topic Re: MX920 won't print in black and white when color cartridges are empty in Desktop Inkjet Printers

MX920 won't print in black and white when color cartridges are empty

talentetta — Sun, 06 Dec 2015 19:59:14 GMT

For over a year at least, my color cartridges have been empty, and I haven't had a problem printing or copying in black and white until now. I have an error on the machine that says to replace the 3 color cartridges. I only need black, so how can I work around this error and get back to printing? Recently the lg black 255 was out of ink, but it was still printing fine. I replaced that cartridge with a generic refill, but that hasn't helped. I still get the picture showing arrows to the 3 color cartridges, which are empty. I never printed in color, and yet they all drained down, even though I had grayscale and draft selected.

I am running Windows 10 on a Lenovo Thinkpad.

Re: MX920 won't print in black and white when color cartridges are empty

Michael — Wed, 09 Dec 2015 14:14:02 GMT

Hello.

Our inkjet printers will not be able to print if any ink tanks are missing or empty. Please install new, genuine Canon brand ink tanks to resume printing again. We cannot guarantee functionality with refilled or third-party ink tanks.

If you continue to have difficulties, find more help at Contact Us.

Re: MX920 won't print in black and white when color cartridges are empty

chuck1 — Fri, 26 Feb 2016 12:34:24 GMT

I noticed this on my MX920 too. Must say this is one of the worst design features that I have ever seen. No advantage to making it impossible to print in grayscale when color ink is empty - even if only 1 of the color inks are empty! Sure its great from the standpoint of always having to have backup color cartridge$ on hand, just to ensure that I can still print in black and white. Dumb. Makes money for the company but with the vast, vast majority of printing done using only the black ink cartridge, this is ridiculous. The manager or designer who ok'd this design spec should be fired.

Re: MX920 won't print in black and white when color cartridges are empty

brucenoel — Tue, 12 Apr 2016 14:04:20 GMT

I agree with the last person. The manager who released this feature where the printer won't print in black and white if a color cartridge is empty. I think I am going to throw away my new MX920. It isn't worth the agravation. I am trying to print an important document and the color just ran out and I don't have a refill. I have all cannon cartridges. It is a black and white document. What a disaster.

Re: MX920 won't print in black and white when color cartridges are empty

dakota1 — Fri, 29 Jul 2016 19:00:39 GMT

I have to spent $80.00 to replace the yellow color I never used just to print an email in black?? A really sleazy tactic!!

Good bye Canon hello Epson!!

Re: MX920 won't print in black and white when color cartridges are empty

tsdragon — Fri, 18 Nov 2016 16:19:20 GMT

This is truely a sleazy business tactic. Very dissapointed in Canon for this. Why should having a color cartridge empty stop black and white printing?

Well now we know Canon would choose $$$ over product qaulity and customer satisfaction/loyalty.

Shame on you Canon. I will not be buying another Canon product going forward.

Re: MX920 won't print in black and white when color cartridges are empty

Ceekoke — Mon, 21 Nov 2016 02:05:11 GMT

You are evil. A child has to print something for a school project in black and white, but can't, because the printer has no pink ink. This is an anxious child. You are evil.

Re: MX920 won't print in black and white when color cartridges are empty

luvecerviere — Sat, 07 Jan 2017 01:05:31 GMT

Time to switch to Epson. This is frustrating.

Re: MX920 won't print in black and white when color cartridges are empty

jhbendigo — Wed, 31 May 2017 04:31:21 GMT

This is disgracefull Canon. So underhanded by the company and so wasteful resource wise. My colour tanks have been emptied by the cleaning process alone. I too can no longer print in black and white and I can't scan documents either. I will never buy Canon again.

Re: MX920 won't print in black and white when color cartridges are empty

TanToes — Mon, 19 Jun 2017 15:33:36 GMT

Underhanded like 99% of the business world

Re: MX920 won't print in black and white when color cartridges are empty

flavius — Tue, 26 Dec 2017 20:46:59 GMT

It happened here today. Canon is a very very lausy printer. No ever the scanner works right. The automatic paper feeding has lot of problems too ! Will never buy one again . Now I cant print. All stores are closed and Canon has made my worflow more problematic ! Go back to HP ! I´m going back. Cannon NEVER AGAIN. I´ll puit a video on youtube recommending users NEVER TO buy Canon.

Re: MX920 won't print in black and white when color cartridges are empty

gb9 — Sun, 31 Dec 2017 22:26:51 GMT

I have same problem and can not understand why a smart company would do ths to their customer. it is a dumb feature thst is intentionally inflicted on us and it should be fixed in an update.

