Fixing Mac + HP “Expired Ink” Error
Or, “Why won’t my Mac print to my HP 8500 network printer any more?”
So, you’ve had a continuous ink supply system (CISS) running for a while, and you’ve pushed past the HP printer warnings that the ink was low. Or maybe that new cartridge sat on the shelf for too long. Either way, you got the dreaded “Ink is Expired” error. You’ve seen HP’s page about why this happens, but you want to press forward.
You got the printer to ignore the warning, but now there’s an odd problem… Windows PCs can print just fine over the network, but Macs can’t. You get an error that looks like this:
It reads: The following cartridges are past their expiration dates: Black. You should remove or replace the expired cartridges or click OK to continue with the expired cartridges. HP cannot guarantee the quality or reliability of expired cartridges. Printer service or repairs required as a result of using expired cartridges will not be covered under warranty.
What the heck is going on? There’s no “OK” button to click, and your print job never prints. Well, actually it will – if you’re patient enough to wait 85 minutes! You’re stuck. Of course, you could throw in the towel and pay HP about $90 for a fresh set of ink cartridges, but I’m more stubborn than that.
What I Discovered…
HP’s printer driver for MacOS checks the status of the ink supplies before it’ll release the print job. If it sees the inks are expired, it displays this warning and waits for your OK – but they brilliantly didn’t code in an OK button, either here or in the Supply Levels dialog.
In fact, the driver sends the printer 18 “SNMP” queries every second to read different status values, waiting for you to clear the condition. After 85 minutes of doing this, it’ll finally give up and forward your print job from the computer’s queue to the printer.
However… I discovered that if the Mac never receives a reply to its queries, the HP printer driver gives up after 8 seconds, assumes the printer is healthy, and releases the print job. Eureka! Now, how to make that happen?
An Easy Fix!
I’ll spare you the seriously nerdy machinations behind this discovery. And the equally intense original workaround involving command-line firewall filter rules in MacOS. In the end, the fix is painfully simple: go to the printer and turn off the SNMP management protocol. This is done through the web GUI.
First, find your printer’s IP address. You won’t find this in your Mac easily – go to the printer and navigate its menu to Setup | Network | Network Settings to find an address like 192.168.1.22. Then enter that address in your web browser, like http://192.168.1.22 – your printer’s web page should load.
Go to the Networking tab and select SNMP in the left pane. This page will load:
Check the button that says Disable SNMPv1 and click Apply. Problem solved!
(If you’re the techie type that wants SNMP support for other purposes, just change the “community string” to something other than the default value of “public” and the printer will still ignore the Mac’s queries.)
We’ve been coping with issue this for months, shuttling Mac files to a PC for printing; I finally spent hours hacking up a crafty fix before I realized it could just be disabled at the printer. Hopefully this post saves other folks a ton of frustration!
Do You Have a Different HP Printer?
This fix might work for other HP printers too, since HP’s Mac printer drivers probably share a lot of common code. If you have a different model of printer that this fixes (or doesn’t), please comment below with the model number so others will find this fix!
Bit Twiddler's Rant 
05 October 2012 at 16:52
I LOVE YOU!
after a stupid amount of time trying to get HP to help you solved it!
05 October 2012 at 19:28
LOL – I know! Such a stupid PITA problem. I’m embarrassed to have suffered for months when the fix turned out to be so easy!
27 December 2018 at 16:15
Hello Richard, I have messed around trying to bypass this ink problem on my Windows 10 and purchase the ink off of eBay which they refunded my money then got off the phone with HP trying to get an answer out of them as to how to do this which they wouldn’t give me an answer. How do I do this on a printer that does not have a menu it’s a cheap e HP deskjet 2540?
28 December 2018 at 07:27
Hi, Julie. A couple thoughts… First, this fix only works when you’re connecting to the printer over a network, not via USB. Then, I’ve only tested it with the Mac printer drivers, which use SNMP to check the ink status. I don’t know if the Windows driver works the same (I’d wager it does), so it may or may not work for you.
You should be able to print a test page that has the printer’s IP address. Put that in your web browser (e.g., http://192.168.1.20) and it should pull up the printer’s configuration web page where you can change the settings. Please comment back whether this works, so others will know!
07 October 2012 at 13:48
Thank you so much, greatly appreciate this. I was getting ready to buy a new printer and throw this one in the garbage. Took 2 minutes and it’s now fixed!
08 October 2012 at 09:05
Fantastic! I’m glad my post helped.
