# [SOLVED] printer wont print colour



## gbrown481 (Jul 30, 2014)

we have an olivetti d-color MF360 on windows 7 x64 and unable to print in colour

the pc is connecting to the printer directly via ip, and i have tried all the available drivers (PCL, PS, XPS and universal) picked full colour as the default setting, yet everything still prints as black and white

does anyone have any experience with these printers/issues that can help?

thanks in advance

Gary


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## JimE (Apr 16, 2009)

*Re: printer wont print colour*

Does it work properly if you connect the printer directly to the computer?

What happens if you perform a test print from the printer properties?


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## gbrown481 (Jul 30, 2014)

*Re: printer wont print colour*

printer is connected direct via ip. printer is shared on the network and is used by alot of other people so taking it off of the network for usb connection isnt really an option. all the other people using the printer are working fine. 

test page comes off black and white


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## bassfisher6522 (Jul 22, 2012)

*Re: printer wont print colour*

If "all others" on your network are using it and it works fine (which I take it to mean it prints in color) then the issue lies with the settings on your PC. I'd recheck all the color settings. Then compare your settings to one of the PC's on the network that prints in color and see what is different and set accordingly. If that doesn't work I'd uninstall that printer from your PC and then reboot and then reinstall that printer.


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## gbrown481 (Jul 30, 2014)

*Re: printer wont print colour*

thanks. tried all that. 

i know its the pc. but why when the pc is using the same driver and os as the others does this one have a problem?


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## bassfisher6522 (Jul 22, 2012)

*Re: printer wont print colour*

If you uninstalled the printer and reinstalled it and it's still is doing it...then I'd look at the host PC with the printer attached to it to see how it's being setup or how the network parameters being applied for this printer.


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## JimE (Apr 16, 2009)

*Re: printer wont print colour*

There are options in the drivers to control color and quality. 

Depending on the printer/drivers, there could be options for quality (draft, normal, best, custom, etc. - draft is usually b&w).

Other options to save ink, such as printing in "grey scale" will also print b&w.

Most likely, somewhere in your printer preferences, something has been changed.


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## Bgearey93 (Jul 31, 2014)

*Re: printer wont print colour*

Good morning

I am looking into this issue as well, on the network PC in question I have looked at a user's settings who can print in colour, the same driver is used as everywhere else. According to the user in question, they just have to set the colour settings in preferences to 'full colour' and it works as expected.

However, I have tried this on the user's account and it has not worked, can anyone shed some light on as to why?


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## Bgearey93 (Jul 31, 2014)

*Re: printer wont print colour*

Good afternoon 

I am part of the same support team as gbrown481 and have taken over this case as of Friday. All of the information provided previously is still relevant to this issue.

On the network PC in question I have looked at another user's settings who can print in colour on the machine, the same driver is used as everywhere else. According to the user in question, they just have to set the colour settings in preferences to 'full colour' and it works as expected.

However, I have tried this on the user's account and it has not worked, can anyone shed some light on as to why?


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## JimE (Apr 16, 2009)

*Re: printer wont print colour*

Try printing from an Admin account.


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## Bgearey93 (Jul 31, 2014)

*Re: printer wont print colour*

Good morning

Logged in as the network administrator, still unable to print in colour, even when setting the quality to full colour. This again was with standard printer copier driver and connected via the server.

Could it be something to do with colour management? When looking at the device profile in the colour management menu, it was set to 'US sheetfed uncoated V2'

Other than that, I can't think of anything else.


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## JimE (Apr 16, 2009)

*Re: printer wont print colour*

Are all of the PC's running the same OS?

Most common cause is drivers. Assuming the PC's are all the same OS, then I'd suspect the OS/registry has some gremlins.


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## Bgearey93 (Jul 31, 2014)

*Re: printer wont print colour*



JimE said:


> Are all of the PC's running the same OS?
> 
> Most common cause is drivers. Assuming the PC's are all the same OS, then I'd suspect the OS/registry has some gremlins.


Yes, the majority of PCs on site run Windows 7 professional, 64 bit. There are a few older systems that run XP but those are being phased out to my knowledge.

The driver used on the server which the printer/copier is shared from is a Konica Minolta Generic 36C-1 series PS driver, version 3.6.0.0, if this is of any help.


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## JimE (Apr 16, 2009)

*Re: printer wont print colour*

At this point, driver version is irrelevant as it's working on the other PC's. Which would seem to indicate the problem is with the one PC that's not working properly.

You could uninstall (ie: Add and Remove programs) all software relevant to the printer, reboot, and reinstall.

Aside from that, I don't know what else you can check. I'd suspect a driver issue, or an OS/registry issue affecting the driver/print service.


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## Corday (Mar 3, 2010)

*Re: printer wont print colour*

Early in this thread it was suggested to plug the printer directly into the problem computer. It was rejected due to the need of multiple users. JimE did not mean for a long time. Just so that the problem could be pinponted, particularly when the settings in the computer could sync.
In addition, is the troubled unit in exactly the same state as the others in regards to Windows Updates and anything else you can think of?


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## Bgearey93 (Jul 31, 2014)

*Re: printer wont print colour*

Good afternoon, sorry for the lack of updates as it has been somewhat hectic over here.

My colleague informs me that sadly connecting the PC directly to the copier is not an option, be it due to lacking the equipment to create a USB connection to the copier or the physical job of moving the tower and required equipment next to the copier.

As far as I know the updates are managed by group policy, so they should all be in the same state.

As mentioned previously the only thing that I can think of is the rendering intent in colour management on the printer is not set correctly for the user account. The user has also expressed some idea that this may be the issue. Can anyone confirm that this could be something to look into?


