Black ink won't print on Photosmart Premium C309a

[lvharleygal]

Thanks for the response. I too am very upset with this.  I have 3 sets of unused cartridges. ALL HP brand!

Was looking at new HP printers that will use this as it will cost less to buy a new printer than this ink costs.

I've tried all the suggestions listed and ZIP.. notta.. kaput! nothing works! urrrrgggghhhh

Have always loved HP.  Got this one a year ago and now sorry I did. What happened to the great HP's that used to be out. 

Everything is disposable now a days! Very sad!

[usmcdad]

I have tried everything until I used this post suggestion. It worked!!!! As a Male I cannot stand it when something doesn't work like it's supposed to. THANK YOU!!

[christcares4u]

Very frustrating problem - I went through several  blac prinint cartriges, thinking I bought bad ones.   I will mention how I at least temporarily got mine working again. Three steps:

1) I noticed I had more than one icon for the printer - I set the other one as default.

2) I changed my .pub to a pdf   - this gave me a different looking "printing options" page - then :

Select "Properties" from the Print window.
Select the "Color" tab.
Change "Color Management" to "Application Managed Colors".

This fix did not work unless I got a different looking printing options pages (sorry if it doesn't make sense)

You would think if 3,500 customers sought answers for the same problem that HP would do something...

[Adrian183]

I had the same problem, I have posted this answer already but in case you didn't see it here it is again. It is a cleaning problem. Take all the cartridges out, remove the carriage and printhead carriers and carefully wash in warm water with a little washing up liquid. It takes some time as they are usually pretty clogged. When clean, dry and re-assemble. Switch on and the printer will probably go through a full setup routine. But it will now print black again. They seem to need cleaning every year or so.

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@christcares4u wrote:

Very frustrating problem - I went through several  blac prinint cartriges, thinking I bought bad ones.   I will mention how I at least temporarily got mine working again. Three steps:

1) I noticed I had more than one icon for the printer - I set the other one as default.

2) I changed my .pub to a pdf   - this gave me a different looking "printing options" page - then :

Select "Properties" from the Print window.
Select the "Color" tab.
Change "Color Management" to "Application Managed Colors".

This fix did not work unless I got a different looking printing options pages (sorry if it doesn't make sense)

You would think if 3,500 customers sought answers for the same problem that HP would do something...

---

[WilbertEshelman]

Question number one,printer will print the colors,but not black ink. Question number two, how do you remove the drive out of the printer. Question number three, my hp laptop tells me i am off line with the printer.                    Thanks wbe

[Adrian183]

Question one, it only seems to affect the black ink, so washing will work, question two remove the cartridges, there should be a lever at the side of the carrier which when unlocked will lift out, this is what you wash but do it carefully. Number three, don't really know, but when you re-assemble and the printer does it's diagnostics again it may clear this problem, if not try unplugging for a minute or so and re-connect. BTW it's 8.15  Saturday evening in England!

[Chradek]

Thank you for your post, this issue has been very frustrating. I tried cleaning the print head as was posted and it did look like it could have been clogged but after reinstalling it still would not print in black. Tried aligning print head and it continued to say failed. But when I changed the print settings it printed. Thank you again.

[mikemary945]

Tried all the solutions here on my C309n, when it just stopped printing black.  As a last (should have been first?) resort, I replaced the nearly-new black XL cartridge with a new one, and the problem was solved.  Now to try to get something back from the folks at HP, since I bought all my cartridges from them online.

Mike

[vitt]

I have never had a more disappointing experience with any hardware or software than I've had with my HP C309 "all-in-one" printer. 

IF YOU ARE CONSIDERING BUYING ANY HP PRINTER, THINK TWICE!!

- It has NEVER been reliable with any of our computers, whether they are connected wirelessly or with a cable. There are more expletives coming from the mouths of family members about this printer than anything else.

- I have had messages about the ink being out within only a few days of putting in new cartridges, without having printed more than 50 pages of text only. 

