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Epson customers report Google Cloud Print causing printers to power down
- tssva 10y agoMy Nexus 6P went into a boot loop on Monday and I got an RMA issued. UPS emailed me the return shipping label last night and when I went to print it this morning I couldn't because my Epson WorkForce 845 was in a boot loop.
- DarkStar851 10y agoLol, technology for you. I just sold my old Epson printer a few weeks ago, hopefully it's new owner doesn't get plagued by this.
- BrandonBradley 10y agoYo dog. You got 'boot looted'.
- jameskegel 10y agoWe don't do that here.
- BrandonBradley 10y agoDo what? Make jokes?
- drspacemonkey 10y agoComments should add to the discussion. Even humourous comments. Memes don't add anything to a discussion.
- BrandonBradley 10y agoThat is sometimes how I talk when I make jokes. No memes here. Tough crowd.
- Tempest1981 10y agoHow do you manage to engage an internal Google team on an issue? From the story: "We are working with Epson and internal Google teams to root cause this issue" I've seen many help forum threads go unanswered, after days and pages of postings.
- cube00 10y agoCreate a viral video, they notice when a lot of people are complaining about things vs a loud few.
- gruturo 10y agoYou hope really hard that anyone at Google bought an Epson printer, and raises the issue internally. Best if this happens to a manager.
- integricho 10y agoOr post on HN as many google employees read it regularly for sure..
- icantdrive55 10y agoGoogle has too many Chiefs. I don't understand why they don't hire a few remote workers? Not special flowers, with PhD's; just hackers who can answer some questions that are never quite answered of the ole "Help boards"? Google might do wonderful things in the future, but don't piss off the people who feed you.
- fapjacks 10y ago
- agumonkey 10y agoWe'll have Fusion reactors before solid and enjoyable printers.
- ungzd 10y agoPrinters are tools for bureaucracy and pointless office slavery. More torment = better.
- tonyedgecombe 10y agoWe used to have solid and enjoyable printers, around about 1990 was the peak (LaserJet III).
- tomcam 10y agoDepressingly accurate.
- semi-extrinsic 10y agoYou're saying I should definitely rescue the unused LaserJet III from the dusty corner at the office printer room?
- gambiting 10y agoYes. Those things would survive a nuclear war and still print. Realistically, you need to replace the drum every year or two, depending on how much you print, and then just fill it up with the cheapest toner you can find - it will work no matter what.
- robk 10y agoYou laugh but I only buy laserjet 5500 or 4700 printers now for home and work. They're cheaper to own and operate than most new inkjets if you are patient for toner deals on Amazon or ebay.
- Spooky23 10y agoAbsolutely. They are no doubt the best printers in your company's facility. Most printers for enterprises are garbage now without a service contract or managed print deal. For personal use, the brother laser devices <$100. Are the best bet. Simple, reliable and most of the things that break are either field replaceable or you can ditch the device.
- SFJulie 10y agoMaybe EPSON does not know how to update their printer's firmware. Maybe google noticed a botnet of EPSON printer trying to knock them down. Or a poorly setup of uPnP/network that helps penetrate (THEIR) networks... Maybe they just shut down the printers because nothing else can be done to suppress the threat. Maybe they don't publicized it because : 1) this is called illegal penetration of someone else system (hacking...) and is a penal offense in many countries 2) it would give IoT a bad name (Google's kind of prospective beneficial market) 3) it would be illegal for them/very costly to give the information (libel, NDA...) 4) there is NO solutions... This is pure speculation, because since I don't think google throw their printer in the trash, no one can go to their office and check if they are actually throwing away some EPSON printers.
- RX14 10y agoOh wow, this happened to me last night when I was trying to scan something! I was sure that I had broken it somehow but I guess not. Super surprising to me to see the reason my printer is broken on HN anyway.
- jftuga 10y agoI am having this problem on an Epson Workforce 645. It stays in a continual boot loop. To fix it, I logged into Cloud Print to delete the printer and also unplugged my access point. This stopped the boot loop. I then did a 'reset all settings' from the printer's touch screen menus. After that, I plugged in my AP again and joined the printer to my WiFi network. I really needed something printed so I enabled Cloud Print again on the printer unaware of the consequences. The boot loop started again. :-( I was actually thinking it was going to be time to buy a new printer as my WF 645 is very old. I thought the WiFi adapter had gone bad and was causing the boot loop. Apparently this is not the case.
