quality and reliability

Trouble shooting - missing colours

General advice relating to the use of any brand inkjet cartridges.

The colours are missing from the page or the wrong colour is printing

Possible causes
  • The blue cellophane strip or protective plastic clip, (whichever applies to your cartridge) has not been fully removed from the copper circuitry at the back of the cartridge and from the print head (see figures 6 & 7 below).
  • If one or more colour is missing the cartridge may be empty, a particular colour chamber has used all its ink and needs to be replaced.
  • Colour mode is not selected in software application or printer driver. Select colour mode instead of greyscale or monochrome mode in software application or printer driver.
  • The correct printer driver is not selected in software application. Select the correct printer driver.
  • The cartridge has been exposed to extreme temperatures.
  • Dried ink particles, dirt or debris may be covering the nozzles. The cartridge needs to be cleaned (see cleaning procedure guide).
  • The protective clip/tape has slightly moved during shipment or has been reapplied by users after removing it, providing a path for the inks to mix.

The colour cartridge has three separate chambers, one for each of its three ink colours (cyan, yellow, and magenta). The colours can become mixed when ink from one chamber finds its way into another chamber via the printhead.

The output may improve with use if colour mixing occurs only in the print head portion of the cartridge and does not contaminate the ink in the sponges, the print quality may return to normal as the printer is used. It is recommended to print cyan, magenta and yellow blocks on a full A4 page to test for possible cross contamination of inks.

Cleaning instructions

You may need to consult your operation manual for the specific cleaning process for your printer. This process might need to be repeated a few times.

If this does not resolve the problem, perform the manual cleaning procedure. Ensure you have the following before starting the procedure:

  • Cotton buds or clean lint free cloth
  • Distilled or filtered water (avoid tap water)
  • Absorbent paper kitchen towels

If this above does not apply then carry out the cleaning and reinitialising procedure. Please see the cleaning cleaning procedure guide.

See also error messages and lines or faint areas

> This document was last modified: 29 August 2006