah I call it ransom.
Ive read that other people had had to provide a credit cart just to make it go away even if they did not have a subscription.
They tell me the whole problem started after installing a brand new toner, and it is a genuine HP cartridge too.

[Bryan]

I'll bet they work for Michael Wood's office! Sounds like a Labour idea.

[Olive]

I'll bet they work for Michael Wood's office! Sounds like a Labour idea.

I don't understand your comment.  Can you explain what you mean?

[king1]

Just had one of these dumbass printers to connect up today, the HP smart software eventually (after about 3 goes at printing) popped a message saying that this printer cannot print without an HP account being created and linked.

and then it did the, we're signing you up to a six month trial of our subscription instant ink service, which was iirc about $8/month for 100 pages... Declined...

HP just seems to go out of their way to find new ways for consumers to hate them...

[nzoomed]

Just had one of these dumbass printers to connect up today, the HP smart software eventually (after about 3 goes at printing) popped a message saying that this printer cannot print without an HP account being created and linked. 

and then it did the, we're signing you up to a six month trial of our subscription instant ink service, which was iirc about $8/month for 100 pages... Declined...

HP just seems to go out of their way to find new ways for consumers to hate them...

Funny you say that.
Turns out in my instance that they had actually created an account and the printer had disconnected from it for some reason, I ended up performing a factory reset and reconnected back to the account and it seemed to be working, but 2 weeks later the same thing happened and it dropped off and came up with the message that there was a "problem" with the account. I told them to take the piece of crap back to Noel Leeming for a refund and they happily did so, even 6 months after purchase.
I got them a brother instead and no problems.

[king1]

Just had one of these dumbass printers to connect up today, the HP smart software eventually (after about 3 goes at printing) popped a message saying that this printer cannot print without an HP account being created and linked. 

and then it did the, we're signing you up to a six month trial of our subscription instant ink service, which was iirc about $8/month for 100 pages... Declined...

HP just seems to go out of their way to find new ways for consumers to hate them...

Funny you say that.
Turns out in my instance that they had actually created an account and the printer had disconnected from it for some reason, I ended up performing a factory reset and reconnected back to the account and it seemed to be working, but 2 weeks later the same thing happened and it dropped off and came up with the message that there was a "problem" with the account. I told them to take the piece of crap back to Noel Leeming for a refund and they happily did so, even 6 months after purchase.
I got them a brother instead and no problems.

that sounds like a prediction of my next appointment with him...  I'll let you know when it eventuates...

[1101]

HP Printers : good printers , garbage software/drivers .
I'd never recommended or sold them when I was in IT.
Their garbage drivers go all the way back to Winxp days : a IE (yes IE) update stopped some HP's from printing .
HP didnt fix it , so a frustrated US programmer fixed their software bug for them & made it available online: he said it was lazy bad programming that caused the issue .

More recent : Win10 not compatable with a 1YEAR OLD HP MFC  : would print 1 page then require a PC reboot to get another page out. No drivers or software available at all from HP for this 1 year old printer (printer still worked on the old Win7 PC) . The solution, my customer bought another printer , a Brother . That worked without issues.

Another of my customers (I was in IT ) , bought a brand new (budget) HP inkjet. You had to use a smartphone app to set the thing up & connect the printer to wifi
yes , PC setup required a smartphone app . Of course that didnt work. Included setup doc's were incomplete (ie usueless) , requiring a call to HP to find out how to connect the printer to wifi & the to the PC
There were NO DRIVERS available on the HP site . To connect to a PC , turns out you had to download the HP app from the MS APP Store , requiring customer to sign up for that . So, 3/4hour plus to get a brand new HP printer usable, it cost the customer more in my time than the printer cost .

HP, why not just make drivers available , like other GOOD printer brands do . Dont be lazy and require Winupdate to get printer drivers , that doesnt allways work .
A pity , back when I was a printer tech, HP used to be the go to printer for build quality and reliablity.

rant over :-)

[king1]

HP Printers : good printers , garbage software/drivers .
I'd never recommended or sold them when I was in IT.
Their garbage drivers go all the way back to Winxp days : a IE (yes IE) update stopped some HP's from printing .
HP didnt fix it , so a frustrated US programmer fixed their software bug for them & made it available online: he said it was lazy bad programming that caused the issue .

More recent : Win10 not compatable with a 1YEAR OLD HP MFC  : would print 1 page then require a PC reboot to get another page out. No drivers or software available at all from HP for this 1 year old printer (printer still worked on the old Win7 PC) . The solution, my customer bought another printer , a Brother . That worked without issues.

Another of my customers (I was in IT ) , bought a brand new (budget) HP inkjet. You had to use a smartphone app to set the thing up & connect the printer to wifi
yes , PC setup required a smartphone app . Of course that didnt work. Included setup doc's were incomplete (ie usueless) , requiring a call to HP to find out how to connect the printer to wifi & the to the PC
There were NO DRIVERS available on the HP site . To connect to a PC , turns out you had to download the HP app from the MS APP Store , requiring customer to sign up for that . So, 3/4hour plus to get a brand new HP printer usable, it cost the customer more in my time than the printer cost .

HP, why not just make drivers available , like other GOOD printer brands do . Dont be lazy and require Winupdate to get printer drivers , that doesnt allways work .
A pity , back when I was a printer tech, HP used to be the go to printer for build quality and reliablity.

rant over :-)

and Amen to that

[piroska]

Now perhaps I have to disconnect the LAN from the internet to force it into installing the driver without an account

But this time round it is basically forcing me to register and says that you have to create an account to use this product.


"Check your account. A problem has occurred with your HP account and you will be unable to print very soon unless the issue is resolved. To learn more, open the HP Smart app or visit www.hpsmart.com and sign in to your account."

My brother has a Brother Printer now, he had HP before, What it was going on about was his phone.
He uses wifi to print, off phone, tablet and PC. It wanted him to fiddle with the print app on his phone first, once he did that it shut up about accounts.

---

Now perhaps I have to disconnect the LAN from the internet to force it into installing the driver without an account

But this time round it is basically forcing me to register and says that you have to create an account to use this product.


"Check your account. A problem has occurred with your HP account and you will be unable to print very soon unless the issue is resolved. To learn more, open the HP Smart app or visit www.hpsmart.com and sign in to your account."

My brother has a Brother Printer now, he had HP before, What it was going on about was his phone.
He uses wifi to print, off phone, tablet and PC. It wanted him to fiddle with the print app on his phone first, once he did that it shut up about accounts.