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Archived This topic has been archived. Information and links in this thread may no longer be available or relevant. If you have a question create a new topic by clicking here and select the appropriate board.
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Moved to a new thread, the c309a is a different printer architecture, different ink delivery system and different printhead design.

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Thanks very much, pedropromo60. Solution two worked for me, and I have a C6180 All-in One that wouldn't print in black and had continuous "print alignment failures". Your solution corrected both! Hp Tech support said the print head sensor was bad- obviously not the case. You saved me from having to buy a new printer.

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Has anyone considered the possibility that this may be a firmware problem.  Resetting back to factory settings and commissioning the machine back into use again suggests as such.  And why does it only affect Black?  Anyone at HP looked into this?  I've checked on the HP website but there's no mention of firmware for the C7280 and yet there has to be some software running the machine, and I don't mean the driver you install on your computer.

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I have the same problem with both magenta's. The funny thing to me is the magenta will print for the alignment test, but not the color calibration. The light magenta has faint lines in it at best no matter which test.

 

I have tried all the same test and tricks mentioned on this thread and still the stupid device just sits there and mocks me with the flashing orange light. This is my third HP printer and they all malfunctioned in some shape or form. My next printer will be anything except an HP product. Keep up the good work dummies.

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Hallelujah! Thank God for paperclips (and duct tape). IT WORKED!

 

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Just ran into this problem with an Officejet Pro L7780, it has been sitting in a cool storage room for a year and was just taken out of the box 4 days ago.  Almost from the get go it stopped printing black and couldnt align.  Saw midway through this thread that someone had tried hitting the printhead upside down to try and clear a possible blockage.  Decided I had already tried everything else why not?  A few good whacks against my hand and IT WORKED!! Doubt it will work for everyone but its worth a shot.

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Same issue with a HP C7280 that was about 2.5 years old.  I was all set to dismantle the printer for a little exploratory surgery after several other potential remedies including: replacing all the catridges, running the cleaning and alignment functions 10+ times, resetting the machine by pressing the '#' and '6' buttons simultaneously during a reboot, and many others.  I decided to take another quick scan through some of the older posts and found that a few people recommended "burping" the computer and I figured it was just crazy (and easy) enough that it might work.

 

So, I unplugged the machine, turned it upside down, and started tapping the bottom of the printer.  I then turned it back over, removed the black ink cartridge, and then turned it back over with the black cartridge still removed, and tapped the printer on the metal bottom for another minute or two.  I was highly doubtful that this would have any impact, but was pleasantly surprised to find that when I replaced the black cartridge, plugged it in, and ran the cleaning function again, the printer printed some black text in addition to the color rectangles that I had grown so used to seeing on the 'cleaning' page.  I then was able to successfully run an alignment and print Word documents with black text.  Problem solved!

 

This worked for me and I figured I would be ungrateful if I did not post the results in the event that it might work for someone else.  Good luck! 

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My 2 year old C7280 had the following sequence of events:

 

  • not used for 6 months
  • complained about the expiration of 2 cartridges when I started it up a week ago
  • Printed a boarding pass fine, although the last page the black was not as good
  • Stopped printing black completely.  Nothing worked, including hard reboots, cleanings, alignments etc.  I replaced the two expired cartridges, but that did not help.  All the cartridges showed OK.

 

So then I tried the shock treatment as others have done:

 

  • Disconnected all the cables
  • Turned it over & knocked the bottom for a minute or 2.
  • Removed the black cartridge.
  • Turned it over again and knocked it for another minute or 2 
  • Reinserted the black cartridge and connected all the cables again
  • Ran a test page -  IT WAS PERFECT and printed black fine

This is Black Magic ... surely HP has an explanation.  Thank you to the prior posters!!!  I have a C6180 with the same problem that I was about to junk .... that will be my next target.

 

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My C7280 stopped prining black again, for the second time in its life, just as the then current black ink cartridge was coming to an end.  I replaced the cartridge with a new one (not HP - compatible; no point in wasting money on genuine HP cartridges for this pile of junk!)  and tried again but to no avail.

 

So, I tried the "Baby Burping" technique already described.  Lo and behold it started printing black again!

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