HP Solution Center not working : Adobe Flash Player Error and Unable to scan

[JessikaV]

HP Solution Center not working : Adobe Flash Player Error and Unable to scan

Adobe has permanently disabled the Flash Player as of 12-Jan-2021, and as the HP Solution center software is based on Flash, it may not work as expected. 

Here are two other compatible scanning apps, which can be used to scan your photo or document:

1. HP Scan Extended: You can Download-Save-Install > HP Scan Extended  
   • If the link above does not work, copy and paste the ftp address below into your browser: https://ftp.hp.com/pub/scanners/HPScanExt/HPScanExt.msi

Or--

2. HP Smart: You can download and Install HP Smart app from Microsoft store. Here is the link: https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9wzdncrfhwlh?hl=en-us&gl=BR
   For more information on how to use this app, refer: https://www.hpsmart.com/us/en

NOTE: You must have the HP printer driver software installed on the computer to use these apps. If you did not uninstall HP Printer driver software, then you should have it already.

OPTIONAL: Add HP Scan Extended shortcut to Taskbar / Send to Desktop / Pin to Start

• Open File Explorer > Navigate to C:\Program Files (x86)\HP\HP Scan Extended\bin
• Right-Click exe > Select Pin to Taskbar / Send to Desktop / Pin to Start

HP Scan Extended features include (and are not limited to): Single, Multiple scans, Image and PDF scans, Email as PDF / JPEG, Source selection, Page Size choices include Auto-Detect (extracts image / document boundary).  May include OCR (Save as Editable Text).

We would like to encourage you to post a new topic in the community so our member will be able to help you as well, here is the link to post.

JessikaV
HP Support Community Administrator

[7thEarth]

won't  copy  have not tried scanning.

[ellewasal]

There was fair warning that Adobe Flash Player would no longer be supported and that continuing using it presents a security risk. It therefore seems to me that a workaround that causes the device to work using the wrong date is also an unsound approach. HP have been silent while the many hundreds or even thousands of its customers seek a better solution. To me it appears that HP have been careless of their customers' wellbeing in their failure to anticipate and provide software updates that reconfigure the Solution centre using a currently supported flash method or an emulator. They have been heedless of the environmental impact of their failure, in that many of their customers will now dispose of a good machine, to find something with software that works effectively as it was intended. What is the good of HP intruding with their insistent feedback pop ups if they are going to pay no attention to them and fail to answer what seems to me to be an entirely reasonable query that should be easily answered

[Susan_123]

I agree with other users that something should have been sorted by HP prior to the removal of Flash.   Will there be newer Printer/Scanners that will have another solution

[RobKi]

HP Scan and Capture works very well.  BUT - What a waste of time spent looking for the solution.  It should come straight up on the HP site highlighted as a problem and solution - not be hidden away.  I have spent 2 days trying to get this sorted.

[SapperSuper]

HP C7280 All in one with funny logo when I open solution cetre ex user!!!! I am no techie and have no idea about various folders etc.... I click and it prints, scans etc. all these solutions to overcome this problem are great if you know what you are doing IT wise I'm afraid I am not of that generation. Please  could someone make a simple to use, downloadable one click easy to follow solution. Over to you HP. or the land fills will be full of  your redundant useable printers. I don't  this is part of your mission statement to a greener more environmentally friendly world.   

[Klontz1]

None of my four PCs with connected HP 6310 printers are working correctly now with the recent download of the HP 6310 OfficeJet drivers/software for Windows 10 (32 and 64 bit) PCs.  Worked for hours this past weekend trying to resolve the problems with HP Solution Center not working as before with Windows 7 back in early January.  Thanks to this Community Support Center and comments therein I learned that the discontinued Adobe Flash Player is needed to make the HP 6310 OfficeJet software installation complete and fully operational.   HP is a large company and must have known about the removal of Adobe Flash Player in January 2021 affecting the satisfactory operation of their HP printers.......why have they NOT made the appropriate corrections to their software downloads for their customers due to the recent discontinuance of Adobe Flash Player?   Now, we have to depend on a "workaround solution" to continue to use their HP printers. 

[laberg90]

HP needs to update their software. I have been having trouble with my printer and since Adobe Flash got removed I cannot troubleshoot it with the software.

[legalmagpie]

MarquitosC, I can't find a "useful" button but you are a genius.  It works perfectly.

I have a Deskjet F4180 which I got in 2007.  Although it is ancient it works perfectly and is ideal for my needs including being able to scan documents as pdf files.

