Printer carriage on 9010 does not move to center to change cartridges

[TRFBruce]

The approach worked for me of turning off the printer, opening the door, turning the printer on and catching the carriage mid-stride to replace the empty cartridge.  Now the carriage seems to be working fine.  Hoping that this helps someone out there with an enormously frustrating issue.  Mine is an HP 9020 printer, just days out of warrantee!

[Bill_Raleigh]

I'm going through the exact same thing right now with my 9018.  Replaced yellow and blue, no problem.  Closed the door, said now I need to close magenta.  Open door, press "replace", ... nothing.  Multiple reboots and wiggling the cartridge have not helped.  The carriage does not move during initialization so that doesn't help me either.

[Bill_Raleigh]

A follow-up:

I reached my finger around and ejected the Cyan cartridge to see if that would loosen things up.  I restarted the printer and on startup it gave a "missing or damaged cartridge" message.  I opened the door and the carriage moved into the opening.  Progress!  I pushed the cartridge back into place and closed the door, at which point it displayed "Checking the printer" and did nothing for about five minutes.

So I restarted, and it was back to getting stuck on the "Change cartridge" message.  I repeated the above procedure, but while the carriage was available, I went ahead and replaced the Magenta cartridge and closed the door.  The printer finished initializing, and actually printed the document in the print queue, while displaying a message "Thank you for installing HP instant ink cartridges. ..."

Unfortunately, the control panel screen was frozen with that message just like the replace cartridge message did.  And restarting brought the same message up, with no way to make it go away.  I searched this forum for "Control panel frozen" and found examples of this exact problem, in the same time frame as the posts on this thread (basically from late August 2021 until now).  This is a major software problem.

As it stands, you can still print (I did a test doc from Word), but if you want to scan you have to do it from the app, and if you want to copy, you have to scan then print.  It's too bad this thread is marked "Solved" because it isn't.  

[Bill_Raleigh]

Update #2:

I went to Software to look for firmware updates.  I downloaded the one for my printer and ran the .exe file.  When I selected my printer in the popup, the "install" button did not activate.  So even if they have a fix for it already, I couldn't install it.

Bill & Dave would be embarrassed.

[SWMoore]

I have the HP 9018 and encounter the same as all of the above. I have tried nudging the print carriage to the right and hard reboot many times with no luck. New printer purchased in May 2021 and first time to try replacing ink cartridges. If I can't  get it working today will haul it back to CostCo and see if they will take it back. When I reboot my printer the print carriage is not moving back and forth. 

[SWMoore]

I had the same problem with my 9018 hp printer yesterday when changing cartridges for the first time. I tried all the suggestions note in this blog but nothing worked. I had about an hour chat session with HP customer support and the last resort was to reset the printer to factory default which worked! A little messy as its like starting over again with a new setup, i.e. connection to wifi, hpsmart, instant ink other preferences, etc. 

[Bill_Raleigh]

SWMoore:  Did you have access to the home screen on the 9018 to do the factory reset, or is there a button somewhere, in case I go that route?

[phoebe2m]

I had the same problem with my 9010 Series. Very frustrating! First it says replace yellow. Did it no problem. But printer wouldn't print and said to replace blue. The cartridges wouldn't move from the right to the center. Reached in and dislodged the closest cartridge, closed door, and got a new error message. Then when I opened the door the cartridges moved to the center. I replaced the blue. Tried to print and printer said replace red. Repeated the dislodging of cartridge and was able to replace the red. Now I can print. I think maybe we should replace all 3 of the color cartridges in the future to prevent this problem? At least that's what I'm going to do. 

[JINX01]

I had the same problem with my office jet 9010. After replacing one cartridge and closing the door it immediately told me another cartridge needed replacing and on pressing the replace button nothing happened.

so did what people said, turn it on/offa few times and pushed the cartridges slightly to the right and back and it eventually freed itself. From now on I will be changing all four cartridges at the same time even if some still have ink in them.

[49thState]

I just had this exact same problem. I replaced the first cartridge fine. Printer said all was well, but wait, it's not well. Replace the black cartridge, it says. OH, but it won't let me!!! I did the nudge right thing and was able to replace the black cartridge and that worked. VICTORY. But wait, now it tells me I need to replace the yellow cartridge. No amount of nudging to the right worked. What finally allowed me to access the print cartridges was pushing in on the blue ink cartridge so that it popped out of print carriage slightly (wasn't fully installed). Once the print carriage was centered, I replaced the yellow and pink. Now I can't get my touch screen to reset (it keeps thanking me for replacing my cartridges), but at least I was able to print.