Re: MX920 won't print in black and white when color cartridges are empty

loose_canon2 — Sat, 10 Feb 2018 01:10:44 GMT

I joined the community explicitly for this post. First, I recognize Canon's duty to the share holders to maximize profits and ink is a big part of the profit picture. On the other hand, keeping a loyal customer base also has some merit. I have a relatively new MX920 series for our small business and recently purchased a TS5020 (still in the box) for household use. I usually print in grayscale/duplex mode and documents often exceed an hundred pages. Until a colored tank went empty in the middle of a grayscale job I was unaware that the colored tanks were being used for ALL duplex printing. To end this somewhat verbose post let me say that the TS5020 is going back and we are replacing the MX920. The savings on ink will be significant not to mention the irritation factor. I wish Canon every success, just not with my money or anyone I may influence.

Re: MX920 won't print in black and white when color cartridges are empty

gb9 — Sat, 10 Feb 2018 01:30:43 GMT

This is not the only foolish or shamefull feature. There are two black cartridges - one standard size and one significantly larger. The smaller cartridge is used for black and white printing which I suspect is the major mode for most users. So having two cartridges increases the cost of the system with no benefit to the user. A very disappointing design.

Re: MX920 won't print in black and white when color cartridges are empty

SamanthaW — Sat, 10 Feb 2018 01:55:29 GMT

Hello gb9 and loose_canon2!

Welcome to the Canon Forums and thanks for your post!

I wanted to clear up a little confusion about the inks in your PIXMA MX922. First, greyscale is not black and white printing, it's actually color printing! What I mean by that, is greyscale is a scale from white to black, which requires the use of color inks to create (because black ink is just black, and can't be lightened without white ink, which isn't included in our printers). Our printers are programmed to automatically use the Pigment black (the larger of the two black cartridges) to print black text, unless otherwise instructed. So when greyscale is selected in the settings, it will force the printer to use a composition of the color inks to create the scale of grey that greyscale is programmed for.

As for the differnece in the two black cartridges, the PGBK cartridge is a pigment based black ink which is used for text because the ink sits on top of the paper and doesn't soak into it. This creates that sharp lettering needed for legible text. The BK cartridge is a dye based black, which is used for photos and graphics. This ink soaks into the paper, and is good for creating a deeper black when using photo paper.

There are many ways to help conserve ink, but I'd recommend these to start:

1) Don't turn off your printer after each use; instead, let it go to sleep. The printer uses very little power in sleep mode, and does not have to go through the initialization process before printing if it's not turned off.
2) Set your quality to low/draft/quick when printing text. This will allow your printer to use less ink, because text does not require as much detail as a photo would.

3) Keep your mode set to color printing, as our printer will see you're printing text, and use the larger PGBK cartridge by default.

If you have any other questions about how to conserve ink, our support team is happy to go over other ways to save HERE.

I hope this helps!

Re: MX920 won't print in black and white when color cartridges are empty

gb9 — Sat, 10 Feb 2018 14:28:02 GMT

Thank you for explaining the difference between the two black cartridges. It does confuse me that the PGBK cartridge is used by the printer to print it when in text mode, yet if I select the color mode when printing a text document, the printer recognizes the document as black and still uses the PGBK cartridge. So why does the printer not print a black text when in either mode if a color cartridge is empty.

Re: MX920 won't print in black and white when color cartridges are empty

SamanthaW — Sat, 10 Feb 2018 21:29:36 GMT

Hello Again!

I'm happy to explain further! When a cartridge is empty, the printer will keep you from printing in order to protect the print head from potential damage. Without the ink available in all cartridges, you risk having the print head clog because that ink isn't available to keep it from drying out. Since the print head is the most expensive part of the printer, we like to protect it a little extra.

I hope this clarifies!

Re: MX920 won't print in black and white when color cartridges are empty

gb9 — Sat, 10 Feb 2018 21:43:29 GMT

Yes, it does make sense now. Thank you.

Re: MX920 won't print in black and white when color cartridges are empty

dshawn — Thu, 22 Feb 2018 17:45:23 GMT

No wonder Canon is a dying company. Corporate greed at it's finest. If you want to steal be subtle about it. This is like stealing in daylight. People aren't that stupid. Returning my MX920. You lost a customer today. A very stupid decision from Canon's end. This printer is a scam!

Re: MX920 won't print in black and white when color cartridges are empty

JasonS — Fri, 23 Feb 2018 15:54:52 GMT

I can appreciate the need to protect the print but the explaination still leaves a bit to be desired.

Wouldn't the ink at the head still be at risk of drying out when a given color is not used for a protracted period of time? For example since buy a replacement set for the smaller cartridges, I have set my print preferrences to grayscale to avoid using any of the colors or the smaller black cartridge.

If this is not an issue then why would printing using just the larger black when one of the smaller cartridges are out cause any isssues? In either situation there is no ink being drawn up through the smaller cartridges and the potential for ink drying out on the print head should be constant.

It is fairly well known that smaller ink jet printers are sold at a loss with the expectation of making up the profit margin on ink. I accept this as the cost of getting a decent printer at a lower entry cost. I just hope at some point someone will challenge the market with the more customer friendly business model.