HP Photosmart 7520 Won't Print Black.

[Tom8]

Thank you, EValley.  Yours is the best of all suggestions.  If you have this problem, don't buy a new printhead and don't give up after a few tries at cleaning the cartridges.  I did the "Clean Cartridges" and "Align Printer" several times.  Each time I noticed the Black color bar kept getting better, starting with a completely white bar when I first put the new cartridge in, to half white with the rest streaked, to completely black after about 8 or 10 times.

[Jackman1933]

How do you find step 6 in the link shown on your note......

[workathome1]

Right, I had the same problem with the black cartridge showing blank on the Print Quality Report and no black printing working.  When I used Clean Print Cartridges about 8 to 10 times it gradually started showing black on the Print Quality Report and now is working fine. 

Thanks for posting your suggestion to keep trying the Clean Print Cartridges multiple times.  Otherwise, I wouldn't have.

Appreciate it!

[JJ-55_]

I had the same problem, new cartridges and black did not work. I did the cleaning process and it all works great now. However, I modified the steps a bit as follows:

1. Remove Print head.

2. Soak in hot water 10 minutes.

3. Rinse and soak again.

4. Keep rinsing and soaking until the water is pretty clean. Then dry with a paper towell..

5. Remove the four small rubber grommits around each ink port. They pop off easily. You just need a tooth-pick or something to bend them up so you can get a grip on them.

6. Use some "canned air" to spray out all the excess water from all the crevaces and holes, including the holes. where the ink discharges into the print head. The idea is to get things dry and displace the water. Small blasts only. Don't get agressive with it.

7. Replace the rubber grommits.

8. Replace the print head and cartridges.

Worked for me. 

Good luck.

[catht]

Posting this for subsequent readers.  I did "Clean Cartridge" 10x with no change to the blank black cartridge block.  "Align Printer" had the same fail as others have reported.   I'm not about to figure out how to remove print head to clean it.  I have a msg into HP printer support ... we shall see.  (I like the printer otherwise, but this is a nuisance.)

[tjrachke]

I had the same issue and cleaned the cartidges about 8 times and it is working fine now.

Thanks for the tips

[catht]

Thanks for the comment; I'm very glad it worked for you.  I gave up and bought a new HP OfficeJet Pro.  I hope it has no weird problems.

[idahospud1]

Thanks for the suggestion, EValley!  After the first cleaning cycle the box for the black cartridge was pure white and an attempt to align the cartridges failed.  After 8 cleaning cycles the "black" box was finally filled in and then the alignment cycle completed successfully.  As another reader said, I wouldn't have thought to keep trying if not for your comment. It saved me from having to go out in a snowstorm to buy a new printer!

[KMMom]

After printing fine, all of a sudden my (black ink only) page had a few gray streaks, but no printing.  Put in new cartridge, but page came out completely white.  Before finding this forum I tried cleaning printhead via HP Toolbox.  After I read the comments above I decided to remove the printhead and clean it manually.  Not knowing how, I searched and found this article:   http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c03379735 

'Missing or Failed Printhead' Displays for HP Photosmart 7520 e-All-in-One Printer Series'

Title wasn't same as my problem, but it did show me how to remove the printhead, which was covered in tons of gooey ink!  I didn't use any water - just wiped the parts with a piece of old t-shirt (clean lint-free cloth).  Immediately after this, still no black ink.  Ran clean printhead from toolbox, regular and deeper clean - still not working. 

Moving on to the next step for Resetting the Printer.  I unplugged printer from both ends and plugged back in.  Wow!  Was I surprised that THIS is when my black ink finally started working.  Not sure if this reset/restart alone was responsible, or in combination with the other steps.

Thank you to previous posters for pointing me in the right direction!

SUCCESS!