HP Printer Admin Locked [Solved]

HP Printer Admin Locked (Solved)

My innate hatred of printers is a fairly well-known thing. So HP Printer Admin Locked [Solved] is a heading that brings me much satisfaction.  HP like to keep their device unlocking mechanisms to themselves, no-one has yet managed to decrypt & recreate smc.bin files for example.

Even though I dislike/distrust printers, occasionally I need one. Usually for scanning. So I went against my natural instincts & purchased an HP Officejet Pro 6960, one of these things:

Hp Printer Admin Locked [Solved]
Hp Printer Admin Locked [Solved]

This is a well-specced 3-in-1 device, WiFi, Web Services yada yada yada.  All the things.

I decided I needed a printer, walked into the local retailer, quickly found the biggest discount on a printer & bought it – all in maybe 5 minutes. It took longer to get served than to choose the device. I just wanted a machine that would do what it’s told, when it’s told. 

Now I’m not the only one who uses my printer. Annoyingly, another user refuses to take my advice of “when you have an IT problem, call me” instead, he prefers to fuck around pushing buttons. The nett effect of this policy was this: 

Hp Printer Admin Locked [Solved]

Yep, Admin Locked. Just about every useful setting was now untouchable. FFS. 

Of course the above image came with denials too. “I didn’t do that! All I did was…” IT peeps have heard that one before, that’s the “I didn’t do it” story. Anyway, the locking didn’t really affect anything, seeing as the printer was already set up, accessible on the network & doing what printers are supposed to do. So I kinda forgot about the Admin Lock. Until I moved the printer to another network, when the Admin Lock reared its ugly head again. 

Of course I wasn’t going to accept that the lock was a permanent thing, hell no! It was time to research. First up, the User manual. Nope, nothing in there, what a waste of time reading that was. Next step – Hewlett Packard are a massive company with a comprehensive range of product, it follows that they’d also have a huge online support presence. Their consumer product support forums are a fountain of knowledge – if you know how to look. 

As mentioned above, HP have a policy of keeping their unlock mechanisms to themselves *sigh*.  So I wasn’t surprised to see the regular response to a “Halp! My HP Printer is Admin Locked” query being  an HP employee posting “I have sent the secret sauce to your Inbox.” Which is no use to anybody – except the recipient. Could I be bothered posting the same question & waiting for the same answer? No, I could not. 

Some quick hackity hack hack hack on the keyboard & I found myself a copy of the secret sauce email. Which will no longer be secret sauce, from today the solution will be just plain old sauce. Because there’s no need to keep this knowledge secret any more. It’s not that important, releasing this information will cause exactly zero deaths. Nobody die.

OK, so your HP Printer is Admin Locked.  Here’s what you do:

From the home screen press the unlit Return icon 3 times very quickly.  The screen will then change to show a single menu item – “Support Menu” which you’ve never seen before.

Next, yes, you’ve guessed it – Press “Support Menu”

Use the up / down arrows to select “Resets Menu” & press OK. By now, you’re feeling the thrill of the chase.

You can select either of two choices: 

Partial reset 

Semi-Full reset – grab this one to clear your Admin Lock & return the HP Printer to out-of-box settings. Selecting this will turn the printer off, so you’ll need to use the Power On switch to fire it up again. 

Follow those simple steps & your printer has returned control to you. \0/

 

40 thoughts on “HP Printer Admin Locked [Solved]

  1. Thank you for this!!! HP is worse than useless in their support. Your instructions solved it in a few minutes. While I went round and round with their non-human support site that only allowed pre-typed comments.

  2. Thank you so much for your help! I have been searching for weeks on how to resolve this issue.

    😀

  3. I love you! You have a new fan in Brussels. I feel so lucky I found this post. We had this problem after changing our router. Shame on HP.

