Another 'Best Printer' thread. Recommendations please. [SOLVED]

[momist]

Hi everyone. I've been using an HP Photosmart Premium C310a for a few years now, and today it has developed a fault I can't seem to get around. It copies, and prints small sizes, but will not print at A4 any more. The fault message is "Paper Mismatch" and this appears even if I ask it to print it's own status report, so this is nothing to do with my PC or Linux (for once). I have tried all the usual cures, resets, changes in paper size etc., and also cleaned the paper transport. I can't find the source of the fault.

So, I'm looking for a new printer that is happy to be driven by my Linux Mint 18.2 as well as my wife's MacBook and other sources such as Android phones. As always, the printer will be a compromise, but in this case, the price is not very relevant. My most frequent use of the printer is churning out quick B/W and colour text/illustrations of things I need to remember, or reference documents from banks and blogs etc. The most important use however, is the reproduction of my wife's artwork, carefully scanned in from the watercolour/acrylic originals at full size. Printing needs to include photographic images from cameras onto glossy photo paper up to A4 size, and more importantly, prints of the artwork onto Archival Matte paper, and greetings cards onto heavy (200gsm) double sided card.

A multi-function machine is good if the scanner works well, but I am willing to spring for a separate scanner if that produces better results. I have so far been using a 15 year old Epson scanner that really should be retired. The HP Photosmart doesn't scan well enough.

Can anyone give me recommendations for current/recent models which work well with Linux? Many thanks for your help with what may turn out to be a long search.

[Jim Hauser]

You will get many different replies to this.

I have been using an HP Envy 4502 printer/scanner without any issues with Mint KDE for quite some time. It does a great job printing on photo paper and it also makes great scans.

[momist]

Thanks @Jim Hauser.

I looked at the Envy range yesterday and was quite considering them. I also found the Canon TS8050 which looked almost ideal for me, for it's reduced footprint, six separate ink technology, large Black cartridge etc. The Mint Forums were down for over a day here (not sure why for a two hour upgrade) and I couldn't find any information about how well the Canon was supported. While I waited for the forums to come back, I again searched for the 'Paper Mismatch' fault on my old HP printer.

Now here's a strange thing: I found a four year old thread referring to a completely unrelated HP model where a similar fault had occurred, and the person who suffered it had tried all the usual fixes, and then gone through every possible setting on his printer; changing each and every one, and retesting. He found that although he could scan normally (same as me), when he changed the scan resolution to 'Draft', his printing ability on A4 and Letter came back on without the 'Paper Mismatch' error! So naturally, I tried this myself, and for good measure I also changed the default print setting to fast Draft. Voila! My printer now works normally again.

Obviously this is a bug in the basic firmware that has been promulgated throughout the HP printer range, and could happen to anyone with one of these printers. I suspect that my instance was triggered by some code in a pdf document from a bank website that I asked to be printed. I have had some funny effects from codes embedded in pdf documents in the past, including printing permanently in empty rectangular blocks once. They are usually sorted by a hard reset though.
I wonder how many printers have been angrily trashed because of this bug in the past?