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Hi. I've got an HP Deskjet 3050, and after the black cartridge ran out, I refilled it and it continued to print OK. After another refill, the printer figured out that that the cartridge should've been empty by now and stopped printing with the message "incompatible cartridge" in the printer's display.
A quick web-search found a Youtube video to "reset HP ink levels" giving a way to continue printing, however, as others said in the comments, this has to be done for every print job with some printers including mine.
It's quite a rigmarole:
Switch on and wait for Wireless light to stop flashing.
Make sure that there in NO paper in the feeder.
Press and hold power button, press and release cancel, release power button.
The printer attempts to print a report.
Wait a while for it to give up and display a request to load paper.
Press cancel and it displays "cancelling---".
Wait a while for this to finish.
It is now possible to print ONE print job.
Other comments found on the web say that after inserting a number of cartridges, the printer forgets the serial number of the earliest cartridge and that can be reused, but this means buying many expensive cartridges.
Does anybody know how to make the printer forget about the cartridge, or know of any other solutions?
I had thought that there was a class action lawsuit that stopped HP from doing this, but maybe that means that the printer firmware has to be updated or something, or maybe it only applies to new printers.
By the way, the report that the printer prints about the cartridge, if I let it, looks like this:
Upvote for rigmarole. I'm not familiar with the model you have, but does it have a web server (EWS)? If it does find the printers up address and then go there in your web browser. In the search bar type cartridge and click "cartridge settings" if you scroll down the page at the bottom there should be an option to turn off cartridge protection. Make sure that is set to off.
Thanks. It does have a web-server, and it does have "cartridge settings" but no cartridge protection option. I've Googled that issue, and I believe that's about tying a cartridge to the serial-number of the printer so that it can't be used with any other printer. I don't think that my model of printer has that, and in any case, I'm using the original HP cartridge that came with the printer.
I've now found a Youtube video that says how to do a factory reset of the printer. I did that, reinserted the cartridge and the display said "Used HP cartridge", then it still wouldn't let me print. So it seems that the printer has a way of permanently making a cartridge describe itself as "used". (I'll allow the possibility that the cartridge has an out-of-ink sensor that's corroded and malfunctioned with age so that it incorrectly thinks that its empty.)
Anyway, I can still print if I go through the aforementioned rigmarole, so I've stuck those instructions on a label to the printer to remind me, so I'll have to make do with that. It's not worth getting a new cartridge since I rarely use the printer.
In fact, I so rarely use the printer in this age of electronic communications, that the cartridge dries out its print-head between each use, and I have to clear it with a suction-kit that I got from a Chinese Ebay vendor. The rigmarole doesn't really add much time to that.
Gotcha, well glad you found an acceptable compromise. I have never personally reused cartridges, but my father used to do that. He had the same problem with ink drying too. I'll ask him about it, but I think he bought a non-hp cartridge that would always say it was full to trick the printer. But, you have to use the printer a lot to really have this make much of a difference.
buy genuine ink problem solved
sure, will waste $80 on all ink colors needed to print 5 pages and then never use it again.