  4. Holy moly that’s grubby business – so you have to call out one of their techs ($$$$$$).
    thank you so much for this 🙂

  5. This did it for me. Thank you so much! I’m glad someone is out there working to make the secret sauces of the world not so secret (at least the ones that shouldn’t be secret) Kudos!

  6. OMG!!! This method SOOOO worked IMMEDIATELY!!! That is so awesome! YOU are so awesome!!! Thank you SOOO much!!!

  7. BRAVO! I have a HP OfficeJet 9010 (9018e from Costco) and it said it needed ink, then promptly stuck the ink holder all the way to the right, which is unreachable. I did your magic super secret reset, and was able to get that to move again.

    Then the printer would only display a message on the screen “Thanks for getting HP ink”, with an OK button that wouldn’t go away. Once again I used your magic super secret reset trick and the message on the screen went away.

    Thank you!

  8. Thank you!

    “Wireless feature has been disabled. Contact the person who set up the printer. ”

    I had to do the secret menu and then go to network and reset the wireless and it worked perfectly. 3 days stress, but problem solved

    1. How did you bypass this? I have the printer tgat my company doesn’t want back but I cannot enable wifi as the admin locked out that option. Need to reset but so far cannot figure it out.

      1. Read the article – the answer is right there for you. It all starts when you tap the unlit Return button 3 x quickly.

  9. Works for my HP Officejet 9010. Carefully note the location of the return arrow on the control panel. Then when it is unlit tap 3 times to get the Support Menu. Thank you!
    This saved me from having to get a new printer after getting a new router. Initially I was unable to enter the new WiFi settings because all the options were greyed-out.

  10. Whoa… Steve went back in time to find this solution then forward in time to post a thank you! Steve, I’m gonna need lotto numbers…. Also to OP Sys Admin here … You are appreciated. 08/2021

  11. Thank you so much for this easy fix – I spent hours/days trying to figure out why suddenly all the margins shifted when I copy and it would not let me fix it, said “locked by the administrator) which is me and no way to unlock it. This has been super helpful. Thank you again!!!!

  12. OMFG!!! I’ve been trying to figure this out for the past few days and at no point did HP mention anything about a “secret” menu. Thank you!

  13. OMG!! THANK YOU! I have been messing around with settings, downloading, disabling, rolling back, drivers, researching the “this feature is locked by the person who set up this printer” aka.. me! And no. I did not hp. But, we have many users in the home as well, so I don’t know what happened and when, but I COULD not find the solution.. running hp troubleshooting guides, “chatting” with their robots. Literally weeks. And I just came across your post now and IT WORKED! Thank you so much for sharing this “secret” with us. Bc I was going to just go buy a new printer today if I couldn’t figure it out. I couldn’t live with connecting through Ethernet and emailing my printer everything I wanted printed. Although great features, I wanted the FULL features of the device, being I bought it for that reason. A 3 second fix, that I found NOWHERE in the entire HP world during my wks long search…… although frustrated with hp, again, very much thankful to you!

  14. Mine will not turn off unless I unplug it and then it’s comes on but does not fully reboot. The on and off button does not work

    1. My printer is lock!!! Don’t have glue on how to fix it! Printer is connected according to printer screen!! Have turn it off and back on nothing!
      Help

      1. Yes James, I can help. I’m gonna give you some very useful advice.

        Chill the fuck out & learn some manners. Four posts from you in 20 minutes, full of angst & frustration yet without a single please – all about you & your expectations. Why should anyone here be bothered? You’re the kind of bunny that we make money from with callout fees to resolve simple issues.

        The problem is not in your printer. This is a classic PEBKAC error.

  15. It didn’t work for me. I get to the Support Menu but don’t get a Reset Menu option. Please help.

  16. This worked! Thank you!
    For those who cannot find the back button it is on the left-hand side of the screen at the bottom

  17. You are incredible!!! I have been locked out of my network settings for over a year and tirelessly searching solution after solution. This worked flawlessly. Thank you so much!

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