Photosmart C7280 all in one printer keeps giving me expired ink cartridge warning

[bbran]

My Photosmart C7280 all in one printer keeps giving me expired ink cartridge warning.  The cartridge is expired but I want to keep using it as it still has ink.  Is there any way to disable these annoying warnings?  I can't print until I acknowledge them!

[Picardje]

HI,

Unfortunatly there is no way in disabling this error message. As the printer is trying to protect its printhead ,which cannot be replaced, from damage it will keep giving this message when trying to print.

[bbran]

Thanks for the information.  HP should change this approach though, its up to me whether I want a ruined print head and to avoid annoying notices.

[Bob_Headrick]

A ruined printhead means a ruined printer since the printhead is permanant for this model.  There are many HP printer models that do not expire ink and only a few models that do expire ink.  See the page here for information.

[Picardje]

HI,

As Bob says, a ruined printhead in these pritners mean that the printer is permanently defective. That is why it gives the error. If we would not have the printer give the notice and it would break down because of the printhead, you can imagine it would cause a lot of angry customers.

This way it might be a little inconvinient, but will make sure your printer stays ok, and your prints are at optimal quality.  

[NextMed]

This is incredibly frustrating.  If my "yellow" cartridge is "expired" then my entire printer is offline and useless.   Even if I have a brand new black ink cartridge I and try to print just in grayscale, my printer is still offline.  If you remove the "expired" cartridge and try to print in grayscale, still no luck.  One silly "expired" ink cartridge and the entire printer is rendered obsolete.  If this is truly a legitimate thing then it is a series terrible design flaws, otherwise it’s just a gimmick to make us buy more ink and help increase HP’s profits at our expense.  I will never buy a HP printer again.

[pissedOffFormer]

I too have experienced this design_flaw / ink_sales_gimmick.

Once it happened on a deadline while printing only black and white documents.

I consider it truly inexcusable. In fact, I have been tempted on more than one occasion to take a sledge hammer to the printer because of this mandatory color cartridge problem.

I can tell you with absolute certainty that I will NEVER, EVER buy another HP product again. Fool me twice...

I would rank this design decision at the same level of business stupidity as Netflix' decision to raise prices by 60%... Meaning, say goodbye to your once-loyal customers.

[jose6980]

I agree with not buying another HP printer.  It is totally ridiculous that the printer is rendered useless becuase one pink cartridge is expired.  The printer should be able to print in black if the black cartridge is good.  This is seems like an intentional error message design to force customers to buy ink cartridges.  I will throw this printer out along with my other full ink cartridges and replace it with Epson printer.  No wonder HP stock has tanked.  I hope Meg Witman reads these post. 

[CoolBreeze202]

I'm not so sure the problem isn't even worse.  I've been through three brand new HP light cyan ink carteridges now and each time after ripping the genuine HP ink carteridge from the packaging and installing it been told the ink is expired.  Well, in two cases it was even though I had purchased it from Office Max just weeks before.  So somewhere along the line I was sold a couple of expired ink carteridges.  The third has an expiration data in 2014, over a year from now, but I still get the ink carteridge expired notice and cannot use the printer to print color.  I've used HP printers for years and infact, still use a LaserJet 6p that is probably around 18 years old.  Quality is usually great but I have to admit this is a poorly thought out design.  One thing that is different though is when I get the carteridge expired notice I am allowed to print in pure black.

[Shirlzz1 · Accepted solution]

@ CoolBreeze202 - I am sorry that you are having that issue with the ink cartridges and the ink expiration error message.  One can try to clean the contacts on the cartridges and the contacts inside the machine to ensure that build up on those parts are not the source of the error message. Pages 163-164 of the user manual will show one the manual cleaning process. 

I would also perform a hard reset to the printer to try and clear the error message and restore the printer to a known working condition. No user settings are lost with a hard reset.  Here is a link that will show you how to do a hard reset on that machine.