Day 2718 Ink stains

23rd January 2025

I have been having issues with our printer for the past week. I have a monthly subscription with HP that monitors the ink usage and send me a replacement when either the black or coloured cartridges are empty. Now don’t asked me how it works, there must be a circuit that connects with each cartridge that sends the information back. 

I had noticed that the prints using black ink was very blotchy, and as Kelli prints a lot of return labels with bar codes, that colour is used a lot.

I tried cleaning the nozzles but that made no difference. I then checked the app on my phone when I check the ink levels and noticed that there was a warning note that said that the black cartridge could not be read. That made sense because the last refill was back in June 2023. 

To keep the printer going I had to buy one from Staples, at sixty dollars a pop. When I inserted it into the printer, everything worked wonderfully, the prints were crisp and sharp.

However on my app the message had changed to say that the cartridge was not monitored as it was a store bought item.

I went on the HP website to try to get back to my monthly plan, but as with most things it’s impossible to find a human being. Eventually I used Messenger as my method of communication. At times it was long winded, I explained my problem and it went back and forth many times.

Finally they sent me a link to reapply for my plan which I followed, it led me though the procedure right up to the point of connecting the printer into the monitor process, then it came up with “ Printer already. Connected “ and it would take me any further.

By now I was ready to cancel the whole thing, and I wrote it in my reply, then I had a reply back to say that they were sending me a replacement black cartridge. Hopefully once I install that, it will then connect into the system, and I will automatically get my replacements when required.

Now is that progress? It’s bloody frustrating that’s what it is to me, my lack of patience in these matters test me to the core, and I don’t like it.