Need to know default settings for 7515 "Advanced Settings" Printer willl only print colors and not

[Mike2748]

Need to know default settings in the Advanced Settings area.  Trying to solve problem where printer will not print from BLACK print cartridge.  It prints only from color cartridges.  Fear I may have changed something in my quest to solve the problem.

[Bob_Headrick]

When you say the black is not being used do you mean the printer is using color to print everything, even the black areas, or that the black areas are printing blank? 

Photo and color will be used instead of the black cartridge to print if Photo paper is selected in the Paper/Quality settings of the driver.  Select Plain Paper to use the black cartridge.

If the black areas are blank or printing only very lightly the troubleshooting steps in the document here may help resolve the issue.  Go through all the steps in order.

[Mike2748]

Bob, you understood, correctly.  The printer is using the "colors" to print everything.  The black print (type, letters, etc.) is not being printed by the new black cartidges.  I can get faint black characters, on some documents (not PDF, tho'),  by changing the print quality to BEST but the type is still, woefully, faint.  Plain Paper is selected. 

Test pages printed show colors but no black characters.  I cleaned out the vent, as the troubleshooting document indicated,  but there was no change.  When I do a ink level report it shows that the Black cartridge doesn't exist.  I bought a three pack of XL cartidges and have tried two of them, so far.

Any inspirational thoughts, going forward?  Mike

[Bob_Headrick]

Did you complete all the troubleshooting steps in the document here, including  soaking the printhead for ten minutes in hot water as shown in step 8?

If so there is one additional thing to check - remove the black cartridge (with the pentagon symbol) and drip a few drops of hot water into the ink port on the cartridge and on the printer.  Look carefully at the ink cartridge ink port - there will be four orange spots near the outlet port left from the cap.  Make sure these are flush with the body of the supply.  If the orange nibs protrude they can prevent the cartridge from seating properly.  If they protrude carefully trim them flush.  Put the cartridge back in the printer and run three head cleaning cycles in succession, then try printing a test page.

Are you using genuine HP cartridges or third party cartridges?

I would suggest putting the orange cap back on the XL cartridge you installed and later removed to preserve it for later use.