09 October 2012 at 15:11
i don’t often lose my cool, but i truly wanted to shove my printer off the balcony. partly because of these stupid queries and also because i just couldn’t figure it out 😦 i’m very appreciative of your seriously nerdy machinations.
09 October 2012 at 18:17
Awesome – I’m glad to hear the word is getting out. I really like this printer (and it’s not cheap), so I wasn’t eager to hunt for a replacement.
Cheers!
15 October 2012 at 10:46
I am having the same problem with an HP Photosmart C7180. Unfortunately all the OS 10.8.2 upgrades make it impossible (for me anyway) to access the IP address of the printer. I have tried accessing the utility via hard wire, via blue tooth, have even gone on HP’s site. Just can’t seem to get to the IP screen. The 10.6 scan function used the old web interface, but that’s been upgraded. Can anyone help? This is such a stupid problem – the cartridge is nearly full, but “expired.”
Thanks much in advance for the brainpower!!
15 October 2012 at 11:49
Update – I got the IP address (I reset the Network settings to factory default using the Setup buttons on the printer itself) – unfortunately my HP Photosmart C7180 doesn’t list SNMPv1 as an option in the interface. Looks like I will have to foot the bill for a new cartridge. If anyone has an idea, let me know??
16 October 2012 at 10:40
Hi, Paul. It does look like you’re stuck there – I checked the manual for that printer, and they don’t give an option to configure SNMP anywhere. There is a way to block the SNMP traffic using MacOS’ built-in firewall (that’s the hack I started to develop). I can look into finishing that work, but honestly it won’t be really soon given other stuff on my to-do list. If other folks report similar obstacles with other HP printers, I’ll see about moving it to the top of the list.
16 October 2012 at 11:13
Thanks RIchard. I bit the bullet and bought the new cartridge. If you do get a chance to sort it out, would love to know the work around. Just such a waste of money. Thanks again for sharing your insights!!
Paul
26 October 2012 at 17:20
FYI, a user reports here: http://h30492.www3.hp.com/t5/Drucker-und-All-in-One-Geräte/Officejet-Pro-8500-druckt-nicht-mehr-vom-MAC/td-p/86422/page/2
that disabling SNMP as described will prevent scanning from working. Personally, I have the scanner write JPEGs or PDFs to a shared network drive (or send an e-mail, which is very handy!), so I didn’t run into this issue with scanning direct-to-Mac. I only print from my Macs.
Even a more advanced approach with the Mac Firewall (not yet posted here) will not help the scanning situation for Macs. However, blocking SNMP on the Mac instead of the printer would at least let Windows PCs use the scan-to-PC feature.
01 November 2012 at 08:34
Great! Finally a solution for this stupid issue. Thanks for posting this. I can love my printer again!
01 November 2012 at 09:10
If not for you, man, I could throw the printer. Many thanks! Уou’re the best
08 November 2012 at 08:51
You are a miracle. I was on the brink of throwing it out the window. Thanks so much for posting this and helping all of us to beat the HP genius’
11 December 2012 at 03:48
Hi!
There is at least one other way to make your HP8500 print. Just open and close the door behind which the cartridges are sitting. It will instantly start printing.
This way will for sure make your network printer a very short ranged one but you can queue print jobs that way and start printing when you pass it on your way getting a new coffee.
T
26 December 2012 at 09:27
I have an HP Officejet Pro 8500A Premium. My Mac is connected wireless. I looked up the IP address and tried your fix and put http://10.0.1.2 (which is my IP address) in my web browser. When I do that, Safari comes back and says it can’t find the server. Am I doing something wrong?
26 December 2012 at 11:58
Hmmm. It’s odd that you can connect to print but not to the web server in the printer.
I found this alternate way of finding the printer’s IP address, just in case it’s not the one you found:
Go to http://localhost:631/printers/
This opens a web page on your local Mac, through which you can find the IP address your Mac is using to print. Click on the queue name and get the IP from the “Connection: lpd://” line.
28 December 2012 at 09:05
This is what I get when I followed your directions. Connection: dnssd://Officejet%20Pro%208500%20A910%20%5B5389D7%5D._pdl-datastream._tcp.local./?bidi
It doesn’t show an Idp://
I heard that my IP address should start with a 192. xxx not a 10.xx so I think there is something wrong with my IP address. I can still print but I keep from getting the expired ink messages. I turn my printer off until I’m ready to print then turn it off again when I’m done printing.
