I needed to print something, and my printer had been unplugged for a month or two. I plugged it back in, let it do its warm-up stretches, and proceed to print my document.

But nothing happened. The green power LED on the printer just blinked at me.

Go to the TL;DR

I had installed the printer by just plugging it in to my Windows 7 computer without installing any of the HP software. Before, it had printed fine, so I did not see a need. But now I needed to install the software so that it would tell me what was wrong.

I went to hp.com, clicked the “Drivers and Software” link, typed in “Deskjet D1455”, selected “Windows 7 64-bit”, and a list of software came up under “Step 2”. Under “Driver – Product Installation Software”, I clicked the Download button to download the 137.7 MB file. Then I ran the program to install it.

On installation completion, I right-clicked the “Digital Imaging Software” icon in my taskbar, moused-over my printer name, and selected “Display Status”.

The “Solution Center” window came up and said something was wrong with my ink cartridges. But it did not say exactly what.

I knew there was plenty of ink, but I thought I would try to remove both of them and pop them back in again. I closed the lid, but still nothing.

Maybe something is wrong with just one of them and causing the other to glitch? That thought led me to try to open the lid, take out both cartridges, install just one (the color one), and close the lid.

Success! The Solution Center window reported the color cartridge was present and had plenty of ink.

I installed the black cartridge, and again success! It appeared in the window as also having plenty of ink.

With all systems go, I was able to print without a problem.

TL;DR

Symptom: Green light is flashing/blinking on your HP Deskjet D1455 (or Deskjet D1400 family printer)

Solution:

1. If you have not already, install the driver/monitor software from HP.com
2. Open the “Display Status/Solution Center” window to monitor the printer’s status.
3. If it says the ink cartridges have a problem, try removing both cartridges and closing the lid. Wait until the “Solution Center” window says the cartridges are missing.
4. Open the lid and install just one of the cartridges and close the lid. Watch the “Solution Center” window to see if it worked.
5. Repeat for the other cartridge.

If this does not work, you may have to replace the cartridges.

The important point here is that sometimes you need the actual software from the printer manufacturer to get the status of your printer, especially if you have an inexpensive model like mine that does not have an LCD screen to tell you what is wrong.

If you find the monitor program is eating too much of your RAM, you can always close the program.