Genuine HP 951XL HIGH YIELD Color Ink Cartridges / 3-Pack / NEW / SEALED / OEM

[purchasingGuru]

I am the purchasing agent for a company and resell HP printers and ink. We sold an HP 8610 printer to a customer 4 years ago and have been purchasing OEM ink for her ever since. Recently I purchased  Genuine HP 951XL HIGH YIELD Color Ink Cartridges / 3-Pack / NEW / SEALED / OEM, but the ink won't work in her printer. It gives her an error message and won't print. She brought the new cartridges back to me along with her old cartridges. There are a couple differences I notice on the ink cartridges themselves. First of all, the "old" ink cartridges were labeled as CN046A, CN047A, and CN048A. The new cartridges I sold her very recently are labeled as CN046AN, CN047AN, and CN048AN and have "z10 For use only in US and Canada" written on them. 

I have several other customers I purchase OEM ink for the exact same printer and have never had this issue. Any thoughts?

[Repairatrooper]

Is your client based in Canada or US? Cartridges are region restricted and will not be recognized if printer is from different area.

[purchasingGuru]

All of our customers are here in the US. Would the printer itself possibly be a "Non-US or Canada" printer? And how would I know for sure?

[Bob_Headrick]

My guess is the user has at some point installed the wrong region cartridges.  On the front panel of the printer go to the home screen and press the ink droplet icon at the top of the screen.  Next touch the black rectangle.  At this point a new window will open that says "installed cartridge" and "Supported cartridge".  What are the cartridge numbers listed?

HP introduced regionalized cartridges (Z10, Z20, Z30 and Z40) for the previously universal 950/951 cartridges in about January 2017.  The printer will "lock" itself to the first Zxx cartridge installed in the printer.  If you are in the US/Canada you will need Z10 cartridges, but the printer may have been locked to another region by accident.  In that case you will need to have HP perform a "Regionalization Reset".  You will need to Contact HP to request a "Regionalization Reset". There should not be any charge for this, it is covered as part of the cartridge warranty. You will need to have access to your computer and printer while on the line with HP. You will also need to have a set of cartridges for the new region, once the reset is complete cartridges from the original region will no longer work.  HP's web page on the subject is here.

It seems folks have had the best results requesting the regionalization reset through the HP Facebook Support page:  https://www.facebook.com/HPSupport/

[purchasingGuru]

Thank you so much for your help!

So the last time she bought ink was in 2016. And then, of course, a few days ago. So if she was using the old version of the cartridges (that were not region specific) and now trying to use the new ones that say Z10, do you think the Regionalization Reset is still the answer? I sent her home with a different set of OEM cartridges, and the magenta one worked, but the cyan and yellow still didn't. I have not been able to confirm with her just yet what is different about the new magenta cartridge (if anything).

[Bob_Headrick]

The 950/951  last a long time (especially the XL versions), but maybe not four years.  Is it possible she got some cartridges from elsewhere in the meantime?  If at any time -Zsomethingotherthan10 cartridges were installed in the printer (even just one) the printer would lock to that region.  

Was the magenta cartridge also a -Z10?

Please ask her to do the following:  on the front panel of the printer go to the home screen and press the ink droplet icon at the top of the screen.  Next touch the black rectangle (indicating the black ink level).  At this point a new window will open that says "installed cartridge" and "Supported cartridge".  What are the cartridge numbers listed?  If the supported cartridges are not the -Z10 (as in some other -Z number) then the printer will need the reset procedure.

If they have the HP Smart app they could also check from there - in HP Smart click on the Officejet Pro 8600, then click Supply Status on the left under General.  My Officejet Pro 8600 has never had a regionalized cartridge installed so it does not show the Z designators, but if it had been it would show the cartridges as shown in the post here.

In any case, if something other than no designation, (as in my case below) or a Z10 then a reset will be needed.

[purchasingGuru]

Bob, 

You are super helpful! I will check with her and follow your guidelines to solve this problem. Thank you so much for your continued help. I will let you know when we have a resolution!