I have spent hours trying to find a fix to this including uninstalling and reinstalling the printer software.  I eventually found this page and before before trying your suggestion I downloaded HP Scan extended but it didn't work properly.  I couldn't download HP Scan and Capture because it isn't compatible with Windows 7 (I know I should upgrade).

Using your fix, I can now use all the facilities of Solution centre including scanning as a pdf file, which I used a lot.

It is typical of HP that they simply wiped a product of their without telling us or suggesting an alternative.

Thanks again.  Next time you are in England I will buy you a drink.

[BoBo16]

Not sure how to mark the message as useful but your solution worked like a charm. Thank you Marquitos C  -- a job well done!

[MarquitosC]

I'm glad it works for you. It was my fault and it can't be marked as useful, a pity. Remember that W10 will release a new update that will remove Flash Player. It will be difficult to use it in a future, but there is no alternative, all the other programs are very very basic. 

[Valéria1]

A szkennelés megoldódott, de továbbra sem tudok egyszerűen másolni.

[BoBo16]

MatquitosC,
Any idea when that Windows 10 update will be released?

[MarquitosC]

I don't know BoBo16.

First, it's necessary to wait for Windows 10 update release. So, I will try to find a solution. Meanwhile, we will have to settle for what we have.

[MiguelMattos]

Hi all,

For me, the only solution is to change the date start HP solutions Center and restore the date. It works perfectly, since the first moment.

I have at home 1 HP Photosmart C4700 printer/scanner, working throught Wifi.

I have two kids at University, that due to Corona, are studing at home, like most of the kids.

I also work at home.

They have to scan papers for University, and I have also to scan papers for work.

So we have a central printer.

I think none of the solutions, allows us to configure the printer/scanner on a new PC.

If the W10 update (my PC is already asking for a reboot) **bleep**s the still installed Flash, then the best solution is to go to HP office and give them the printer to recycle and never buy HP again.

Next step is to buy an Epson wifi printer/scanner for less than 100€.

Unless HP releases a valid SW that keep the actual features from HP Solutions Center.

The printer is a few years old, but how many users have now this problem???

HP knew about this problem and should have fixed it before january 2021

[Recombinantsock]

So, I posted comments on here about how the HP Scan Extended doesn't do OCR and seems to generate error messages from my C410 Premium scanner. My message seems to have been deleted!

So, not only does it fail to OCR and it also generates error messages about losing communication (across a hard wired LAN) with the scanner, but it also has just taken me about 6 attempts to scan two sheets of a double sided letter. It showed 3 pages of scan several times. Trying to add the missing page didn't work. I eventually got it to work.

However.

The functions to turn pages round in the Manage Images screen have bugs. I turned a page around because it showed as upside down. The large image of the page was unchanged whilst the thumbnail image showed the right result.

This is not one step forward and one back it is about 4 steps backwards and nothing forwards!

[Binietje]

Ben nieuw in de groep, mijn naam is Binietje.  Ik ben ook de dupe van het stopzetten van Adobe Flash Player,   HP Solution Center werkt niet meer en ik krijg geen afdoend antwoord van HP.  Zwaar teleurgesteld.  Ik ben al jaren een HP gebruiker, doch er zijn grenzen. 

Heb via een link een scan kunnen uitvoeren en daarmee was de kous af.  Ik kan niet meer van uit mijn bestanden een opdracht geven om af te drukken, noch te kopiëren.  Het is toch niet zo dat een goedwerkend apparaat naar de verdoemenis moet worden verwezen.

Help

[MarquitosC]

A solution was explained above. Please, read the thread. We only have this solution if you want to keep all the original functions of HP solution center.

Remember that HP has announced they won't offer any update, because it's a legacy SW. 

[Katmay]

I don't scan a lot on my desktop computer so I found out about this problem today while I was trying to scan something into the desktop .  i ended up using HPSMART which was already on my desktop and it worked fine with the scan.  My question is do i need to download the above fixes that were mentioned  above or will the HP SMART  be ok to use.?    I also have to hunt around a little more for ink levels. on  HP Smart.  

[MarquitosC]

Hi Katmay,

If you use HP Smart you don't need to do anything else. The fix mentioned above, is only for those people that wants to use the HP Solution Center.

Regards.

[Katmay]

Thank you for responding.  