28 December 2012 at 10:57
Sorry, I don’t have much more advice for you on this one. Perhaps someone else can comment. I can tell you the 10.x IP address is perfectly legit – it’s just that home networks ship with 192.168.x.x addresses and the default is rarely changed. The 10.x address suggests that you might be on a corporate network or someone just changed the addressing on your home network from the default (which is fine).
29 December 2012 at 15:03
Hi Richard, today I was so much disappointed about that shit restriction and I also thought to throw it away….and now like a late christmas gift I can continue to use my printer (8500 909a).
Thank you so much and wish you a happy new year and much more good ideas…..
Greetz from Berlin / Germany
31 December 2012 at 03:33
awesome, thank you so much. Nevertheless, i will get rid of this HP crap and buy an other printer.
05 February 2013 at 13:23
Fantastic ! You almost saved my life. Thks for the tip.
08 February 2013 at 15:37
I too thank you for this post. HP has no helpful information regarding this problem, not to mention that there is no OK button to be used in the mac.
12 February 2013 at 05:32
Hi
I am using windows, and am fed up of pressing the OK button for every sheet it prints, is there a way around this for me, other than buying expensive HP ink?
Thanks
Richard
12 February 2013 at 08:00
Hi, Richard.
If your printer is network-connected, this technique may work for Windows machines as well. If it’s USB connected, this won’t help.
Have you tried this fix with Windows?
Cheers, Richard
22 February 2013 at 06:14
Hi
Its now on as a network and the messages have stopped
Thanks
Richard
20 February 2013 at 08:48
Hi Richard, thanks so much for your help with this issue, which is really vexing. I followed your instructions but unfortunately I’m still having trouble — my Mac now doesn’t seem to connect to the printer and the printer’s on-screen menu is stuck on the ink expiry message. It also seems that I can now no longer connect to the printer’s web page. Is there any way to re-enable SNMPv1? Or even get back to the printer’s web page? Many thanks
04 May 2013 at 19:46
Thank you! Your fix worked immediately. My 7680 has been giving the expired ink message at each bootup, but there’s a button override on the printer panel that clears it for the remainder of the session. Tonight I trolled the net for a while and came across your SNMP fix. So easy! Why don’t any of the HP responders know about such a simple fix? All their replies are ineffectual.
Thank you again!
05 May 2013 at 13:46
Hi, Phillip. I’m very glad the fix worked for you – thanks for letting me know!
Cheers, Richard
06 May 2013 at 04:45
Thank you so much ! I nearly took my printer apart trying to disable the battery and had even started looking for a replacement. This worked immediately – you’re a lifesaver. If there’s any way we can return the favour please let us know.
06 June 2013 at 16:19
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
10 June 2013 at 18:51
this graphic says it all really, thought you might sympathise…
/large
07 June 2013 at 21:02
You’re a GENIUS
Thankyou for the help.
Why is it HP can’t offer that sort of simple support?
08 June 2013 at 14:18
I think it’s a sad reflection on HP’s unwillingness to do The Right Thing. They’re under-serving a significant market segment (Macs), and they seem to have no interest in improving the quality of support when informed their answers are invalid.
One could easily conclude they care only about their own interests (driving replacement ink sales) instead of allowing customers to make an informed decision about using “expired” ink.
20 July 2013 at 17:56
I had a hard time figuring out how to get the printer IP address. Here’s what I did on my Mac. Yours may be set up differently.
To find the network address on your Mac, click Network icon in the System Preferences window. You will see the Router address (if you are using). Mine is 192.168.1.254. Put that address in your browser URL field. It will take you to a page that shows all the devices in your network. Look for your printer – in my network it was called HP9AB808. View the device details and it will show the ip address of the printer. Put the printer ip address in your browser URL field and you will see OfficeJet admin interface as pictured above.
I hope this helps some.
16 August 2013 at 21:13
Brilliant! And thank you! Your absolutely burned up/off some Karma for yourself…BIG TIME!
20 September 2013 at 04:45
I have an HP Photosmart C7280. Having accessed the printer using a web browser and the printer’s URL if find that only mDNS and UPnP are listed under Applications on the Network tab! Any suggestions how to proceed? Thanks.
21 September 2013 at 14:06
Hi, Richard.
The only suggestion I can offer is to apply firewall rules on your Mac that don’t allow outbound UDP traffic to the SNMP port at your printer’s IP address. That’s not a series of steps I’ve mapped out yet, so you’re on your own there, sorry.
21 July 2014 at 00:12
I clicked on UPnP and clicked on the Disable button, my printer now prints. I still get the warning of expired cartridge but the printer carrys on printing regardless.
