A Delayed Firmware Update

As mentioned in my previous posting, my 7900 had been idle for some time before printing the most recent job. During much of that time I'd been busy with other things; making prints, or doing anything else photographic hadn't been on my to-do list. I therefore hadn't looked lately to see if Epson had posted any updates to firmware or software for the 7900.

A couple of days ago I did that, and was surprised to find, on the U.S. Epson site, a firmware update dated 29 October 2014. As usual, Epson provided no clues as to what changed between the newer firmware version HN110EA, and the previous release, HN111E8. I've no idea how I missed the posting of this. I am certain I've checked the update page since last October. In any case, I downloaded the newer firmware.

I also downloaded an update of the Remote Panel 2 ("RP2") software for Macintosh OS X (I'm still using version 10.9.5 "Mavericks" of OS X, having found no compelling reason to update to the latest).

RP2 has always been twitchy for me. It seems to have trouble locating my printer. When RP2 eventually succeeds after several attempts, it seems to work fine. I'd hoped the newer RP2 (version 3.01) would improve, but alas, it hasn't. My printer is networked. There are reports that RP2 is more reliable with directly-connected (USB) printers. I've never had mine directly connected, so I can't report on that. Also, for me, RP2 never finds newer firmware; the search always fails. To work around that I download the firmware and then mount the image. I point RP2 to that, which works fine, and then proceed with the update, which also has always worked as expected.

I launched RP2. On the third try it located my printer and displayed its status. I selected the option to update firmware, navigated to the downloaded update file, and waited. RP2's status doesn't show much, only that the update is in process. The printer's LCD is a bit more informative, eventually showing a progress bar of asterisks. When this completed the printer restarted. All appeared to happen normally, and a check of the firmware version on the LCD indicated the new version.

However, when I returned to the computer, RP2 had raised a dialog box indicating the update had failed. No explanation, no numbers, only "Update failed." I dismissed that. RP2's status window showed a small blinking icon of the printer overlaid with an X.

Since the printer rebooted, and shows the proper firmware version installed, and since I can navigate through the menus and all appears normal, I suspect the firmware installation went fine and all's well. I've not made a print since the update, but I have a small job to do in the next few days. If that proceeds as expected and the print looks good, I'll forget about this. If not, I'll report back here.

  --Jay

Printing Hassles, Nothing Unusual

Winter in northwestern Montana: often a time to get outside to play in the snow. It can also be a time to start (and perhaps finish!) projects that are set aside in better weather. I live in a town with an economy supported mostly by tourism. It is located between major ski resorts; we see little traffic from either. The tourist season here is short, essentially from July 4th through Labor Day (in the U.S., that's the first Monday in September). During those two months there's traffic, the sidewalks and shops are crowded with people from places near and far, and every weekend is chock full of events drawing large crowds. This is a time when art galleries do very well, the outdoor art shows occupy local parks and town squares, and artists are busy making prints, framing their work, hanging shows, and attending opening receptions.

But winter! Winter is different. A long season of short days. Cold and snowy (although less so every year, it seems). I've spent much of this winter installing some new tech here, solving the mysteries of my new QNAP NAS (network attached storage), and working to process some of the raw files made last year. I've done very little printing. I last fired up the 7900 on 19 December. Until a couple of days ago when I got a job to make 20 prints for a local artist, a painter who has had several of her original works scanned, and for whom I've made prints before. It seems she's planning ahead for this summer.

After being idle for 30 days, the printer's nozzle check showed about one quarter of the LK channel missing, and a few tiny voids in LC. I ran a standard cleaning of the Y/LK pair. I'm not sure why I did this, as the "standard" cleaning almost never clears the problem. That didn't improve this time. After the cleaning LK was almost entirely missing, and LC was entirely  missing. Before continuing I replaced the VLM cartridge, with an ink level of only 1%, with a new cartridge. I then did a standard cleaning of the LC/VLM pair, after which LC had a few scattered voids and the bottom two lines missing. As expected, LK was unchanged. Next I did a powerful cleaning of Y/LK. This fixed the LK channel and left all others unchanged. Finally, I ran another standard cleaning of LC/VLM, which cleared the LC clogs. I then reinstalled the 1% VLM cartridge.

After more than half an hour of this nonsense I was able to print the job. LK is now at 1%, Y is at 4%. I don't have either of those colors on hand, so it's time to order ink.

These kinds of problems seem to be less severe when I print more often, but even when I print every three or four days these stubborn "clogs" (or "ink delivery problems", which aren't necessarily clogged nozzles) can happen. As I've said so often in these postings, that's life with a 7900.

  --Jay