I have this HP All-in-One Deskjet 3050 J610 series printer which I use at home. The ink in the two cartridges have dried up. So, I bought a new black cartridge so I can keep using the printer.
After I replaced the old cartridge with the new one, I was able to print and photocopy documents in black and white. Few days later, the printer stopped working; keeps showing an error message that the tricolor cartridge is bad, even after removing the cartridge from the printer. I couldn’t print at all…
It was so frustrating that I contacted a friend that sells printers to confirm if the printer can’t work without the tricolor cartridge. He told me it can, that the printer should work even if it is only the black cartridge that is inside the printer.
So, I went back home to figure out what might be wrong. While troubleshooting, I decided to try cleaning the compartment of the tricolor cartridge using a cotton wool. The place was messed up with ink leaked out from the spoilt cartridge.
After cleaning it, and tricolor cartridge removed from the printer, the single-cartridge mode was automatically initiated and the printer started printing again.
That’s it.
So, if you’re experiencing similar problem, try cleaning the cartridge compartment and remove the cartridge so as to initiate single-cartridge mode.
Note When the HP All-in-One operates in single-cartridge mode, a message is displayed on screen. If the message is displayed and two print cartridges are
installed in the product, verify that the protective piece of plastic tape has been removed from each print cartridge. When plastic tape covers the print cartridge contacts, the product cannot detect that the print cartridge is installed.
