
Epson customers report Google Cloud Print causing printers to power down - fib739mbbh
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chromebook-central/525W6rnP5Dc
======
tssva
My Nexus 6P went into a boot loop on Monday and I got an RMA issued. UPS
emailed me the return shipping label last night and when I went to print it
this morning I couldn't because my Epson WorkForce 845 was in a boot loop.

~~~
BrandonBradley
Yo dog. You got 'boot looted'.

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jameskegel
We don't do that here.

~~~
BrandonBradley
Do what? Make jokes?

~~~
drspacemonkey
Comments should add to the discussion. Even humourous comments. Memes don't
add anything to a discussion.

~~~
BrandonBradley
That is sometimes how I talk when I make jokes. No memes here. Tough crowd.

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Tempest1981
How do you manage to engage an internal Google team on an issue?

From the story: "We are working with Epson and internal Google teams to root
cause this issue"

I've seen many help forum threads go unanswered, after days and pages of
postings.

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cube00
Create a viral video, they notice when a lot of people are complaining about
things vs a loud few.

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lvs
It shouldn't require a marketing campaign to file a bug report.

~~~
pawadu
Unfortunately it does, this is Google after all.

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agumonkey
We'll have Fusion reactors before solid and enjoyable printers.

~~~
rkangel
People just don't seem to realise that moving parts are hard. Phones are
incredibly complex but (mostly) just keep working until you drop them on a
hard floor. Cars have lots of moving parts and need maintenance. Screens use
complicated technology and (mostly) just keep working. Printers have moving
parts and break a lot.

Moving parts are inherently unreliable. We've just got really used to the
incredible reliability that you get from solid state electronics.

My point is that you may well be right. Fusion power is an easier challenge
than mechanical things not breaking because you can do it without moving parts
(give or take a turbine).

~~~
vbezhenar
My iPhone 4S has 0 moving parts, yet it had failed WiFi after 1 year. My
Macbook has 0 moving parts, yet it had failed SSD. My Renault Logan has quite
a lot of moving parts, yet I use it for a few years and almost 100 000
kilometers (and that's quite a lot of movement in extremely different weather
conditions, from -40 to +40) and I had very minimal maintenance outside of
regular oil change.

While I generally agree, the point is, even when there are no moving parts,
there's a lot of failure points (temperature, vibrations) and manufacturers
will create faulty devices, no matter what. If device is too good, they will
cut expenses, until it'll be "good enough".

~~~
mrdavid
The iPhone has a home button, power button, and volume buttons that all move.
The Macbook's keyboard is comprised of moving parts. There's also the screen
hinge which used to be a very common point of failure in laptops.

~~~
zimpenfish
Minor nit - the iPhone 7 doesn't have a physical "home button" \- it's a
force-sensitive area with haptic feedback.

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jftuga
I am having this problem on an Epson Workforce 645. It stays in a continual
boot loop. To fix it, I logged into Cloud Print to delete the printer and also
unplugged my access point. This stopped the boot loop. I then did a 'reset all
settings' from the printer's touch screen menus. After that, I plugged in my
AP again and joined the printer to my WiFi network. I really needed something
printed so I enabled Cloud Print again on the printer unaware of the
consequences. The boot loop started again. :-(

I was actually thinking it was going to be time to buy a new printer as my WF
645 is very old. I thought the WiFi adapter had gone bad and was causing the
boot loop. Apparently this is not the case.

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rplst8
I've had the same thing happen with my Epson WF-3540. It's been a totally
solid printer up until this point.

To fix it I started it up and immediately disabled the Wi-Fi. Then I
"suspended" Google Cloud Print and Epson Connect Services. It's working fine
now - albeit with no cloud services for our phones/tablets.

Hopefully they resolve this soon.

~~~
Veratyr
In my case (WF-7610) I couldn't even get it to boot so I had to power down my
wifi router entirely but the rest of the workaround worked.

~~~
rplst8
P.S. looks like they fixed it. I have Google Cloud Print re-enabled and it's
working fine.

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userbinator
On first glance Google Cloud Print looks like nothing more than an Internet
version of networking printing, a technology which has been around for a
_long_ time; so one is naturally a bit surprised that Epson could get
something like this wrong, but then I dug a little deeper...

[https://developers.google.com/cloud-
print/docs/devguide](https://developers.google.com/cloud-print/docs/devguide)

...and the protocol involves HTTPS, OAuth, JSON, and XMPP(!), so rather more
complex than existing protocols like IPP; although much can be said for having
simple-to-parse protocols especially for embedded devices like these, some
error occurring in the GCP part of the firmware shouldn't cause the whole
printer to become unusable.

