Printer Ink Cartridges & Print Quality

Hello, I have an old HP Deskjet 3050 -J610a.

For many years until recently, it's printed just fine with only the black ink cartridge installed in "single-cartridge mode."

(In Win 8.1 and maybe an earlier Win 10 version.)

A few months ago after some sort of update (I think HP), the printer now refuses to print without the color print cartridge.

The only hang-up is "device status" and "color ink cartridge missing" or something like that.

I no longer have the option to select single-cartridge mode.

I'd found a temporary workaround which required, after sending job into print queue, running HP Scan Doctor for every print  request.  This would hang on the same error, but if I clicked "skip" it would then print the page anyway.  The process was time consuming and inconvenient, but at least I could still print.

Today I was prompted for a Scan Doctor update. After the update, it appears someone "patched" the workaround!!

Now I can't print at all without a color cartridge.

This is maddening!!

I don't ever print in color or buy color cartridges.  It's a complete waste of money since I only print black text documents.  I can't afford to pay for a color cartridge, only to have it be a "space filler" that dries up and needs to be replaced again and again. This effectively makes my black cartridges cost three times as much!!

As stated, this printer has worked for many years with only a black ink cartridge without issue (and it was originally designed to do so), so to say a color cartridge is "necessary" to prevent "damage" to the printer (other community threads) would be hogwash.  

This is an awful problem.  I don't have a working printer at this point!!

Am I stuck with no other solution except buying a new printer?

(If so, it won't be an HP, and I'll be sure it'll be one without this restriction.)

At minimum, is it possible to roll back to a previous version of Scan Doctor so that I have the laborious workaround at least?

Please tell me there's a software solution to this issue.

Thank you!

Edit:  Since this printer used to print in single-cartridge mode, if HP has disabled this through a software update, please update the software with a patch.  Barring that, or some sort of software workaround, is there at least a way to buy a "dummy" (empty) color print cartridge to spoof the printer into working, or will an empty cartridge cause the same hang-up?
This darn software update has completely disabled my perfectly fine printer.  Boo HP!!!!