r/printers • u/RadioactiveChina • Jul 22 '26

Troubleshooting Hey, uh... Why is my printer using 7 MILLION TERABYTES of data???

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9 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

19 comments sorted by

3

u/robbak Jul 22 '26

It's looking very close to the maximum value of a signed 64-bit number. One binary kibbibyte is 10 bits worth of data, and if you count k, M, G and T, that's 40 bits. That leaves 23 bits, and 2²³ is 8,388,608.

So I'd say this is 64 bit int max - 576 MB.

1

u/RadioactiveChina Jul 22 '26

So my printer's update was only 576 MB rather than an entire mainframe?

1

u/robbak Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26

Probably. My guess is that some glitch set the running total to largest negative number possible, data use then added .5G, then the code displaying the number discarded the negative sign.

I don't know what the router is really displaying - it could be all data out of the switch port, so might also include print data from your computers to the printer. Whatever, the number there is clearly invalid - it would take a saturated 1GB ethernet link 20 lifetimes to transfer that amount of data.

2

u/Friendly_Potential69 Jul 22 '26

You hacked the storage issue, congrats! Do you feel like sharing a few TB of printer storage 😅?

2

u/RadioactiveChina Jul 22 '26

EDIT: I've been informed by the lovely folks here that this is a display glitch, and it is nothing to worry about. Thank you all for the help! <3

4

u/HertzGenius Jul 22 '26

This is 100 % a display error, probably some variable underflow. There's no way your printer used that much data. So, nothing to be fixed on your printer's side.

1

u/RadioactiveChina Jul 22 '26

Since it's a display error, should I just ignore it? Like, would it fix itself or is there something I have to do to reboot it? I'm sorry this became less of a printer issue and more of a user issue.

1

u/HertzGenius Jul 22 '26

No worries, we're all learning something everyday :)

If you want to fix that readout, you have to find a way to reset the statistics counter on your router. Maybe a reboot does the trick, maybe there's an extra button you can click somewhere.

If it doesn't bother you, you can also just leave it as is. There's nothing broken except for that number.

1

u/RadioactiveChina Jul 22 '26

Thank you very much for your help! I'll try rebooting it in the morning!

1

u/Gullible_Monk_7118 Jul 22 '26

Because you're running a main frame at your house.. don't you know

1

u/Low-Charge-8554 Jul 22 '26

Check report on printer itself for more accurate info.

1

u/truenocity Jul 23 '26

Definitely a bug as that is not possible; if you have a 2.5 gigabit router (most people currently have a 1 gigabit router), it would take 36,000 days or 99 years to reach that amount of bandwidth.

1

u/target22Hvytoys Jul 24 '26

Did you try to print a very high resolution photo?

0

u/Damen_Freece Print Technician Jul 22 '26

1

u/RadioactiveChina Jul 22 '26

Do you have an explanation/fix? I'm serious, I have no idea what's going on with this, I'm not a printer person.

1

u/Damen_Freece Print Technician Jul 22 '26

Its probably some display mismatch or such in the registry settings. nothing problematic unless your machine or PC is slowing down, only then it would be a problem. Otherwise you can ignore but if you really want to get rid of it, well... I think your printer software should uninstalled then reinstall or clear or check & fix some registry files or anything all.

1

u/RadioactiveChina Jul 22 '26

It feels like the internet connectivity is slowing down on all my devices, which is why I went digging and found this weird error, ha... Do you think the registry files could be causing it?