- I have spent over $500 a year on ink, despite the fact that the printer is rarely used to print photos or any other ink-intensive jobs.

- I have tried for HOURS to talk to a real person at HP, and the only way I could connect was to "report a security threat."

- I had the whole printer replaced, thinking that the problem was simply that I had a lemon. The replacement is no different.

- I feel as though I've been scammed, and the company has no interest in serving - or keeping - their customers.

I still can't print using black ink, even though I've tried all the fixes (wasting a few hours and lots of printer ink in the process). 

HP is a horrible company.  Don't know who is in charge, but he or she should be fired.

[MountainTigger]

Miraculously I fixed my problem as described by nearly everyone on this forum.

Had gone to Office Depot originally and asked guy about this problem who advised that I take out the printer cartridge CARRIAGE and clean it off with alcohol and Q-tips (which sounded to me like what a tech for HP would do and charge me a fortune).

But didn't know how to take out the carriage (although the arm bar is there to the right of the individual ink cartridges, themselves).

So found this forum and read all; then found this video that included how to safely remove carriage, although they are generally addressing paper jams in video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrXXDYOcIc4 

(Youtube - "Fixing A Carriage Jam...(c309a)")

1) IT WOULD BE BEST IF YOU WATCH VIDEO TO THE MIDDLE AS THESE INSTRUCTIONS ARE GIVEN.  If you don't have time here is what I did...

2) printer needs to be on; lift the lid to expose the cartridges and let it slid around until it stops in middle just like when

you are going to change a cartridge.

3) YOU ONLY HAVE 5 MINUTES OR LESS TO DO THIS WHOLE THING BEFORE THE CARTRIDGES DRY OUT AND CREATE A WORSE PROBLEM, so be quick about this. (Read all this first and be ready before you remove the cartidges, in other words.)

4) You need Q-Tips and alcohol (70% isopropal...not the fun kind)

5) Remove each cartridge and gentle lay aside--DO NOT TOUCH EITHER INK PAD NOR THE ELECTRICAL SPOT ON THE CARTRIDGES.

6) Lift the tan handle on the right of the carriage once all cartidges are out and lift little carriage out (like in video)

7) I first cleaned the tiny well heads inside the carriage for each color BEING CAREFUL TO USE A CLEAN Q-TIPS DIPPED IN

ALCOHOL FOR EACH COLOR (i.e. - don't cross pollinate the color heads from the Q-tip)

😎 HERE IS THE INTERESTING PART - I layed the bottom of the carriage on paper towels while I did step 7 and noticed that ink was leaking onto the counter through the paper towel. So once I finished the little round internal heads and flipped it over to see the mess, I took new Q-Tips and began to wipe down the electronic looking strips on the bottom--up and down, up and down, along the lines on those strips (like going with the grain of wood), again not doing both strips with the same Q-Tip (since one strip is color and one is for black).

I cleaned the colored strip (the wider one) several times until the Q-Tips began to come out cleaner and then I cleaned out the black strip (thinner one).  WHEN I CLEANED THE BLACK ONE, BLACK FLAKES CAME OFF SEVERAL TIMES ONTO THE Q-TIP HEAD INSTEAD OF JUST BLACK INK.  So, of course, I continued to clean it until no more flakes appeared on the Q--Tips.

Then I quickly rushed back (at about 3-4 minutes), put the cleaned carriage back in and reloaded the original photo black cartridge (bow tie symbol) and color cartridges (all were new from a few days ago) BUT PUT IN A NEW BLACK CARTRIDGE (pentagon shaped symbol)... and it worked after that.

I cannot promise this is the entire answer (I had worked on that beast for hours and wasn't inclined to play with it more today after printing successfully in a few diffrent modes)...but THE BLACK FLAKES WERE A DEAD GIVE AWAY  that at very least that was fixing part of the problem.  Also, for the first time today after MANY tries, the "alignment" operation finally worked successfully after all this...so maybe this really will be a blessing to the rest of you!

Here's hoping!