29 July 2014 at 22:06
Thanks for this post. I’m trying to set up an HP Officejet Pro 8500 A909a on my Mac. This model is not equipped with wifi or an graphic LCD screen (just words). I’m connected with a USB and was not able to follow the prompts on the printer to locate an IP. Any help for me? I replaced all the cartridges but the printer queue window still says they’re expired (no OK button!!!). The printed just printed one of my pages from my 2 page job after about 30 minutes in the queue… thoughts? help? Thanks.
31 July 2014 at 18:03
Hi. I found that the key is to disable SNMP management traffic. On my printer I was able to disable it on the printer side. If you can’t do that, then the next option would be to block it on the Mac side.
The detailed steps are more than I can fit in a reply here, but the idea would be to block inbound SNMP replies, ideally just from the printer’s IP address, but a crude approach is to block it from all devices. The latter option may cutoff management traffic that you do want from other devices (this need is unlikely).
In either case what you need to block is data packets coming from UDP port 161 on the remote device, and destined for any UDP port on your Mac. I believe one option for this is ‘iptables’, a command-line firewall. The firewall in MacOS Preferences may also have this ability, and there is one other method that I’d researched before discovering I could just disable SNMP at the printer. I’ll have to leave it to Google to turn up options and detailed steps here.
I do recall writing about how to get the printer’s IP from your print driver, which you can use to build the firewall rule.
31 July 2014 at 18:07
Ah… I just noticed you said you’re connected via USB. These tricks will only work for a network-connected printer. (Mine is wired Ethernet.). On USB, you can’t turn off the management traffic.
25 October 2014 at 07:07
I have a HP C7280 all in one printer and had ink cartridges that I couldn’t use as they were out of date; I couldn’t use the above fix as I have a MAC so the way I got round this was to take out the CMOS battery. This is an easy 5/10 min job but make sure you have a T10 bit to remove the screws.
Watch the following link for the 1st couple of mins and it will show you exactly what to do.
The battery is situated at the top left as you flip the circuit board up.
25 October 2014 at 12:12
Thanks for the extra pointer!
22 May 2015 at 22:48
Thank you very much Richard, disabling SNMP will disable level monitoring also, as well as the scanner.
I tried changing the time in preferences, as well as on my computer, and that didn’t trick it either. Opening/closing the door worked sometimes. I could print from Windows7 after the warning just fine. My cartridges had been expired for over a year and worked fine up until now that I added one I foolishly bought from Ebay which was also expired. Once it caught on to that (Black), then it seemed to pick up on all my other cartridges, too. I am on OSX 10.4.10 with PPC for some noodling and design stuff and rarely print anymore.
Also, if you cannot find the IP address of the printer, if you go to the page: http://localhost:631/printers/ you should see your printers, and it also lists the fax. You will see an IP address to the right and that’s also the IP address for the printer configuration page.
How lame!!
14 June 2015 at 13:07
Just a note to tell you thank you! And to let you know you are still helping people with this in 2015!!!
10 July 2015 at 05:17
Unfortunately I have done everything but problem persists.
I have an HP Officejet printer 8600 and a Mac
Any advices on how to eliminate the following message ? “Used or Counterfeit Cartridge Detected: Black. The original HP ink in this cartridge has been depleted. Was this cartridge sold to you as a new, genuine HP-branded cartridge that has not been previously …”
Thank you!!!!
10 July 2015 at 08:32
Unfortunately, I don’t have an answer for you there. I haven’t seen that message before, so it must be from a newer print driver. But I would expect it’d be getting that info using the same method, so this fix should work; it’s always possible they got “smarter”…
Is your printer connected via USB? This fix only works if you’re connecting over the network.
29 August 2015 at 16:09
Is there any solution for a USB-only HP printer? Or do I need to give mine away? Thanks!
29 August 2015 at 17:14
Sadly, no fix that I know of for a USB-only printer.
29 August 2015 at 17:51
For example, is there a way to deal with this message via Terminal?
29 August 2015 at 19:25
Sorry, Sam. No way that I know. In theory it would be possible to hack a patch to make the driver stop checking, but this isn’t my area of hacking skill.
15 September 2015 at 06:07
I have a 7280 connected to my PC with a USB connection. Expired cartridges. I view hp with the highest disdain for this travesty.
19 November 2015 at 10:25
Hey ! You are the greatest ! After houres spending time reaing manuals and blogs and help lines now this: Just a simple click for my OFFICEJET PRO 8000 ! I’m flashed. Thanks forever!
