Using past end-of-life film developer

[limr]

The OP never said the film is expired. Just the developer.

The OP wrote that he has FP-4 film. This film hasn't been manufactured since 1990 so I just assumed it would be out of date.
Similarly the HP-5 film, not having been manufactured since 1989, is surely out of date too. But again just an assumption.

Or, one could assume that like very many others, people just skip writing the + for the sake of brevity and convenience.

But the OP has clarified, so it's moot at this point.

 

[Bernard Schulman]

As promised: I developed 6 rolls of different films - FP4s and HP5s, all "Plus", all recently purchased - and all the negatives, on visual inspection, came up OK. I used the ID11 at 1+1 (discard), 20C, 11 mins for the FP4s and 13 mins for the HP5s, 4 inversions at the beginning of each minute - so, same parameters as if it was a current product.

 

[TmRm]

My rule is: film developer - when in doubt, don't use it; paper developer - why not?

 

[Soocom1]

From personal experience:

If its powder you will probably have no problem.
My father purchased ALOT of old Kodak developer from the 1950's when it was NEW! it sat in the house until he passed away in 2004. i took the darkroom equipment and did alot of 4x5 and med. format black and white. i used some of the old developer that was in the cardboard/metal cans and it worked just fine. That was diff. of nearly 50 years from time of purchase to use. The film came out fine, graine was fine and the film was TMax.

Is there a possibility of going bad? Sure.
but if kept in a 'cool dry place" it should work fine.
If its clumped, its probably done.

 

[Rickbb]

As Compur said, unmixed dry powdered chems have NO expiration date, none. With recently purchased film mix and process as normal.