[Wed92]

I had the same problem. I have canceled "Flash player" and then downloaded "HP scan and capture". Now I can scan again.
I found "HP scan and capture" in "Microsoft Store"

[ellewasal]

I have tried HP scan etc as a replacement for the defunct solution centre. It is not as good and I have found it is more effective to use my Adobe Acrobat Pro to create pdfs from the scanner, which happens with an immediacy that the current HP process sadly lacks. One can also use Windows to achieve this similarly, though both solutions are not as good as the solution centre if it were made to work again by HP, who obviously don't read any feedback here or from their accursed pop ups

[lauralulu]

the scan app couldn't find my printer and I could get the extended version to download.   I have a HP OFFICEJET 4500 wireless (scanner/fax/printer).  it still works fine but looks like I will have to buy something new if I want to do anything besides print.  

[Suzi-Q2]

It is beyond me how the HP team has waited until the 12th of January 2021 when the Adobe Flash Player has gone completely off the market, without fixing the problem beforehand. Please explain to me how such a large company did not foresee a problem with the printers/scanners in this regard? And what the bloody heck am I supposed to do now? I cannot use my HP printer, because Adobe flash player is now officially GONE...wow and now I am stuck. Gee thanks HP for making my life hell, I so appreciate it!

[thebill]

i have an old HP OJ Pro 8505 and like  stated few times on other threads it stopped working due to Flash issue with solutions center..

i have windows 10 PC so take it with grain of salt the HP Scan Ext software works for me, its works 100% flatbed or feeder and can do multiple pages..

may not  work for everyione but until i replace this old all in one scanner its been working for me..not sure why it doesnt work for others..

oh and i left the old software on my computer, maybe that makes difference, i dont know..

[Ken_249]

I installed HP Scan Extended. In print mode, it sees my 7310. In scan mode it does not. It tries to connect to another HP printer at another location. How do I get this software to recognize the 7310 as both a scanner and a printer? In printer mode, it presents a full list of print devices and functions. In Scan, it only shows the 7740, which is not at this location. 

Why is HP still allowing a download of HP Solutions Center when it knows it does not work? Amazing.

[BobAU]

I have tried the suggested solutions. They do not support scanning film negatives using the TMA. I don't use OCR but that's probably history too.

Maybe the only option is a professional scanning package that supports the 8300. Anyone recommend one?

[NYgnat]

It seems that all of my further post are not being published.

[NYgnat]

Just remember that the KEY DATE for the Flash failure is 1/12/21. Do with this information what you must.

[legalmagpie]

MarquitosC.  I note that your original post giving the work around has been removed.  So not only have HP really messed up their customers but they are now covering up their appalling customer service by getting rid of the one solution that really works .  Fortunately, I printed it out at the start.

[NYgnat]

@legalmagpie,

Same thing happened to my posts about the original DATE change information. Mysteriously disappeared. Seems like censoring to me. LOL. Anyway, those who still have Solution Center, can figure probably out how to get it to function by of course, (not recommended) to opening their computer up to FlashPlayer's vulnerabilites. That is why the posts are being deleted. Flash Player ceases to work on or after 1/12/21. Thereby, Solution Center will not function any further either. It worked perfectly before that date.

Hope that explains why it doesn't function any more.

[Ron203]

I don't know about the rest of you on this page, but this is the last HP product that I am ever going to buy.

[normanmann]

So is there any chance that hp will make "solution centre" work again? I can scan with other programmes, but, as others mentioned above, i miss the further functions, especially "remaining ink". Does there exist any other software that can get and show that info? 

[NYgnat]

@Normanmann,

Without Flashplayer knowing it is before 1/12/21, there is no way for Flashplayer to work, thereby Solution Center died with it. Flash was designed to die ON that date. Read all of the posts that are in this thread.

[rcfaillejr]

Comments: The extended scan option has more features than HP Scan and Capture which is good. You can add various scanning profiles like with Solution Center. For my printer, it defaults to using the document feeder so you need to go in and change the settings. Double-clicking on the thumbnails will bring up the ability to crop. The default for page size is 8 1/2 by 11 so you may want to change that setting to the entire scan area if you normally do larger and then crop down. By default, it automatically names the file scan.pdf (or jpg) but does not append a 001, etc to each scan which means you could overwrite a file if you don't pay attention to the warning Windows shows when there is a duplicate. You can overcome this by updating the naming profile so that the date and time are appended to the default name. For me, this last part is important because I travel. My wife scans the mail which I have set to save to a folder on my Google Drive which I can access remotely. That way she doesn't have to worry about naming them, just keep scanning. STILL NEED: Neither solution shows you the ink levels, is there a software workaround for this?

[NYgnat]

So far, only Solution Center has the ink levels in it that I'm aware of. With that said, the Flash vulnerabilites are then ENABLED if you use SC. Tough decisions to make, but with a Win7 O/S you have no other choice but to change the calendar for SC when it opens.