~~~
lucaspiller
Wonder why they decided to invent their own protocol? I've used IPP over the
internet via an SSH tunnel, it's slow but it works.

~~~
tjohns
IPP's got a few problems, especially when it comes to phones/tablets or other
mobile devices:

\- IPP requires unique drivers for each printer. Some mobile devices
(Chromebooks and iOS, I believe) don't allow installing drivers.

\- IPP requires that you're on the same LAN segment, or that you punch a hole
through your router. That doesn't work very well when interacting with foreign
printers, and punching a hole through a router is too complex for many home
users.

\- IPP is limited to HTTP Basic/Digest auth, which isn't user friendly or
secure. The traffic's also unencrypted. (And SSH isn't user friendly enough
for home users.)

(Disclaimer: I work for Google, but not on Cloud Print.)

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RX14
Oh wow, this happened to me last night when I was trying to scan something! I
was sure that I had broken it somehow but I guess not. Super surprising to me
to see the reason my printer is broken on HN anyway.

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mcagl
I didn't know Google Cloud Print before, so I made some research on their
site:
[https://www.google.com/cloudprint/learn/](https://www.google.com/cloudprint/learn/)

""" Using Google Cloud Print, you can make your home and work printers
available to you and anyone you choose, from the applications you use every
day. Google Cloud Print works on your phone, tablet, Chromebook, PC, and any
other web-connected device you want to print from. """

Ok, so my printer is supposed to be registered to google cloud to make me
print from anywhere. Ok. But my files?

[https://www.google.com/cloudprint/learn/howitworks.html](https://www.google.com/cloudprint/learn/howitworks.html)

""" When you print through Google Cloud Print, your file is securely sent to
your printer over the web. Because it’s the web, Google Cloud Print works
whether you’re in the same room as your printer, or on another continent. It
also doesn’t matter whether you’re on a phone, a traditional desktop, or
anything in between (like a tablet). """

So if I'm in my room, on my laptop, at 3 meters from my ubersupercloudenabled
printer, I can send my file to it via the web. Securely. Ok.

""" Documents are transferred over a secure HTTPS web connection. After a job
is completed, the associated document is deleted from our servers. """

The file is sent via HTTPS. But the file itself...is it encrypted? (Maybe the
printer generates a keypair upon registration, and the same does every
devices, etc etc...?)

[https://support.google.com/cloudprint/answer/2541843?hl=en&r...](https://support.google.com/cloudprint/answer/2541843?hl=en&ref_topic=4456298)

""" Who can see what I’m printing?

Google Cloud Print jobs are submitted and retrieved over a secure connection
(https), and are only available to you and the printer you’re using. """

""" Any document you send for printing is kept strictly confidential. Google
does not access the documents you print for any purpose other than to improve
printing. """

"to improve printing" may be the "metaphor" behind the functioning of Google
Cloud Print itself. This can be read, after removing the double negations and
the other usual tricks as "Google access the documents you print to give to
you the comfort to print your files while staying 3 meters away from your
printer, by passing them to the cloud and our automatic eyes and
godknowswhat".

NO. THANKS BUT NO.

~~~
jaclaz
>So if I'm in my room, on my laptop, at 3 meters from my ubersupercloudenabled
printer, I can send my file to it via the web. Securely. Ok.

Conversely, if you are NOT within a few meters of your printer, resetting the
machine, managing paper jams, cartridge or toner replacement (i.e. solve the
issues that invariably happen every single time you really need to print
something, particularly if you are in a hurry) is _tricky_.

~~~
mcagl
Exactly. I don't know why this GCP seems so "irreplaceable" to people using
it, given the implications of "sending your files to google just to print
them".

I can do the same using a wifi/eth enabled printer and my router plus maybe
using a firewall to block the printer to go out on the internet and to be
called from outside.

~~~
nucleardog
> I can do the same using a wifi/eth enabled printer and my router plus maybe
> using a firewall to block the printer to go out on the internet and to be
> called from outside.

Gmail? I can do the same thing with a VPS, qmail, dspam, courier, and
roundcube. Why does gmail even exist?

Congratulations - you're very smart. But you're not the target market.

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thrillgore
This happened to my WorkForce 545 after sending a print job to it last night.
Ended up in an endless reset loop until I was able to reset it to factory
settings.

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teddyh
Welcome to the Internet of Things.

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SFJulie
Maybe EPSON does not know how to update their printer's firmware.

Maybe google noticed a botnet of EPSON printer trying to knock them down. Or a
poorly setup of uPnP/network that helps penetrate (THEIR) networks...

Maybe they just shut down the printers because nothing else can be done to
suppress the threat.

Maybe they don't publicized it because :

1) this is called illegal penetration of someone else system (hacking...) and
is a penal offense in many countries

2) it would give IoT a bad name (Google's kind of prospective beneficial
market)

3) it would be illegal for them/very costly to give the information (libel,
NDA...)

4) there is NO solutions...

This is pure speculation, because since I don't think google throw their
printer in the trash, no one can go to their office and check if they are
actually throwing away some EPSON printers.

