Products · Pattern or everyday thing
Printers
Raised as a usability problem by 176 people on Hacker News over 17 years (2010–2026), in 159 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
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Every issue, all time, most people first
Setup forces an app with excessive permissions before the printer can bootUnreviewed
20102026- Desktop setup failed for hours; only the phone app worked, which felt wrong for a printer2026-06-24
- Setup is so convoluted it needs extra software, accounts, a bad app and a laggy tiny display2024-07-09
- Took hours of installing and uninstalling HP software just to get it working2023-11-27
Hard to cancel a print job, so single pages print whole documentsUnreviewed
20102026- Printer silently refuses to print with wrong paper size and gives no useful error2025-04-24
- Randomly refuses to print, prints half pages, and scanning is nearly impossible on macOS2024-09-10
- Printer inconsistently prints, sometimes only half of the requested document2023-05-29
Printing requires layers of software, accounts, and subscription offersUnreviewed
20102026- Printing and scanning keep breaking and need businesses to install and fix them2026-08-18
- Printer forces account creation and login on a website before printing anything2025-02-21
- Printing requires layers of software, accounts, subscription offers and clunky menus2025-01-22
Printer constantly needs rebooting and cannot keep a WiFi connectionUnreviewed
20102026- Print jobs vanish or fail, forcing repeated unplugging, restarts and driver reinstalls2026-03-20
- Constantly stops printing, needs unplugging and an hour wait to recover2024-07-09
- Printer constantly needs rebooting and cannot maintain a WiFi connection2024-03-26
Scanner ignores flatbed choice; black-and-white printing refused when a color ink is emptyUnreviewed
20102026- Scanning is blocked when ink is out, with no obvious way around it2025-03-19
- Scanner stops working when ink runs low, making the scanner unusable2023-10-06
- Blocks black-and-white printing when magenta ink is low2023-05-21
Installing a printer driver takes many confusing manual stepsUnreviewed
20102026- Installing a printer on Windows requires going through a lot of steps2022-01-21
- Adding a new printer on Windows is confusing compared to macOS auto-setup2018-08-03
- Installing a printer driver takes many confusing manual steps and dialogs2016-05-17
Windows can't find the printer after its IP address changesUnreviewed
20102026- Average users must find printer IP and manually configure it without automatic discovery2024-09-27
- Hard to find or access the printer's network settings, needing Windows or LAN2018-10-31
- Driver install silently fails, printer ends up on wrong driver or localhost, requiring manual IP setup2017-02-06
Printer unusable over USB without internet connection to HP's cloudUnreviewed
20102026- Printer setup needed a 100 MB driver, a USB connection, and an hour of retries2026-01-11
- Printer unusable over USB without an internet connection to HP's cloud2024-01-10
- Printers use USB-B ports and ship without a matching cable, so setup fails2023-10-24
Printer locks to first cartridge's region, rejecting replacement inkUnreviewed
20102026- Constant cartridge swaps, head cleanings, driver installs and jams make inkjets nearly unusable for staff2021-10-16
- Printer permanently locks to first cartridge's region, rejecting replacement ink the user bought2018-08-20
- Ink reorder and cartridge return process gets tangled, leaving user frustrated and unable to get ink2017-12-06
Setup means fiddling with a tiny touch screen and clumsy menusUnreviewed
20102026- Printer menu is impossible to navigate2025-09-20
- Getting a printer's IP address requires navigating tiny menus and printing a page2021-11-28
- Setting up the printer through its small LCD and buttons is painful2021-07-13
Hand-entered layout code took many failed iterations before printing correctlyUnreviewed
20102026- Repeated failures lining up addresses for printing on envelopes despite knowing the setup2025-03-08
- Setting up layouts by hand-entered code took many failed iterations before printing correctly2023-05-26
- Settings keep resetting, prints come out wrong, and fixing them requires digging into detailed settings2021-11-10
Printing breaks on Macs and iPhones with no way to diagnose whyUnreviewed
20102026- Duplex printing silently fails and printers break after Ubuntu upgrades, hard to debug2026-04-08
- Printing breaks on Macs and iPhones with no way to diagnose what went wrong2024-10-16
- Printing fails most of the time from Mac with third-party cartridges, and an error appears after firmware update2022-01-08
