HP Envy or Enmity? By Sam Catanzaro, mods by Café Emily

HP Envy 4500 Printer Error: The Fix for Win 8/8.1

08/08/201508/20/2015 by Emily Condit

HP Envy 4500 Printer Error Windows 8/8.1: Jobs Cancel After 1-3 pages

I just bought a new HP Envy 4500 printer and I’ve been tearing my hair out the last two days because it’s been canceling my print jobs midway through the 2nd or 3rd page.

I tried everything that was suggested on the internet as a solution. I even cleaned out my computer, defragged my hard drive, installed all the recent Windows 8.1 updates (I was way behind), and ran Malware Bytes and AdwCleaner just to make sure I didn’t have a virus.

But nothing worked. I was pissed that my brand new printer wasn’t working. It should be easy, right? You’d think so.

I like this printer because it’s very compact and suits my needs. I really didn’t want to have to ship it back.

I finally contacted HP Tech Support and they logged onto my computer and fixed the problem.

So what is the problem? I’m not exactly sure but the tech support guy said this issue exists with this specific printer on Windows 8 and 8.1. Maybe that’s why the price dropped from $70 to $45 on Amazon in a matter of days. Maybe too many people were returning it because most of us now have either Windows 8 or 8.1.

The reviews on Amazon were not good about this printer and I knew going in I was taking a chance. People were complaining about partially finished print jobs and paper jams after only a few attempts. It’s possible the “paper jams” weren’t actually legit paper jams but actually a result of this well-known HP Envy 4500 printer error with Windows 8 and 8.1. Why HP hasn’t made the solution that the tech guy performed on my computer in a matter of minutes public in the forums is beyond me. Maybe they don’t want to advertise the fact that this printer doesn’t work very well with the most popular operating systems on the planet. Bad for business.

So I’m going to give you the fix that they haven’t made public. The tech guy assured me that this problem only exists with Windows 8 and 8.1 and will go away if you upgrade to Windows 10. I’m not quite ready to upgrade though. I have the option but I want to read the reviews of Windows 10 before I dive right in. Windows 8 was a huge transition from previous versions and I suspect 10 will be even less user friendly. I say wait for all the die-hard geeks to figure out how it works and post YouTube tutorials on how to use it.

So here is the fix that the tech support guy gave me to get my printer up and running. If you turn off your printer OR your wireless goes out, you may have to perform this fix again. Why? Because when you turn on a wireless device it is assigned an IP address by your router. Turn it off and back on again and your router may assign the printer a different IP address. So you need to LEAVE YOUR PRINTER POWERED ON ALL THE TIME and pray your wireless doesn’t go out too often. You may get lucky if your wireless goes out that your printer will be assigned the same IP address but it’s not guaranteed.

The Fix

1) Go to your control panel. You can do this by right-clicking on the Windows icon in the lower left corner of your screen in Windows 8.1 and left-clicking on “Control Panel”. In Windows 8, I think you just right click in the lower left corner. I don’t believe there is a Windows icon in the lower left corner in Windows 8.

If you can’t access the control panel in the ways listed above, Google how to access the control panel for your version of Windows.

2) Under Hardware and Sound, click “View Devices and Printers.” If you have already set up your printer properly, your printer should be listed with a green check mark icon to signify it’s the default printer for the computer your using. Keep the Devices and Printers window open. Click the button that says “Add Printer”.

3) A new screen will pop up that will search for printers in the network. It may take a minute for the printer to show up in the list. You can hit the stop button once your printer is found. Next to the printer name, there is an IP address listed. An IP address is 12 digits separated by periods every 3 digits (e.g. 255.255.255.255). Write the IP address of your printer down and hit “Cancel”.

4) Your Devices and Printer window is still open, right? Good. Right-click your printer icon and select “Printer Properties” (NOT “Properties”). Click on the “Ports” tab.

5) Once you’re on the Ports tab, click the “Add Port” button. A dialog pops up directing you to select a type of port. Select/Highlight “Standard TCP/IP Port.” Then click the “New Port” button.

6) The TCP/IP Wizard pops up. Hit “Next.”

7) A dialog box with two fields asking for the IP address or name pops up. Type the IP address you wrote down in step 3 in the top field. Both fields will be filled in as you type. Click “Next” after you enter the IP address.

8) Follow any remaining instructions given to you by the Wizard (there might not be any. I can’t remember but if there are, it’s only to finish up the process).

9) Test your printer again with a print job that is at least 4 pages in length. It should print to completion. You can close any open control panel windows. In the Devices and Printers window, you will see your printer listed twice now. One icon will have the green check mark, the other won’t. The one with the check mark is using the new port.

I hope this helps someone out there. It was frustrating as heck for me and I know how disappointing it is to get a new printer out of the box and just expect it to work. It should. I don’t know if this is an HP problem or a Windows 8/8.1 problem but it should be mentioned upon purchase of the printer since it sounds like this will be an issue on all devices running those two operating systems.

How many people are going to get fed up and return this printer because they don’t know about this issue? Probably a lot. And it’s a seemingly easy fix. Not a permanent one unless you never turn off your printer and your wireless never goes out but easy to repeat nonetheless should you lose power or connectivity.

Good luck!

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