Brother denies using firmware updates to brick printers with third-party ink

Brother: Updates aren't behind degradation of quality or removal of features.

Brother laser printers are popular recommendations for people seeking a printer with none of the nonsense. By nonsense, we mean printers suddenly bricking features, like scanning or printing, if users install third-party cartridges. Some printer firms outright block third-party toner and ink, despite customer blowback and lawsuits. Brother’s laser printers have historically worked fine with non-Brother accessories. A YouTube video posted this week, though, as well as older social media posts, claim that Brother has gone to the dark side and degraded laser printer functionality with third-party cartridges. Brother tells Ars that this isn’t true.

On March 3, YouTuber Louis Rossman posted a video saying that “Brother turns heel & becomes anti-consumer printer company.” The video, spotted by Tom’s Hardware, has 163,000 views as of this writing and seems to be based on a Reddit post from 2022. In that post, Reddit user 20Factorial said that firmware update W1.56 caused the automatic color registration feature to stop working on his Brother MFC-3750 when using third-party cartridges.

“With the colors not able to be aligned, the printer is effectively non-functional,” 20Factorial said. The Redditor went on to say that when asked, a Brother customer service agent confirmed that “the printer is non-functional without genuine toner.”

Rossman created a Wiki page breaking down the reported issues, including “printers continue to function with third-party toner but print at degraded quality unless OEM toner is installed.” He also noted that Brother printers automatically update when connected to the Internet and that Brother doesn’t offer older firmware versions to users.

Brother’s response

Brother denied to Ars Technica that it intentionally bricks printer functionality when users install third-party toner or ink. In a statement, the company said:

We are aware of the recent false claims suggesting that a Brother firmware update may have restricted the use of third-party ink cartridges. Please be assured that Brother firmware updates do not block the use of third-party ink in our machines.

Brother said it’s “actively addressing the source of these false claims to ensure accurate information is available to our customers.”

20Factorial isn’t the only one who has claimed to see printer capabilities decline when trying to use a third-party cartridge. A month ago, Reddit user West-Skin4092 claimed:

I had an error message when I installed a non[-]OE toner on a 3770[,] and I took the original chip off the Brother cartridge and swapped it onto the non-OE toner cartridge[,] and it recognized it and works.

Reddit user Gloomy-Score-8279 claimed to have a similar experience with their MFC-L3750CDW but added that the workaround of putting a Brother chip on a non-Brother cartridge stopped working after an unspecified update.

Two years ago, fncamo claimed on Reddit that their MFC-L3370CDW stopped printing and scanning when trying to use third-party toner after installing new firmware.

When asked for more detail, Brother told Ars that “firmware updates do not block the use of third-party compatibles,” but added:

Brother printers do not intentionally degrade print quality based on whether a Brother Genuine or non-genuine ink/ toner cartridge is used. Brother cannot verify the quality of printing that will result when using a third-party compatible with a Brother printer.

When asked where Brother thinks the confusion may be coming from, the company said:

Brother encourages the use of Brother Genuine ink and toner for optimal performance and reliability, and it is standard practice that we perform a Brother [G]enuine check when troubleshooting a Brother printer. Compatible supplies may range in quality, and in order to verify that a printer is working properly, we like to troubleshoot with Brother Genuine supplies. We believe this check in the process may have led to a misunderstanding[,] but as we confirmed, the firmware update would not be responsible for the degradation of quality or removal of printer features.

Oh, brother

With most claims of bricked Brother printers coming from people online, it’s impossible to confirm the accuracy of the reports and whether or not user error or the selected cartridges are factors.

It would be shocking for a company like Brother, which has made a name for itself as a reliable, more consumer-friendly printer company than rivals, to blatantly lie about this. On the other hand, with the print industry declining and rivals more heavily relying on ink and services to stay afloat, there is incentive for Brother to push people to proprietary cartridges. After seeing the backlash that other printer firms endured for bricking printers via firmware updates, Brother would be demonstrating awful judgement by not being upfront about breaking its customers' property.

Notably, Brother’s statements to Ars leave the door open for third-party cartridges to work poorly with Brother devices, but without more concrete evidence, we can't confidently state that Brother is behind the reported user complaints.

For what it’s worth, an Ars staffer has been successfully using their Brother HL-2270DW laser printer with v4ink-brand toner, but their device doesn't receive automatic updates. We'll let you know if we find further evidence of Brother breaking printers. In the meantime, we wouldn’t blame you for ensuring more control over your printer by disabling automatic updates.

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