At work, I came upon a CP3505 LaserJet printer that was displaying this error message:
RFU LOAD ERROR
DOWNLOAD FILE NOW
SEND RFU UPGRADE
Naturally, I wondered why a perfectly good printer would get to this state. I power cycled the printer which revealed the true error:
INFLATE FAILURE
DOWNLOAD FILE NOW
SEND RFU UPGRADE
I looked this error on Google, and found many other people in the same situation with no really good answers. This printer either needed a new formatter board or an RFU firmware update. I thought it would be simple enough to connect to the printer via FTP over the network and force the update, but I noticed that there was no activity displaying on the jetdirect port on the side of the printer. Sure enough, a ping to the printer resulted in lost packets.
At this point, I knew that I needed to directly connect to the printer using a USB cable since there were no other options (besides replacing the formatter board). Using Windows XP or Vista was unfortunately out of the question because I only had access to a Mac. Looking online, I couldn’t find a single resource in order to send a firmware file to the printer. I checked HP business forums, Google, and more with little to no results. After a little experimenting, I figured out what was needed to fix the printer using a Mac. These steps are similar to using a PC, but I found that a Mac was *much* easier after everything was said and done.
1. Get the firmware file from HP’s website. It’s usually in the “Cross operating system (BIOS, Firmware, Diagnostics, etc.)” category. When you visit that category, HP usually shows 3-4 links to firmware files (Mac, Windows, UNIX, etc). Secret here is that they are really all the same RFU firmware file, just compressed using different formats. Go ahead and down the one of choice and save it on your desktop or similar location.
2. Uncompress the files and remove the old compressed file since that will no longer be needed. Once again, I placed my file on the desktop, so I knew where it was.
3. Find a USB 2.0 cable (Type A to B) and plug that into your printer (while it’s on and displaying the error message). Then plug the other end to your computer. Nothing should happen on the computer side.
4. Next, go into the “Print and Fax” System Preferences control panel .
5. Click on the “plus” sign at the bottom left like you are installing a new printer.
6. In the add printer dialog box, make sure that the default icon is selected.
7. Then, you should see a printer in the list (only one in the list) called “HP LaserJet USB Upgrade”. If you do not see this printer (or any printer), you may have a bad cable, but most likely, you’re printer is toast. Click on HP LaserJet USB Upgrade, and your computer will try finding drivers for this type of printer (at this point, your computer has no idea what type of printer this is).
8. Go to “Print Using:” and select “Select Printer Software”.
9. When the list of printers come up, select an HP 4100 series printer driver. You may be wondering why you are choosing the HP 4100 series printer driver and your original printer driver. The answer is fairly simple, it really doesn’t matter what driver you choose except that it needs to the a certain kind that allows your computer to send a regular file to a printer for processing. Most of the HP drivers will do this, to be on the safe side, select the 4100.
10. Next, you’ll want to make sure it’s set as the default printer (you’ll see why in a minute). Although my picture shows that the printer is Offline, it should be Online if it’s still connected to the printer.
11. This next step involves using the terminal. Open the terminal by going to Applications>Utilities>Terminal. You can also perform a spotlight search for it.
12. Once the terminal window is up, type in “lpr” and then a space, and then type in the location of your firmware file, or drag and drop the firmware file (called “cp3505fw_03.020.3.rfu” in my case) on to the terminal window and the OS will do the rest. This command will print a file to the default printer which is why that was set earlier.
13. Press enter, and you should start to see a progress with the printer. Once the file is transferred over, the printer will power cycle and be ready for printing. All network settings should have remained intact. Enjoy! You can remove the printer we just created by clicking on the “-” sign in the print and fax system preference panel.
Extra: For you PC users (XP and Vista), the theory of sending the firmware is the same. The main differences is the dos console and how the printer is added to the system.
20 comments so far...
Great tutorial, I love using a mac!
Thanks for this! Searched for help everywhere, and everyone kept saying call HP, the IO board is bad. Your instructions worked, and revived our printer, days before it was going to be used in an important event! thanks!!!!
worked great from 10.6.2, thanks!
Thank you very much, I followed your instructions to the letter and the HP CLJ3505 that just came up with the “RFU Load Error/Send RFU Upgrade” message is now up and working perfectly.
I forgot to mention that I used Snow Leopard to get the job done.
Thanks…I wish I had seen this 6months ago when I went through this. After a whole day of fooling around I called HP, fooled around for another hour before they said I needed another motherboard. They send me one promptly and it turned out to be the wrong one. They sent another and that worked. now I wonder if indeed it needed to be changed at all.
One more thank you for the pile. Exactly what was going on with my printer.
guys,
please help me, i am having the same issue, but whenever i send the firmware to the printer, when i open the printer, the file is stuck on 64kb/30MB transfer. and its not moving from overthere. how can i transfer the file successfully?
i already try all the steps above, and all others, and its keep stucking on that 64kb.
thanks
Sounds like you need a new firmware chip from HP.
Do yuo have instructions for Windows XP?
This worked for me on an HP P4014n. I followed the steps, but I got a message on the printer that said, “UNSUPPORTED”. I unplugged the printer and plugged it back in and as soon as I did that the rfu download started and the process completed. Doing it with my Mac was way easier than the PC solution. Thanks for the info!
I had the same problem as Alex, update stops at 64kb
What I did was changing the printer settings:
Port settings, disable two-way
Advanced settings, print directly
Then I used the HP firmware update program for windows and the CP3505 started updating.
Thank you for posting this…you saved us! We almost spent $619 on a new formatting board. Glad we saw this first!
Please, i have the same problem with alex. it keep stuck in 64 kb/23mb. if i change the advance setting of print directly, the hp firmware update became not responding. what should i do??? do you have other solution that i can use. it’s stress me out.
To reply to the previous comment, your firmware is physically bad. When it attempts to load like that and can’t read all the memory, the formatter needs to be replaced. It’s a known HP defect.
Thanks so much – did this using a PC running XP – I was basically doing the update the same way, but it wouldn’t send until I changed the printer type to something else – in this case an HP 4100. Why is that?
Spot on instructions for sending the RFU file.
However, now comes up with an error 68.1 Permanent Storage Full. It still seems to print out OK but says that the job cannot be stored – I’ll be investigating further but thanks for putting up such useful and clear guidelines
I have also problems with a HP Laserjet 2420n after I ran the upgrade received in an e-mail with the text:
Routine Driver Alert Jun 24 2010
HP LaserJet 2400 Series Printer Easy Firmware Update Utility – Windows Operating System – (Must Read README Before Installing) (ver 08.113.0.I35128)
Products: HP LaserJet 2400 Printer series
OS: Windows,Other Legacy OS
Description: HP LaserJet 2400 Series Printer Easy Firmware Update Utility – Windows Operating System, version 08.113.0
I have the message “Downld file now RFU LOAD ERROR”. I have rerun the upgrade three times via the USB connection. I have deinstalled and reinstalled the printer. Nothing helps.
Please, does anyone know of a kind of “set to factory default” kind of reset for the HP laserjet 2420n?
Absolutely brilliant! Devin Collier you are a star. Moral of the story is HP should hire you, or HP should give up making printers!
As a reply to the 2420 question, when you have a bad firmware, you’re really out in the dark until you can get that up and running again. Resetting a printer involves having a good working firmware. Your only other option is to buy a new firmware chip from HP (or other sources).
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