- mcagl 10y agoI didn't know Google Cloud Print before, so I made some research on their site: https://www.google.com/cloudprint/learn/ https://www.google.com/cloudprint/learn/ """ Using Google Cloud Print, you can make your home and work printers available to you and anyone you choose, from the applications you use every day. Google Cloud Print works on your phone, tablet, Chromebook, PC, and any other web-connected device you want to print from. """ Ok, so my printer is supposed to be registered to google cloud to make me print from anywhere. Ok. But my files? https://www.google.com/cloudprint/learn/howitworks.html https://www.google.com/cloudprint/learn/howitworks.html """ When you print through Google Cloud Print, your file is securely sent to your printer over the web. Because it’s the web, Google Cloud Print works whether you’re in the same room as your printer, or on another continent. It also doesn’t matter whether you’re on a phone, a traditional desktop, or anything in between (like a tablet). """ So if I'm in my room, on my laptop, at 3 meters from my ubersupercloudenabled printer, I can send my file to it via the web. Securely. Ok. """ Documents are transferred over a secure HTTPS web connection. After a job is completed, the associated document is deleted from our servers. """ The file is sent via HTTPS. But the file itself...is it encrypted? (Maybe the printer generates a keypair upon registration, and the same does every devices, etc etc...?) https://support.google.com/cloudprint/answer/2541843?hl=en&ref_topic=4456298 https://support.google.com/cloudprint/answer/2541843?hl=en&r... """ Who can see what I’m printing? Google Cloud Print jobs are submitted and retrieved over a secure connection (https), and are only available to you and the printer you’re using. """ """ Any document you send for printing is kept strictly confidential. Google does not access the documents you print for any purpose other than to improve printing. """ "to improve printing" may be the "metaphor" behind the functioning of Google Cloud Print itself. This can be read, after removing the double negations and the other usual tricks as "Google access the documents you print to give to you the comfort to print your files while staying 3 meters away from your printer, by passing them to the cloud and our automatic eyes and godknowswhat". NO. THANKS BUT NO.
- Spooky23 10y agoOpsec matters. If you're printing tax returns or proprietary data with this without some sort of commercial contract, you have a problem. For a student printing schoolwork, printing my concert tickets from a tablet or a hundred other use cases, yore fine.
- userbinator 10y agoOn first glance Google Cloud Print looks like nothing more than an Internet version of networking printing, a technology which has been around for a long time; so one is naturally a bit surprised that Epson could get something like this wrong, but then I dug a little deeper... https://developers.google.com/cloud-print/docs/devguide https://developers.google.com/cloud-print/docs/devguide ...and the protocol involves HTTPS, OAuth, JSON, and XMPP(!), so rather more complex than existing protocols like IPP; although much can be said for having simple-to-parse protocols especially for embedded devices like these, some error occurring in the GCP part of the firmware shouldn't cause the whole printer to become unusable.
- lucaspiller 10y agoWonder why they decided to invent their own protocol? I've used IPP over the internet via an SSH tunnel, it's slow but it works.
- tjohns 10y agoIPP's got a few problems, especially when it comes to phones/tablets or other mobile devices: - IPP requires unique drivers for each printer. Some mobile devices (Chromebooks and iOS, I believe) don't allow installing drivers. - IPP requires that you're on the same LAN segment, or that you punch a hole through your router. That doesn't work very well when interacting with foreign printers, and punching a hole through a router is too complex for many home users. - IPP is limited to HTTP Basic/Digest auth, which isn't user friendly or secure. The traffic's also unencrypted. (And SSH isn't user friendly enough for home users.) (Disclaimer: I work for Google, but not on Cloud Print.)
- teddyh 10y agoWelcome to the Internet of Things.
- thrillgore 10y agoThis happened to my WorkForce 545 after sending a print job to it last night. Ended up in an endless reset loop until I was able to reset it to factory settings.
- rplst8 10y agoI've had the same thing happen with my Epson WF-3540. It's been a totally solid printer up until this point. To fix it I started it up and immediately disabled the Wi-Fi. Then I "suspended" Google Cloud Print and Epson Connect Services. It's working fine now - albeit with no cloud services for our phones/tablets. Hopefully they resolve this soon.