What is it with these hateful things?

Anyway, I picked up some dirt cheap ink from Wilko for my old Canon Pixma printer that’s been in a cupboard for years.

Tried first with my Macbook, no chance. No drivers available for Monteray. Would installing an old one for Sierra fool it?

W10 Laptop, it seems to go through the motions of printing, but churns out blank pages. Downloaded latest drivers, endless restarts/reinstalling etc, no dice. Prints out a test pattern fine. Likewise copies fine from the printer interface as it’s one of those all in one jobbies. So it’s ok mechanically. (which tells me the issue is with Windows… soz printer)

Any ideas before it gets hoyed out of a 2nd floor window?

Any ideas before it gets hoyed out of a 2nd floor window?

Open the window first.

If you have access to a Win10 computer, it might be worth trying it with that. Win10 has amazing backwards compatibility, Win11 has orphaned a lot of old software and hardware.

I picked up some dirt cheap ink from Wilko

🤔

I thought inkjets needed the unicorn hair extract-based ‘special’ ink in OEM cartridges to work properly.

Printers are the spawn of Satan. My HP inkjet has an ink subscription. That doesn’t stop it dropping off the network or being unable to print until rebooted. Hateful things.

Would installing an old one for Sierra fool it?

have you tried? this seems to be the most up-to-date download on the Apple site:
https://support.apple.com/kb/DL1928?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

alternatively could try installing it with a “similar” or generic driver:
https://www.lifewire.com/manually-install-printer-on-mac-2260791

Pop round that forum member’s shop and pay him a pound to print it for you?

Pop round that forum member’s shop and pay him a pound to print it for you?

my approach or print at work. Not given house room to one of the hateful things in more than a decade. Now boarding passes are all on app I don’t seem to have any need to put stuff on paper.

my secoind hand HP Lazerjet has proved 100% relaible for the past 12 years and is only on its’ 2nd new toner catridge (about £20 each non oem) since I used up the one it came with. OK it doesn’t print colour, but it is fast and reliable and does everything I need from a printer.

My cheap Brother WiFi laser printer has been nothing short of perfect. Prints from everything, work laptop (off VPN), personal laptops, phones, iPads. It’s excellent. The inkjet printer is a little more quirky.

W10 Laptop, it seems to go through the motions of printing, but churns out blank pages. Downloaded latest drivers, endless restarts/reinstalling etc, no dice. Prints out a test pattern fine.

A test pattern from its own menu, or ‘print test page’ in Windows?

Home printers – spawn of satan. There is no place in hell hot enough for every last one of them.

HP Envy 5640. Had it years, it works every time, first time, with everything in the house, does not actually need drivers at all like most modern printers.

The trick is don’t spend the bare minimum, get a wi-fi one and don’t connect it directly to your computer. The network printing protocol is the reason it doesn’t need drivers and the reason it should work every time.

A test pattern from its own menu, or ‘print test page’ in Windows?

Both methods print a successful pattern.

It’s weird, because it sounds like it’s printing the document, you know, the jigga-jigga jigga-jigga-jigga thing with the paper feeding through incrementally… just comes out blank.

One fascinating avenue to troubleshoot is that the printer has a black cartridge and a colour cartridge. When i bought a new cartridge i just bought the black as my intended use is to print out sheet music for playing the piano. Maybe the printer is somehow set to use the colour cartridge, which i imagine will be empty, dried up or blocked, if it’s even there at all… hmm? Would explain why the printer appears to be going through the motions.

One fascinating avenue to troubleshoot is that the printer has a black cartridge and a colour cartridge. When i bought a new cartridge i just bought the black as my intended use is to print out sheet music for playing the piano. Maybe the printer is somehow set to use the colour cartridge, which i imagine will be empty, dried up or blocked, if it’s even there at all… hmm? Would explain why the printer appears to be going through the motions.

That’ll be why, probably. Try greyscale?

For some reason known only to printers they use the colour cartridge to print black.

I refuse to mess with our current printer as it only, for reasons unknown prints from my computer and not OH’s computer. I assume it’s being deliberately annoying as it’s her printer.

+1 on the Brother laser – been faultless, works every time. The Epson inkjet it replaced was rubbish – last straw was it emptying a new/full cartridge doing a head clean

It’s weird, because it sounds like it’s printing the document, you know, the jigga-jigga jigga-jigga-jigga thing with the paper feeding through incrementally… just comes out blank.

Was your Wilco ink dirt cheap cos it’s white?

I’m stuck on “Encryption certificate defunct”, or whatever……

Can’t help agreeing with those recommending laser printers
Inkjets I’ve had have all been hateful things

The laser printer just works. A bit noisier than an inkjet, not as good for photos – so use photobox or similar for those. Toner costs a fortune though

SOLVED

My guess about the black/color cartridge thing was on the correct lines but it still wasn’t working.

A quick google found this https://community.usa.canon.com/t5/Desktop-Inkjet-Printers/Pixma-MX490-unable-to-print-with-black-only/m-p/300167 person had exactly the same problem, and somebody mentioned turning off ‘borderless printing’. which worked!

By the way, i do have another printer, a laser one which works fine for most duties, but its printouts are quite ‘greyscale’, almost faded as if the ink is gradually running out. It’s always been like that since a mate gave it to me about five years ago. So printing out sheet music with it is a bit hard on the eyes. When it works, the inkjet has good contrast black prints, and for a fiver for the cartridge seemed worth bringing it out of retirement.

I assume it’s being deliberately annoying as it’s her printer.

Definitely is.

Why are they so malevolent? Printers i mean 😉 I actually started a small business that relied on printers. After five years i gave it up after nearly going insane. “oh so you really need to print out a parcel label to get that package in the last post in thirty minutes huh? Well I’m going to throw an error and jam up. so there.’

My tactic was to gather many printers and if one was having a sulk/hissy fit just go and use another*

*printers

Printers.

Last time I checked our works trusty mono HP LaserJet page count it had reached over 240,000 – I’ve only used cheapest toner, if I’d used HP that would be an additional £6K bill for what was a £50 printer! The fuser is getting spotty and it spat out a few rollers and springs recently, still working but it’s not long for this world. I’ve got 3 toner cartridges left once they’ve gone it’s in the bin. I think we’ve had our monies worth.

Open the window first.

I can see you flunked out of rock n roll school 😎