Printer Failure Message

[Ritch75]

Hello.  I was printing a rather long file (63 pages) and right in the middle of the print job the printing (black) switched from perfect quality to nothing at all.  The head was still indexing back and forth like it was printing, but blank pages came out.  I went through the troubleshooting steps on the HP website, including cleaning cartridges 3 times, and finally cleaning the printhead (3 times).  I replaced the cartridges, and the color ones print when I run a cleaning, but the black one does not print.  But...if I run the cartridge alignment, I get a Printer Failure message.  If I do a full reboot (power cycling), I get a printer failure messgae.  If I try to print anything at all, I get a printer failure message.  I know that the "next step" is said to be replace the printhead, and I have done that before, but with the constant "printer failure" message, I am not sure that spending the money for a printhead is logical.  Any suggestions?  I am about out of ideas.  The only thing that will get any type of print on a paper is to do a cartridge cleaning.  Then I get colored bars, but no black ink.  

BTW - after multiple cartridge cleaning there was excessive black ink in nad around the printhead, so I know that the cartridge is putting out the ink.  The printer is clean again now - but not working.  It may be time to buy a new one....too bad because I like the printer.

[Betty0610]

@Ritch75

Welcome to the HP Support Community.

I recommend you contact the HP Support Team as this could be a hardware issue.

Click on this link – www.hp.com/contacthp/

Let me know if this helps.

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Thanks!

Have a great day!

[Ritch75]

Hello.  I think yes, it is a hardware issue.  I did call customer support, and they put me in touch with a tech support guy.  He called me 5 minutes before his shift ended, and said he would call me back the next morning.  I took the call early while I was still in bed and asked him if he could please call back in 1/2 hour so I could get ready.  He said sure, but never called back.  I finally gave up and bought a new printer.  I still have thr printer but it still doesn't work.

I did try one more thing...I put the old (almost empty) black cartridge back into the printer, and everything all of a sudden seems to work, except that black still won't print.  Maybe my problem was compounded by a faulty black cartridge that I put in when the web page told me.  They said early on in the troubleshooting list that I should replace the cartridge with a new one.  With the new cartridge, I kept getting "printer failure" errors.  With the old, nearly empty cartridge I don't get that message, only no black printing.  (since it stopped working I have never gotten any black to work, with old or new cartridge)  Anyway, I went back and cleaned the cartridges (3 times, and basically ran all the cartridges out of ink) but the page that prints still had no black on any try.  I also ran cartridge alignment and did a cold reboot one last time.  The printhead and inside the printer has been cleaned repeatedly.  Nothing seems to fix the black printing.  I am sure there is some type of hardware failure, either inside the printer itself or the printhead.  It is odd that the printing was perfect until it just stopped in the middle of a job.  No lightened ink, no banding, just stopped between 2 printed pages of the same file.  

If there is a cheap fix for the printer, I would still do it, but although I like the printer and still have a bunch of ink supplies for it, I am not inclined to spend a lot of money to fix a printer that is maybe 8 years old now.