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- HP Community
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- Printer Ink Cartridges & Print Quality
- Re: printerhead cleaning never ending

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09-07-2026 02:55 AM
let's try this community .. tried the Hp solution center but i ended up with a bunch of questions of an AI which got me nowhere.
so i have this HP Officejet Pro 8020e printer in which i just insstalled a new black cartridge. it printed fine until today. i saw smears accross the print so i tried align and clean printheads from the webinterface. i know this takes usually up to 10 minutes but it was neverending so after 20 minutes i shut down the computer. After the restart it did NoT print black or just faintly. tried another printhead clean but it's neverending. allready half an hour went by ... it's not doing anything
How can i solve this?
09-07-2026 04:17 AM
Hi, @korafola, Welcome to the HP Support.
I will be more than happy to help you. while I am an HP employee, the views expressed here are my own and may not necessarily reflect the views of HP. By sharing relevant video links, I aim to provide clear, practical guidance in an easy-to-follow format. These tailored video resources are designed to address queries more effectively and enhance understanding. I hope you find them helpful as well.
Here are the links which may help to resolve the issue:
Manually Clean a Removeable Printhead | HP Printers | HP Support - YouTube
Do keep me posted.
Take care and have a good day.
Please click “Accepted Solution” if you feel my post solved your issue, it will help others find the solution. Click the “Kudos/Thumbs Up" on the bottom right to say “Thanks” for helping!
RITA_R2
HP Support
09-07-2026 01:32 PM
thanx Rita ... i got the printerhead cleaning in order. Now VERY strange behavious of the printer
so after first printerhead cleaning i got test page on paper with alphabet very much distorted (smears)
so i went ahead with a second printerhead cleaning which improved the test page considerably but still
NOT satisfactory, the printer suggested another cleaning
and that testpage was perfect.
I then thought it was ok, so i immediately tested a texst file from linux command line (cat /Tmp/test.txt | lp) which printed perfectly.
with a sigh i finally printed what i wanted to print all along .... sadly the printout of black ink was NOT good, the top of the page was fine but more to the bottom lacked a lot of text.
so now did a couple of cleanings ... the print test pages are not good. Do i need a new cartridge or is it the print head/nozzles?????
09-10-2026 10:08 AM
thanx Rita ... i got the printerhead cleaning in order. Now VERY strange behavious of the printer
so after first printerhead cleaning i got test page on paper with alphabet very much distorted (smears)
so i went ahead with a second printerhead cleaning which improved the test page considerably but still
NOT satisfactory, the printer suggested another cleaning
and that testpage was perfect.
I then thought it was ok, so i immediately tested a texst file from linux command line (cat /Tmp/test.txt | lp) which printed perfectly.
with a sigh i finally printed what i wanted to print all along .... sadly the printout of black ink was NOT good, the top of the page was fine but more to the bottom lacked a lot of text.
so now did a couple of cleanings ... the print test pages are not good. Do i need a new cartridge or is it the print head/nozzles?????