Weird, hard to diagnose printer problem
 

It prints fine from the printer menu, but will not print black from the PC

I have a Hewlett Packard Photosmart 8450, and I'm in Win10 with all updates, including Creator's Fall Update. It's an older model, but has never given me any problems.

As recently as earlier this morning, it printed everything fine, but I was getting 'ink level low' notices. I had some important [quality-wise] printing to do, so I replaced cartridges [Black and Photo only, I replaced the Tri-Color a month ago without incident]. All replacment cartridges are genuine from manufacturer.

Now everything prints fine if I select it from the onboard menu [alignment page, cleaning page, test page, etc], but if I print from anything in Windows, it goes through the motions of printing everything, but there is no black output.

Based on the cleaning/alignment results, I'm fairly sure it's not a hardware problem, but I've having trouble finding a software solution. Some said random unplugging and replugging [both USB and power]. Some said wait a day. Everyone else seems to have print head problems, which is highly unlikely here as mentioned above.

Just curious if anyone has encountered anything similar.

EDIT TO ADD: I should say, I changed the black cartridge and printed a few pages fine including black. Then I changed the photo cartridge and the black stopped printing after that.

Timeline
1 week ago - replaced tri-color
through past week - low ink notice, but printed plenty of things fine
early this morning - replaced black cartridge, printed a couple more pages fine
later this morning - replaced photo cartridge, printed test and cleaning pages from printer menu fine. No black output from PC.

I had a Hewlett Packard before I got my Canon. It was a parade of non stop problems from the get go for me. Don't think I ran into your particular problem, though. I was going to kinda tongue in cheek suggest turning it off and on, but you've already covered that, lol. Good luck.

If all else fails -

http://orig13.deviantart.net/5447/f/...re-d4kus1k.gif

Check for a driver update? Uninstall and then reinstall the driver?

It does sound like a driver issue.

Was going to let this die, but since people are taking the trouble to think about it and respond.

It looks to be a wonky cartridge. Never figured out why it printed out OK from the panel, but not the PC. But the old cartridge wasn't completely empty. So I reinstalled it, and it still works fully with its remaining ink. So I'll try a different cartridge when the existing one runs out.

In sum, I don't have a solution, but I mooted the problem, at least for now.

you have more damn printer and computer issues. remember - both ink cart (itself) and the interior wall of printer BOTH have sensors that mesh-up, this is almost always the case.

Your problem lies within Windows.

I don't think I have that many more than any long time regular user. A lot of my issues I figure out elsewhere. I just throw up here the ones that don't seem to be answered elsewhere.

My last problem with my portable drive turned out to be a fairly common one with certain drives in Windows 10, it just happened to me before anyone started talking about it online, so I asked about it here to see if anyone had any solutions.

Mostly it's just brainstorming. They're not like some people here who post the periodic 'hey I clicked on something from a Nigerian prince and now the power is out for my whole neighborhood. Please help immediately!!'

It's more 'I have this weird thing I'm trying to figure out and no one seems to be discussing it elsewhere, if anyone has insights, I'd appreciate them.'

As for this one, I have fully functioning printer back by putting in the old cartridge. Eventually, it will have to be replaced. If the one I tried previously still doesn't work, I have a few more new cartridges stocked up. If none of them work, I'll cross that bridge then. The working premise right now, is that the 'new' cartridge was either defective, or most of the ink dried up in it while in the package.

I Gotcha :) - probably true.

For future trouble shooting to determine hardware or driver issue
print tests dont need drivers

HP Photosmart 7550, 7700, 7960, 8150 and 8450 series printers
Ensure that the memory card has been removed from the memory card slot.
Make sure plain paper is loaded in the In Tray.
Press the Menu button.
Press the Up/Down arrow button to display the Tools menu. Then press the OK button.
Press the Down arrow button to highlight Print a Test Page. Then press the OK button.