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## Corday (Mar 3, 2010)

*Re: printer wont print colour*

See this: Change color management settings. Pay particular attention by scrolling down to: Change color settings for a device for all users on the computer. I don't think that's the issue, but at least you can put yours and the users idea to rest.


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## BIGBEARJEDI (Aug 8, 2012)

*Re: printer wont print colour*

Sounds to me like you are getting pushback from your IT guys or Managers that have never solved a network printer problem in their lives! Sheesh! Why can't the printer be removed from the network *BEFORE* or *AFTER* business hours, or 9:30PM on a Saturday or Sunday night when there is NO ONE working in the building! :huh: Unless you work in a Walmart or something? :huh:

Next, it's clear to me from this thread that the problem in on the PC in question. It's quite likely you have a corrupted windows registry or system files that control the printing function.  Have hardware diagnostics been run on this PC? RAM memory, Hard Drive, BIOS, Motherboard? If not, why not? What about viruses; there are many, many viruses that attack printer drivers and cause much havoc? Has that PC been recently scanned with the built-in Anti-Virus scanner such as Norton or McAfee? 

If HW diags pass on the PC, and no viruses or malware is found; I suggest you take a spare hard drive and install XP or Win7; it's not clear what this machine has on it, and install the same OS Windows version that is currently running on that PC onto the spare drive. Install *NO* other programs or software such as MS Office, Photoshop, Quickbooks, or other apps. *ONLY *install the print driver that you say is running fine on the other PCs that are printing properly. If this test resolves the problem, you have windows damage from file corruption or virus damage, and that's that. :grin: The PC then just needs to be rebuilt with all other APPS and user data (unless you have a Roaming Profile setup to do an image load from a network server) and you are good to go! :dance:

This is not really a difficult problem to solve--I used to manage 94 printers on my network and about 85 of them were laser printers, and this is what I would recommend.

Let us know how it turns out.

BIGBEARJEDI


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## Bgearey93 (Jul 31, 2014)

*Re: printer wont print colour*

Good morning, to answer the points that you raised:

The site in question is a food manufacturing plant that runs 24 hours a day, and this particular printer is the main office photocopier, meaning around 40+ people can be trying to use it at any given point. I can ask the on-site IT manager what other printers are available to use if we were to take it off for a short while to form a USB connection to it, but I cannot promise anything on that front.

In regards to hardware diagnostics, drivers and viruses. All the pcs on the network are managed by Symantec end point protection, so if anything was on there it should have flagged up. I can try a Malwarebytes scan, but i'm not holding out for a miracle on that front.

I'm afraid anything hardware or bios related is out of the question due to the site in question being around two hours away from our office, all our administration there is done via remote connections and screen viewing.

In regards to it being a corrupt registry or system file... why would it work for another user on the same system but not the user experiencing the fault? If it helps, the user that cannot print had his user account created from a copy of a colour-enabled user in the network's active directory, so their settings should be identical.

I know it sounds like i'm making excuses, but I am at my wit's end here...


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## BIGBEARJEDI (Aug 8, 2012)

*Re: printer wont print colour*



Bgearey93 said:


> Good morning, to answer the points that you raised:
> _>>>Good afternoon, here. Just getting in and reading your reply, thanks! :smile:<<< _
> The site in question is a food manufacturing plant that runs 24 hours a day, and this particular printer is the main office photocopier, meaning around 40+ people can be trying to use it at any given point. I can ask the on-site IT manager what other printers are available to use if we were to take it off for a short while to form a USB connection to it, but I cannot promise anything on that front.
> _>>>I understand, I had many, many 7x24 client environments to deal with while at IBM, Wang Labs, SoCal Edison, Marriott Hotels, and Food For Less among many others. There are more than 1 way to skin a cat! :wink: That's a good idea to re-route network users to an alternate network printer while that defective one's being worked on. This is not the *BEST* solution, but it's one of the better ones. Chances are even if the USB direct PC connection to that printer works, that if there is corruption in the network system files **has anyone run sfc /scannow on that computer yet??** or in the registry portions that control the network components, the failure won't show up except during a network access; so a local access may work, but the network access may still fail. :facepalm: Have seen this *MANY* times before. :wink:<<<_
> ...


_>>>Yes, it does, and after being a Manufacturing Engineer for many years as I said as well as an IT Manager, Sr. Network Engineer, Project Engineer, etc. you just can't convince me that this problem is unsolvable. You just haven't dealt with enough of them to know the various solutions available. They also may not be available to you, but *SOMEONE* in your company, most likely in the IT organization or the Financial organization, *CAN* help get this problem solved. Hopefully, this will help you. You have to escalate it to your Management (what division are you in again?), and have them play the Politics to get movement to get these things I suggested done. I realize that if you yourself are not a Manager, you don't have the authority to do them, nor even suggest them.:hide: That's why you need to talk to your Boss and tell him what I said. When I was at IBM Field Service, that's why we used to be able to bill Customers $290 per hour for our services; because we didn't *ACCEPT* the excuses you are giving me. *no personal offense intended here*. Just trying to help. _
_Let me know how it goes and if I can advise you further. BBJ <<<<_


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## Bgearey93 (Jul 31, 2014)

*Re: printer wont print colour*

Good morning all

Just letting you know that, much to my surprise as well, the issue has been resolved by technicians from the organisation's head office.

I have been unable to get the full details as of yet, but from what I gather from the user who was experiencing the issue the restrictions were due to some user profile options that had to be enabled on the printer driver. I'm still trying to query the specifics in case this issue comes up again.

Regardless of the solution, I thank you all for your help, contributions and your patience in this matter!


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## BIGBEARJEDI (Aug 8, 2012)

*Re: printer wont print colour*

Glad to help. That's great you got it resolved. :dance: It had sounded like a profile related problem to me all along. And it sounds like you got the right people involved. 

Best, 
BBJ


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