HP Officejet 7210: Faxing Error 345 (communication error)

Posted on Thu 09/22/05 in Technical Interleude

This article will provide notes on a possible resolution to an intermittent problem with sending faxes on our HP Officejet 7210.

SYMPTOMS: While sending faxes to different places, the fax will intermittently attempt to transmit for usually 9:11 minutes. Then, it will disconnect and spit out an error report. The report has two notable fields:

Type: “Fax Sent”

Result: “Error 345”

When we hook up our spare fax machine to the same cord, it works fine all the time. Also, we have a dedicated fax line with our fax as the sole device hooked up. The machine with the problem is about 3 months old.

HP RECOMMENDED SOLUTIONS:

Through two 40+ minute phone calls to HP tech support, below is a summary of what we tried and what helped:

What did NOT help:

• Lowering fax speed (via the Setup button and via manually setting the speed parameters)
• Disabling ECM (Error Correction Mode)

What DID help (sorta):

• Performing the “semi-full reset” seemed to resolve this problem. This can be achieved by unplugging the power cord from the back of the machine, pressing and holding the ‘6’ and ’#’ keys while plugging the power cable back in. Make sure to hold the keys until the screen eventually goes blank. For more information, visit: http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=670398.

After doing this, the fax transmission worked a heck of a lot faster. The support tech told me that it clears the “fax log” in the memory of the machine. But, it also reset all of the speed dial entries and all the other settings we had adjusted (number of rings, fax header, etc).

It seemed to be working better than ever at this point. The tech simply recommended doing this weekly to keep the performance at its highest level. I protested that I cannot reload 50+ speed dials every week and requested the unit to be replaced. So, HP is sending us another unit.

After about an hour, we witnessed another fax transmission that took 9:11 minutes. This one said that it sent: OK, but the problem was not solved.