Mike Chaney's Tech Corner

Is anyone else having trouble with the HP Designjet PCL3 driver v61.173.21104.400 (Sep 27, 2017)? My HP service tech recommended I upgrade to that driver as apparently HP has addressed a bunch of issues. But it appears QU doesn't like it; QU either crashes or declares "Printer selected is invalid."

My system is running Windows 10, 64-bit and my printer is an HP Z3200ps.

I'll be re-installing the printer with the older v61.121.362.41 (Aug 12, 2015) driver since I know QU was happy with that one.

Cheers!

Brad

The non-recognition problem I solved by uninstalling and reinstalling the printer from scratch with the new driver.

With the new drive the Gloss does not work right and the margin print set by Qimage does not print correctly as it was done before.

Anyone else having a problem with the drive and Print Utility?

My system is running Windows 10, 64-bit and my 3 printers are HP Z3200

Alberto dy

OK, I just spent about 2 hours trying to tiptoe my way through the minefield that is HP driver support.

First, when you look for drivers for the Z3200 on the HP site and you enter Z3200 as the product name, you get:

HP DesignJet Z3200 Photo Printer series
HP Designjet Z3200 Poster Printer series

If you choose the first one, you get 3 drivers, all of which are dated August 2015.
If you choose the second one (Poster Printer Series), you get 1 driver (the one you mention) dated Sept 27, 2017.

So I have no idea what the difference is between a Z3200 "Photo" versus "Poster" printer or how that compares to Z3200 versus Z3200ps but considering the only way I could get 61.173.21104.400 was to pick "Poster Printer", I picked that.  What downloads is not a driver install but Windows inf files that you have to install via "Add Printer" in Control Panel.  So I did that.

Upon adding a printer, choosing "Have Disk", and pointing it to the download, I'm presented with a list of Z printers: the only Z3200ps 44 inch printer in the list is "HP Designjet Z3200ps 44in Photo".  I pick that and it installs it.

Now here's what I noticed.  The new "HP Designjet Z3200ps 44in Photo" works OK but I had an old entry for "HP Designjet Z3200ps 44in Photo PCL3".  Installing this new driver broke my old "HP Designjet Z3200ps 44in Photo PCL3".  And Qimage is correct: that printer is no longer valid.  I can't print to it with anything:

- Lightroom says "Unable to start print job"
- MS Edge tells me it's invalid
- MS Word tells me there was an error communicating with the printer when I click "Print", select the old PCL3 driver, and then click "Properties"
- Qimage says that the selected printer is invalid (it is)

So in a nutshell, here's what I think happened.  When you installed the Sept 2017 version, it installed "HP Designjet Z3200ps 44in Photo".  That driver probably works OK but if you had an older "HP Designjet Z3200ps 44in Photo PCL3" driver, it probably broke that driver.  If you want to try the Sept 2017 version, I would suggest doing what Alberto suggested and delete all prior Z3200 drivers via Control Panel and then reinstall the Sept 2017 driver so that's the only one available.

Mike

Mike, I really appreciate that you went to this much effort. Actually, I have been at this for days over a span of a couple of months. I have been through a complete uninstall (devices, drivers, driver packages, etc.) and re-install several times, then "updating driver" to the latest one. That hasn't worked. My HP service tech suggested that the new installer (released on Nov 15, 2017) which "installs" the Sep 27, 2017 driver might work better. It didn't.

If other folks have managed to get the Sep 27, 2017 driver installed, but have discovered other issues (with gloss enhancer, margins, etc.), then I don't need the grief. I'm sticking with the driver that works.

And I'm passing the notes from this topic to HP.

Cheers!

Just a dumb question here from someone who is just an innocent bystander to all of this - but other than the initial recommendation from HP, are you aware of any specific features, benefits, or bug fixes that the new driver provides?  In other words, is there some good reason for using it rather than the 2015 driver that has been working for you?

Not actually having the printer itself, I can't really answer that.  I do want to point out that I'm not ready to blame HP for the problems I noted.  I have since discovered that my Canon Pro-2000 XPS driver has stopped funtioning in a similar manner.  On that one, picking a paper size larger than about legal size (for example, choosing A3+ paper size) makes the driver stop responding with a "printer is invalid" message.  Again: not software related as it happens in all programs.  So this could actually be a problem with the Windows 16299.98 build that I am currently running.  I'll have to investigate further and see what I can find.

Mike

Hey Brad,

What version of Windows are you running?  You can type winver at a command prompt to see.  Are you running 16299.98 like me?  And also, do you have an AMD or an Intel system?

Thanks,
Mike

Hi, Mike. I'm running version 1709 (16299.64) 64-bit. I was also having the same problem with version 1703 64-bit. I'm using Intel.

Cheers!

Brad

Hi, MelW.

This machine is used in my graphics business and is under a maintenance contract. This specific driver glitch arose in the context of a service ticket with HP. As you might expect, their first action was to ensure I was on the latest firmware and drivers. So my only (but good) reason to upgrade to the latest drivers is to ensure my business is supported.

Having said that, I need the printer to work with Qimage Ultimate (which I also keep up-to-date); that is pretty much non-negotiable since my workflow for the last 10 years has been built around Qimage. Obviously, I am back on the 2015 drivers, for now, but I will want to move forward as soon as this issue can be resolved.

Based on what Mike has recently discovered, it seems this issue might affect a lot more than the HP Designjet users.

Cheers!

Brad