Envy 120 Black cartridge won't print

[Buboo2]

we can commiserate all we want, but I wonder if HP has read this thread in the last 2 years and if so, they seem awfully quiet about a workaround or fix, maybe their MO 

my principles would make me want to buy another HP 120e, just because it looks so sleek in my home office, but would have to assume it would die in about 2 years, chalking it up to expensive printing 

on the bright side as technology progresses, I could take some small pleasure in HP's printer future (hopefully due to low ratings) that it will go the way of Kodak (re: film) and have a market shrinking to zero with blogs, Pinterest and e-mails as the preferred way to share information 

you're absolutely correct though, "hey HP, your customers ("consumers") deserve better (service)"; and like you, hope they will vote with their wallets (so don't buy that stock) 

[upnorthkjs]

Having exactly same issues with my HP Envy 120...working ok for about a year, issues you describe just started for me last week.

So frustrating, should not have to replace printers this often. 

Would love to find printer/scanner with proven reliability AND/OR A COMPANY THAT WOULD STAND BEHIND IT'S PRODUCT WHEN so many of us are experiencing this issue with the black ink at relatively the same time.

This experience with HP has been very dissapointing!!!

[Buboo2]

I have done more research and made two interventions and solved the issue after learning more about the machine's systems 

the problem is/was both complicated and simple to resolve; it was a combination of two forces: 

1) the Envy 120e is too nice and compact, a well thought out design at too reasonable a cost for what it does; it's aesthetic is too appealing and thus dear to hold onto, bringing this machine from the US to Japan was a mistake on my part due to the regionalization of the internal sub-systems, but this CAN be considered an HP "design flaw", I cannot understand why the machine (firmware and ink cartridges) needed to be regionalized except to protect a manufacturing site around here somewhere 

2) as time goes on, with these last few years being a road map; we can look ahead to a continuation of the trend of printing anything becoming a victim of progress; as I said in my "Support Forum" as a commiseration to the woes of others, I think the Kodak experience with cameras and physical film is a paradigm for HP printers becoming a niche market in a world of cloud storage, image posting sites like "Pinterest®" (and others); and internet data transfer by site response forms and PDF files  

so it's not my fault and it's not HP's either, it's just "progress" that the HP technical design team needs to address in their future product issues: "consumers" will print less and less and in a more specialized way 

this is what happened to me: by "Google"® I found two interesting pages that were very informative: Common Mistakes When Refilling an Inkjet Cartridge and  Common mistakes when refilling ink jet cartridges

now I would not expect HP to reference these pages directly as they have to do with refilling foam internal ink cartridges, but they could put some of the physical science information on a more easily and direct public web page, with their own warning about cartridge usage 

and this is where it impacted me: I had been printing so infrequently that the nozzles of the black cartridge dried out to the point where they would not easily un-clog and the cartridge had been in service long enough that when I did use the "set the print head in a pan of hot water" fix and found it to work (print black) only once, reading the two articles, I went further by taking off the seal at the top of the cartridge and after observing the vent holes (four) and the vent line traces to the atmosphere, deduced that the top of the foam might be also dried out as well (not letting the body acclimatize to atmospheric pressure) and so with a toothpick, poked the foam - it was hard ! ! ! but further poking brought ink to end of the toothpick in all four holes 

I reinserted the cartridge and got black to print consistently, although at present a few nozzle holes are still clogged and so giving incomplete printing, I will let the cartridge sit overnight again to try to re-invigorate these few clogged nozzles 

lesson to learn: the cartridges and machine are design well to print, but like it or not you MUST print on a regular basis and be accepting of buying (or refilling) ink cartridges on a regular basis as a "cost of convenience" to the "consumer", since we are on this planet to consume 

my error was to bring this machine to Japan, I should have sold it on eBay and bought a new (old, as it's a 2013 design) regionalized machine here in Japan (as buying US cartridges to fit the US regionalized machine is costly: "60" and shipping from the US versus "161" from my corner office supply house) 

[Eaks]

In my case the printer CAN print black ink when it wants to.... The test page is perfect! On this basis I have ruled out a physical problem with the cartridge..... I purchased the printer in the UK and that's where I'm using it so not sure regional issues are a factor for me.

[upnorthkjs]

Thank you, I appreciate your time in providing such a detailed solution!

I had tried replacing with a new black ink cartridge so there should not have been any issues with dried or clogged cartridges.

My question about the theory of infrequent use and dry, clogged cartridges is-  wouldn't the colored ink cartrige have had the same issue if it related to infrequent printing?  color works fine, print test page works fine, just no black. And it also "fails alignment" each and every time I run that option.

I've always printed infrequently on my personal printer (as compared to daily use of work printers) and have not had this issue with other inkjet printers that I've owned a majority of those I've talked with when seeking out suggestions for printer options for my next purchase gave me pretty much the same answer in that they've had the same home printer for years (also inkjet, various models), hardly ever use it and it works fine when they do.

I may still try your solution though, thank you!

[Buboo2]

I want to be fair to both the other people posting and to the HP team that tried their scripted solutions to this problem, and it may help to further explain why the posts from years ago just went un-answered 

to the HP team I greatly appreciate their persistence in trying to find a solution to my issue, but one point was missed in the protracted conversations: I mentioned that on start-up my 120e AIO made a "ggwwjeekkt" sound as the print carriage posted to the right hand alignment / parking station; this might be why my black ink cartridge didn't print after many months of vegetating - perhaps it wasn't parked imprecisely over the protective well for the cartridge head and thus air leaking in and the ink drying over time 

against the HP team, there was no follow-up to that comment, where they could have said, "with a flashlight, see if the head is accurately aligned", but I realize that many "consumers" are not technically or mechanically inclined and just want to pay as little as possible, to get flawlessly as possible a gorgeous print, with the marvel and intricities of the machine out of view and un-appreciated, not the least of which is the print nozzles being "one third the width of a human hair" ! ! 

finally is it "moral" to not expend the effort to rescue a machine of such complexity? sending it in for "repair" would most likely, with labor and shipping costs so dear in comparison to the cost of  new or "refurbished" machine, it would be consigned to the dust bin and later crunched 

to the person whose black cartridge prints when it wants to, I suspect an electrical point not making contact, and again, is this a reason to junk the machine? 

does HP read these posts? do they care? 

[hpuser131]

Hey, I am also encountering printing issues. The printing got poor quality till not working. Newly bought original HP ink cartridges don't work correctly anymore. I bought an 300XL twin package - 2 out of 4 catridges is working but with a huge lack of printing quality. The print output comes with white irregular lines in between the letters - not to speak of printing pictures which come out with white stripes and wrong colors (lack of yellow).

I bought the printer in December 2013 and have the invoice. Physically the device is in a super good state but due to these issues it became pretty useless by now.

It's the most expensive printer I bought for home office but it's by far the worst of all printers I've used.

I am deeply frustrated with this printer. Well, from this forum I get the sense that HP doesn't care about their customers.

Hey HP, if you care at all please give me and the thousands of others an answer to the problems your devices cause!

If I have to trash this printer I will never again buy any HP product I am sure.