[rcfaillejr]

NYgnat, changing the date fools SC but it also changes the date on your emails, etc. and as pointed out, opens you up to potential security vulnerabilities. But there ought to be some software solution to monitoring ink levels.

[NYgnat]

RC..

Exactly, which is why it is not advisable and risky. To minimize that risk, you change it back the instant SC loads. Once SC loaded and date restored to proper, it's all good for everything else for your saved scans. SC just needs that initial "look" for what it needs on opening, so back it goes to normal instantly. No need to "fool" anything else. Make sure you have a really good Anti-Virus suite installed if you play that risk card. Many are destined to do it that way. Or by choice. There is a utility program that can specifically make a shortcut to do what is needed (here to be used just for a Solution Center shortcut) and 15 seconds later undoes everything changed, doing all the legwork for you. But again, it is ill-advised because of the Flash vulnerabilities. That I can not emphasize enough. Tough decisions.

[normanmann]

Did not test yet, but sounds promising and much less dangerous:

nirsoft's "runasdate": https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/run_as_date.html . 

Found here: method 5 at the bottom of https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Printer-Setup-Software-Drivers/HP-Digital-Imaging-Monitor-doesn-t-work... . 

[ShellC1990]

It also took me WAY TOO LONG to find a solution to the problem of the "data usage" loop. Also took forever to follow the "white rabbit" down the rabbit  hole to find, download new app, reinstall printer, have NEW Scan and Capture find device, re-find find device and to FINALLY start to scan. Scanning documents to send out is my job and this problem cost me money today. HP Customer Service should have sent out an email (if you are registered, which you need to do to use the product) to all who are registered informing their customers of the need to change things and download and install the new Scan and Capture.

[KLE1]

Please provide a solution for Macs. .msi files care Window files that can not be opened.

[BGW1]

MarquitosC, I am about to download HP Scan Extended. After reading the thread, I'm confused. HP Smart seems to be what we're having the problem with. Were you suggesting some other workaround? I thought HP Smart was affected by the end of Flash Player. We are unable to scan to pdf when we access our Office Jet Pro 8020 directly; I did that because using HP Smart we got the unending cycle of "do you want to share your usage with HP smart". Thanks.

[BGW1]

6:15 PST, scanner back to normal.

I have no idea what was going on, but HP was unavailable all day.

Good luck!

[NYgnat]

@Normanmann

MarquitosC and I have both put a couple of workarounds up with full instructions and it was only a matter of time before they were deleted from the threads by the "higher ups." But, YES, if you want to make it somewhat automated, that is the method. Just remember to check the "return in 15 seconds" box. The other way is to leave "Set Time" open during the actual load of SC, and once SC is loaded, change the date back right then and there. Some non-tech-savvy users might find that easier to accomplish in the meantime. There is also another thread (separate from this one) that shows how to manually just set a shortcut to use the exe file that HP uses to make either a JPG or a PDF that is actually the exe that is inside of Solution Center to load with the specific printer you have. At that point it doesn't NEED Flash at all. Flash seems only required for the Main Solution Center window. As in ink levels etc., so if you don't need the ink information, there are some much SAFER ways to make things work for your scanner.

[BGW1]

Thanks, NYgnat!

I guess I am ok with HPsmart, though still not sure why it was down all day yesterday.

[leecher]

I got it working again by removing the timebomb in Flash player with: https://github.com/leecher1337/flashpatch

[NYgnat]

@Leecher,

Not really advisable that way as it opens you up fully to flash's vulnerability at all times. That is what the hackers WANT you to do. Disables ALL the "fixes" Adobe put into flash to remedy the vulnerabilities. The "least worst" option down the Flash road is the momentary date change. The Best option is to use the command lines on the actual scan exe's (in the other thread) that doesn't even use Flash, but that road also doesn't let you know ink levels.

[leecher]

Nearly every modern browser nowadays can be configured to ask you at least once before it executes a Flash Applet in browser, so it's up to the user to decide. I configured my Firefox that way and therefore, I prefer having a fully functional Flash on my machine, but it's up to the respective user to decide what he wants to do.

[NYgnat]

We're talking Solution Center here. The vulnerabilities in Flash are not limited to opening an applet in a standard browser. As you say, it is ultimately up to the user to decide how much vulnerability that they want to expose.

[LeysaUK]

I have tried the solutions put forward by HP, but unfortunately the Windows 10 Drivers don't seem to work on my HP PC.  When I go into Windows Settings and try to set my Printing Preferences (I normally print Duplex), the English options are greyed out or come up in Oriental Characters:

 What am I supposed to do?  And how do I check my Ink Levels??