I had a wrestling match with my new HP OfficeJet 6500 All-in-One printer a couple of days ago and it won. That round. I will prevail though. It prints and copies fine. Great print quality although I do have a problem with the software that came with it. More on that later.
My biggest problem with it is that I cannot fax or scan. It has done both intermittently and that is almost worse than not doing anything at all. The documentation for this printer absolutely sucks. I give it the poorest grade possible for a company this size. It would be better if there just wasn’t any at all. Hooking it up was easy and as I said the printer and copy functions work great.
Now, to the scanner, first the only option I have for scanning is to send the document to PDF. I did see in the software, on the occasion I could get it to work, there are options to send the document to several other destinations, such as file, printer, etc. But the software will not work without problems so those options may not be available at all.
The reason I want to use the scanner is to post handwritten text and hand drawn sketches to my blogs. I figured out how to extract this stuff from the PDF but it is cumbersome and totally ridiculous that I should have to go through that many steps. I finally gave up on it and will deal with it again later after my frustration level has cooled a bit.
Well, I revisited the problem with my wife’s assistance and we figured out how to send and receive faxes. It was operator error. I had one of the phone lines crossed.
As far as the scanner, I don’t know how the mis-inserted phone line would affect this but I can now scan every document I attempt. I am still faced with a couple of issues. One being the fact that I can only send the document to PDF. It remains the only option from the printer panel.
The second issue is mostly an inconvenience. After pressing the start scan button on the printer, I begin getting a message on the computer monitor that I need to insert the disk to install the option to scan. I did this the very first time I ever tried to scan on this so now I just cancel it. I immediately get another window giving me an error because no disc was found. Well, it seems to me that if I canceled it a disc should not be searched for, so that error message is bogus. Then I get a series of repeating messages telling me that windows is configuring the requested device. Again, I canceled this so I should not be getting this message. I said it was a repeating series, it flashes three times after canceling the first message to load from disc. And I cancel it each time. Now, the truly frustrating part is that this process I just described, canceling the disc load, the error message, cancel three windows telling me Windows is configuring, occurs eleven times! Eleven Times!
All the while I am canceling all eleven of these series of messages the HP scanner window appears and the scanner works. I get my scan, in PDF form, but I am required to cancel everything surrounding the process telling me that the scanner is not going to work.
There is absolutely no documentation what so ever concerning this procedure. None. It is as if this situation could never possibly happen.
Back before my wife and I finally got the scanner to work, I would get the error message, on the printer panel, that no scan option was available. But, if I pressed cancel and waited about 10 seconds, I might get the message again and I might get my scan. There was no guarantee as to which was going to happen. Keep in mind that every time I started the process of starting the scan I would have to go through all eleven cycles of cancellations as described earlier.
That message I would get saying no scan option is available, this message is not in the trouble-shooting section of what they laughingly call the help section. Nor does it direct me to some other place where I might find a more complete list of error messages.
I followed their online process to determine what the problem with the scanner is. It started by having me download a bit of software called a diagnostic. I ran that diagnostic and was told that everything is working great.
The scanner function worked great after running this. And I ran the scanner four times to make sure it wasn’t just a fluke (I still had to go through all eleven cancellation routines, each time).
So, I turned the printer off, restarted my computer. Tried the scanner again, and was immediately told ‘no scanner option available’. Now I ask you, is this enough to send a sane person over the edge?
The only workable solution I can come up with is to turn the printer on and let it sit for about a half hour before trying to scan. I still have to go through all eleven cycles of canceling and I still can only scan my document to PDF, but at least I get a scan.
After all of this experience I think it is entirely safe to say that Hewlett Packard holds very little regard for their customers.
Thank you, if you read this post all the way through. Even if no one reads it, at least I feel better getting it off my chest. I would send this to Hewlett Packard but I am doubtful I would ever hear from them.
Which brings up another point of contention concerning dealing with problems over the internet. All companies have isolated themselves so completely from their customers that the first thing any of them tell you to do is to go discuss the problem with other users. I guess they reason that IF someone has had this same problem, and IF that someone happens to be on this user forum, and IF that someone so chooses to respond to your problem, you can get help.
This is not customer service. Maybe as the older generation dies out, you know the people who actually remember what it was like to actually talk to a knowledgeable person face to face or even over the phone, then this ‘customer service’ system will be the only system known. In the meantime though, this really sucks.
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