About a month or so ago my laptop stopped recognizing my B&W
printer; it alternated between just not seeing it and throwing printing errors.
And the errors were not descriptive, just “error printing” or “printer is in
error state”. It’s like interviewing a Repug on policy; you get no useful
information whatsoever.
After extensive Googling, I managed to fix the issue. I think I uninstalled
and then reinstalled the printer driver. It didn’t like HP Pro LaserJet P1102w,
but it was happy with HP Pro LaserJet P1102w (copy), so I let it go.
(And let me just ask this: has anyone in the history of personal
computing ever once found Microsoft’s troubleshooting of anything to be
of any use? Every single time I’ve used one of their troubleshooters for
network connection issues, printers, devices or anything else, it basically has
thrown up its hands and said, “Sorry; SOL. Would you like to give us feedback?”)
Well, on Friday, after an obligatory Win10 update, all of a sudden
I was back in printing hell. Defaulted to printer offline, and then printer
error. Neither HP Pro LaserJet P1102w nor HP Pro LaserJet P1102w (copy) worked.
So I rattled around the Web and tried reinstalling the driver.
Only the Win10 driver installer Web search would not list the P1102,
or even the series of which it’s a part. I pulled out the CD with the original
driver (from five or six years ago when I bought the printer), but the computer
wouldn’t recognize it. After several attempts, I tried a different device, and
realized that the ONE USB port that Lenovo condescended to install on the Yoga
series was just…dead to me.
Well, that’s going to put a crimp in my lifestyle, no doubt
about it. And, yes—of course I rebooted the machine a few times. Nada.
I wrote a quasi-frantic email to a friend who has bailed me out of
many similar situations and packed it in for the week.
Saturday morning, I took another SWAG at it, focusing on the USB
port. I found some posts on a Lenovo forum; apparently this is an issue of long
standing. One of the recommended solutions (which started out pooh-poohing the
whole megillah about updating and then regression the BIOS) was to turn off the
laptop, hold the power button for 30 seconds and then restart.
Well, blow me—that worked a treat. I had USB connectivity.
And once that was in place, suddenly Microsoft found the P1102
driver, so I installed it. Annnnnd…error.
Rats.
Somehow, as I was wallowing around Windoze, I accidentally deleted the
device, but found my old friend (copy). And once again, Yoga was happy to send
to print, and Pro was happy to receive. So I emailed my friend to stand down.
Order has been restored. I feel like Bones McCoy after he treated
the Horta: I may be able to cure the common cold.
At any rate, today I’m grateful that I am able to print documents,
spreadsheets and other miscellanea. Next up: find out why the color printer is
apparently using invisible ink.
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