Old filament or other issues?

I have a Prusa I3 that I built 6 months ago. It was calibrated and working perfectly. I was printing quality parts the printer. Then, it sat for the last three months. Now, I'm ready to print some things again, and my printer won't print well. I have attached a picture of a partial print of 5mm Calibration Steps. As you can see, they are not looking good at all. Is this what happens with old filament or do I have another issue here?

Thank you,
-matt

The problem with old filament is it might have absorbed humidity from air. There are some procedures to make it dry, using a fruit dessicator, putting it in an owen, or letting it rest in rice or other water-hungry materials.
Maybe start by getting a lil piece of new filament to verify if that is the problem.

You should also check your temperatures, maybe the heat sensor has degraded over time - I have no idea if that is possible, but the look of your picture makes me think of a bad printing temp.

Apart from that, some nuts and bolts might have come loose, check them all, look for unusual play in all your axis.

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Most of my technical comments should be correct, but is THIS one ?
Anyway, as a rule of thumb, always double check what people write.

Also, did you reuse the exact same software toolchain you had before, with all the same settings ?

If you reinstalled your slicer, you might need to get the old configuration back to be able to compare the output.

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Most of my technical comments should be correct, but is THIS one ?
Anyway, as a rule of thumb, always double check what people write.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll check the temperature issue. This could absolutely be the problem. When I was troubleshooting, I had an issue two times between prints when the firmware reported something like a "low temp error" on the hotend temperature and forced me to reset the printer. Given that the printer is indoors at "room temperature", that makes little or no sense. That could mean something is up with that thermocouple, and could absolutely be causing the wrong printing temperature.

I am using the same software toolchain and have been over the physical components several times. It is possible I've missed something, but....

I've ordered a new roll of filament as well, so we'll have some fresh filament to try on. However, I'm going to check temperatures first....I have handheld thermocouples that I can use to check the actual temperature.

Thank you,
-Matt

Well, with my external Thermapen, the hot end is reading at least 7-10 degrees C too hot. This is with a calibrated cooking thermometer, but half of it is open to the air just being laid on the face of the hotend. So, I"m guessing something has gone wrong with my thermocouple in the hot end.

-Mat

Has it really been 1 year since I tried to get my printer working...wow.
Just leaving this solution here in case someone else has the same problem. The issue was NOT the printer, but the slicer software. Somehow, my filament size setting was changed from 1.75mm to 3mm. So, the picture in the first post is not a temperature or moisture issue, it is a massive under-extrusion issue.

-Matt