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HP Recommended

NEVER again will I purchase any HP product.

I had an important document to print up last night, and this printer will not work even with all settings to black and white only if any of the color cartridges are empty or missing.

You are extorting money from customers who bought your product in good faith.

I will be replacing this with a Canon printer today.

You have lost a customer with your skeezy business practices HP.

SHAME!

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions
HP Recommended

This is a feature that was originally going to be included in this printer as snowjg points out. However, this feature was surreptitiously removed because of of the future issues that having this ability also creates. Since it is possible to print without color from your computer through the device settings, this allows the printer to retain the required ink for calibration and maintenance while reducing the overall color ink output. 

I believe that I outlined fairly well the possible issues that can be caused by leaving a depleted cartridge in the machine above, but If you have any other questions I will be more than happy to answer them as best as I can.

Have a great day!  

View solution in original post

49 REPLIES 49
HP Recommended

I bought the HP Officejet 6100 ePrinter. I have only had it a short time and the color cartridges are now out of ink. Unknown to me this printer will not print without color cartridges with ink. The majority of the time I only print in black. I have changed the printer settings to only print in black but this does not solve the problem. I have never had a printer that will not print all black inked documents without a color ink in the cartridges. Also every other printer that I have ever had will just print the color parts of documents in shades of grey.

 

HP you should put this type of information in bold print on the packaging box.

 

 

HP Recommended

 

The requirement of having a color ink cartridge in HP printers constantly is by no means an effort to extort money, but to prevent damage from occurring to your machine. First, for the printer to be able to perform it's calibrations and corrections, it has to be able to use color ink. If that is not accessible, that could put your printer into an error state or cause more significant hardware damage. 

Speaking of hardware damage, that is the other reason, if you leave the color ink out of the machine for prolonged periods of time, that can lead to the printhead becoming unusable (either clogged or dried out from in use). 

Additionally, the information is made available through the product specifications as well as in the product manual - both of which are available online at no cost. 

These are best printing practices to ensure the longevity of the printer and stem any potential for internal harm. 

I hope this information is helpful to you! 

HP Recommended

The color cartridge(s) are NOT out of the printer. They are still installed in the printer. They are just low or out of color ink. I have not taken them out of the printer at any time.

 

The printer will not print when only black ink is required for the print job. The printer will NOT print at all right now!!! ALL of my HP printers in the past have printed in black ink when the color cartridge ink is empty. They will even print what is normally in color in grey.

 

Again this printer will not print at all without color ink in the ink cartridges that are installed in the printer!  

 

My husband is currently unemployed due to the declining economy. He was laid off after working for the same company for 23+ years. We recently bought this printer when our former HP printer stopped working. We bought this printer the day our old one stopped working because my husband needs to be looking for work by mailing resumes & cover letters. Again, we were using this printer to print resumes & cover letters.  On the very rarest of occassion this printer was used for color printing. 

 

I am NOT happy with this printer! Why will it not print in black when the installed color cartridges are empty?????

 

Kathryn {personal info removed}

 

 

HP Recommended

 

Kathryn. as I explained above, there are a number of reasons why it is important to replace empty cartridges with cartridges that contain ink. 

While printers in the past did have this functionality, it was removed due to the potential hardware issues that could be caused by leaving the machine without a color cartridge or with an empty cartridge. These issues can lead to the necessity for the printhead to be replaced, rather than the cartridge, and this piece is only available through the manufacturer at higher price than the cartridge. For that reason it is in the best interest of the printer and its hardware to ensure that at all times it has the required components to run all of the diagnostics and processes. 

HP is not alone in adapting this, either. Several other printer manufacturers also have similar requirements on their printers for the same reasons.

While I sympathize with your husband’s position, I can assure you that replacing the cartridge will in the long run be an easier solution to the issue than replacing the entire unit.

Additionally, you can set your printer to only print in B/W through Printer Properties in Devices and Printers which would only use the color for diagnostics, making that cartridge last much longer.

Have a great day! 

HP Recommended

As it stands now, if even one ink cartridge needs replacement, the printer will stop functioning.  However, according to the manual for the 6100 eprinter, it should be able to function without full color cartridges installed.  The text in quotation marks below appears verbatim on page 31 of the current User Guide for the Officejet 6100 ePrinter (2012 copyright, obtained from HP website):

 

"Print when one or more ink cartridges are depleted
The printer can still operate when the black ink cartridge or one or more color ink
cartridges are depleted, but it will print more slowly. Also, the quality of printed
documents might be affected.
The printer will not be able to print when both the black cartridge and a color cartridge
are depleted.
• If the black cartridge is depleted, any black color in printed documents is created
using a combination of the remaining colors. As a result, blacks might not appear to
be as dark.
• If a color cartridge is depleted, the printer will print in grayscale using the black
cartridge."

In essence, then, our experience with this printer indicates that this claim is not valid.  I may be wrong, and perhaps there is something I have missed, but the User Guide seems to state pretty clearly that functioning does not depend on having color cartridges that contain ink.  'Depleted' is synonymous with 'emptied.'

HP Recommended

With your recommendation that the printer would print with a depleted color cartridge installed I tried to print once again. I got the following message:

 

Ink Cartridge Depleted

HP 933 Magenta

Cartridge listed above must be replaced to resume printing.

HP recommends that you do not remove ink cartridge until replacement is ready to install.

Shop Online

Cancel Print

Help

 

In the past I have tried the Help option here, I thought maybe that I would see something that I overlooked before, but unfortunately it was no help at all to me.

 

As I stated in earlier posts I am just trying to print black ink only. In other words there is no color ink needed for the document that I am trying to print. Also I have changed the settings on the printer to just print with black ink.

 

I have never had this situation in the past. Between my husband & I this is the third HP printer that we have owned.

 

HP Recommended

Yes, I have had the exact same problem.  The portion of the User Manual I quoted does not offer any further information about what to do in case the printer stops working when one or more of the color cartridges is depleted.  Even after changing the printer settings, as you have done, I get only an error message.  This is why the User Guide section copied above is so mysterious.  I hope that HP will give us a better indication of what to expect and how we can reconcile the printer's actual functioning with what is mentioned in the User Guide.

HP Recommended

I too have this problem but with an Officejet 6700 premium.

 

Currently the printer is telling me the Magenta cartridge is empty and must be replaced before the printer will resume printing.

 

This is just absurd, Ive never had a printer that did this. My last printer was an Officejet 6500 and i could print until the cartridges were dry. To top things off i live in South Africa and the cartridges for this printer are not readily available!

 

It seems that the only work around for this would be always keep stock of all 4 of the cartridges.

 

This is a terrible practice that HP has adopted and the explanation they have responded with in this post is nonsense; we all know printer manufactures make the majority of their money off of ink sales.

 

It would be great if HP could rectify this with a driver update.

 

Ink Error.jpg

 

Ink level.jpg

 

Device Info.jpg

HP Recommended

This is a feature that was originally going to be included in this printer as snowjg points out. However, this feature was surreptitiously removed because of of the future issues that having this ability also creates. Since it is possible to print without color from your computer through the device settings, this allows the printer to retain the required ink for calibration and maintenance while reducing the overall color ink output. 

I believe that I outlined fairly well the possible issues that can be caused by leaving a depleted cartridge in the machine above, but If you have any other questions I will be more than happy to answer them as best as I can.

Have a great day!  

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