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 50 complaints
- Tiny screen and confusing menu made it hard to find where to enter wifi password2026-09-25
- Printing and scanning keep breaking and need businesses to install and fix them2026-08-18
- Setup took an hour and needed fifteen minutes of figuring out head cleaning2026-06-27
- Desktop setup failed for hours; only the phone app worked, which felt wrong for a printer2026-06-24
- Duplex printing silently fails and printers break after Ubuntu upgrades, hard to debug2026-04-08
- Print jobs vanish or fail, forcing repeated unplugging, restarts and driver reinstalls2026-03-20
- Printing takes unclear icon-based steps; the share icon's meaning isn't obvious2026-03-01
- Hard to tell which icon starts printing; the print flow is confusing2026-02-22
- Entering a random WiFi password with arrow keys took ten minutes2026-01-23
- Printer and scanner setup became hard to get working after Ubuntu upgrades2026-01-11
- Laptop prints unicode garbage and print queue sometimes needs a reboot to clear2026-01-11
- Printer setup needed a 100 MB driver, a USB connection, and an hour of retries2026-01-11
- Dark patterns and bad design make the printer software frustrating to use2025-11-02
- Printer menu is impossible to navigate2025-09-20
- Screens push users to click trust on self-signed certificate warnings, training bad habits2025-08-20
- HP printers have crapware, hidden costs and hostile, sabotaged wireless printing2025-06-13
- Printer silently refuses to print with wrong paper size and gives no useful error2025-04-24
- Printer alters out-of-gamut yellow flowers so they often look awful2025-04-19
- Scanning is blocked when ink is out, with no obvious way around it2025-03-19
- Repeated failures lining up addresses for printing on envelopes despite knowing the setup2025-03-08
- Must spam the Stop button for 10 seconds on every power-on2025-03-05
- Printer forces account creation and login on a website before printing anything2025-02-21
- Printing requires layers of software, accounts, subscription offers and clunky menus2025-01-22
- Steered toward ink rental subscription through dark patterns2025-01-20
- Printing breaks on Macs and iPhones with no way to diagnose what went wrong2024-10-16
- Average users must find printer IP and manually configure it without automatic discovery2024-09-27
- Must visit the printer manufacturer's website to find drivers2024-09-26
- Randomly refuses to print, prints half pages, and scanning is nearly impossible on macOS2024-09-10
- App is so bad that switching photo formats forces batching scans separately2024-07-27
- Constantly stops printing, needs unplugging and an hour wait to recover2024-07-09
- Found printer can't be reset for new use; tied to previous owner's account, support refuses to release it2024-07-09
- Setup is so convoluted it needs extra software, accounts, a bad app and a laggy tiny display2024-07-09
- Support repeated unplug-and-reconnect steps; driver was hard to find on website2024-06-11
- Setting up the printer required installing sketchy software, a USB firmware update, and guessing how to connect to Wi-Fi2024-04-23
- Couldn't get the printer to print despite repeated setup attempts, even with support2024-04-11
- Printer constantly needs rebooting and cannot maintain a WiFi connection2024-03-26
- Printer repeatedly drops WiFi connection, requiring reboot or logging into HP Smart2024-03-26
- Shows a cancelled message for an operation the user never cancelled2024-02-16
- Third-party app interfaces are confusing, with each vendor using its own inconsistent layout2024-02-01
- Setup pushes Wi-Fi via a sticker covering the USB port and nudges users into Instant Ink2024-01-22
- Printer unusable over USB without an internet connection to HP's cloud2024-01-10
- New printers repeatedly obstruct or annoy users in ways they find hostile2023-12-29
- Cartridges are region-locked, so replacements bought abroad won't work2023-12-28
- Driver workaround needs several extra hoops to keep printer working without crapware2023-12-09
- Scanning requires online account or phone camera; printing over network randomly errors until printed via USB2023-12-05
- Took hours of installing and uninstalling HP software just to get it working2023-11-27
- Windows keeps choosing a non-working printer driver from Windows Update, and the user can't get it fixed2023-10-28
- Printers use USB-B ports and ship without a matching cable, so setup fails2023-10-24
- Scanner stops working when ink runs low, making the scanner unusable2023-10-06
- Setup took hours and the user still couldn't work out how to get it running2023-10-05