04 April 2016 at 13:57
April 2016 – Thank you!! still helping frustrated HP printer users conquer this absurd problem! I am hoping to run through the rest of my ink and purchase a different brand instead of more ink. HP holds you hostage. It’s completely disgusting business practices in my opinion.
17 June 2016 at 09:35
Brilliant. Truly. I will never by anything HP ever again.
10 October 2016 at 03:04
You are excellent… thanks a lot
04 December 2016 at 07:16
Thank you for your solution. However it doesn’t work for me. Suddenly my HP 8500A gave the message that 2 of the cartridges were expired. In the web-browser (mac safari) I disabled SNMP and changed the date of the printer. It looks like those changes aren’t in effect on the printer itself. Even after restarts the same message appears. That message is blocking everything on my printer. I’m a hostage of my printer.
04 December 2016 at 10:34
Hi, Wout.
This fix only works if your printer is connected to your computer over the network. It sounds like maybe you are USB connected?
If that’s not the case, I don’t have a solution for you. Sadly, my printer developed a fault in the print mechanism, which has made it stop scanning and faxing too. It’s on it’s way to the recycler.
04 December 2016 at 13:33
Hi Richard, thanks for your quick reply. Sad to hear of the bad if not, fatal condition of your printer. My printer is connected via my home-network. No USB-connection. It seems i’m stuck. Maybe it’s best to change to the original cartridges for once.
07 July 2017 at 07:05
Awesome tip but does not work for HP Photosmart C6180. Thanks anyway.
29 September 2017 at 09:08
Try removing the CMOS battery. Find info on Youtube for your specific printer. Was a pretty easy fix. It seemed to reset the clock on the printer.
29 September 2017 at 09:05
This did not work for my C7280 All-in-one. I ended up having to open up the printer and removing the CMOS battery for a few minutes and then replacing it. Problem solved
29 September 2017 at 09:10
That might also be a great solution. If it resets the clock or counters that track ink usage, it’ll buy you another cycle. Of course, you’ll probably have to repeat it every few months, but that might not be bad.
29 September 2017 at 09:16
BTW the reason this didn’t Work for me . When I went into the printer site and tried to go to Networking it kept asking for a a Username and Password for Authentication. If you have a way to circumvent this if it happens again I would love to not have to open the panel of my printer.
29 September 2017 at 09:44
I don’t have an answer for you there. Often the passwords are set to a default that’s well-known, so a Google search should find it. Or, search for a process to reset the password (often, it’s something like holding a button during power-on).
30 April 2018 at 04:17
Hi Richard. Just to let you know that this fix appears to have worked for our T920 plotter. The cartridges still show as expired but the print now overrides it. Those cartridges we use are all over £40 each and it showed that three, all over 80% full were expired! Ludicrous.
Thanks again
Mark
03 October 2018 at 12:02
Another successful fix on an Officejet Pro 8000 A809
03 September 2019 at 01:37
Hi Richard, this didn’t seem to work for us to our HP1500 plotter, when printing via ‘HP Click’
23 November 2021 at 17:58
HP is sucks on customer service and support
I will never buy another HP printer in my life.
Cartridge expire error and I replaced the cartridge for a new HP original and no luck.
09 October 2022 at 01:47
im with you on never giving HP anymore business Carlos. unfortunately, i had bought their pavillion 15z just a few weeks before this mishap with my printer. only bought it because of the specs and fond memories of my first HP laptop back, back in the day, never again though.
09 October 2022 at 01:41
i had got a similar error message today on my officejet Pro 7720. for me, the fix basically comes down to downgrading your firmware as said here;
https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Printer-Ink-Cartridges-Print-Quality/Older-generation-cartridge-error/td-p/8266976
i also found out this;
“HP released a firmware update on March 12, 2016 for several of the company’s Officejet printers that renders non-HP ink cartridges useless.
All reported that a HP Officejet printer blocked non-HP ink cartridges from working, and that the device displayed one of the following messages to the user:
1. The ink cartridge listed above is an older generation ink cartridge that does not work in your printer. It can still be used with some older printer models.
2. If you do not own an older printer model and your ink cartridge is a genuine HP cartridge, contract HP support for more information.
It appears that HP programmed the firmware update that it released in March to block non-HP ink cartridges from working starting September 13, 2016.”
30 December 2022 at 04:16
You cam try this:
Press and hold down the “Power” button while you press the “Resume” button three times. The Resume light stops blinking and the cartridge light goes out.
https://smallbusiness.chron.com/disable-timers-hp-ink-40724.html