Canon PIXMA MX922: PGBK not printing

[Alzanki]

I have a Canon PIXMA MX922 printer and suddenly the PGBK catridge is not printing although the ink level is almost full. I have looked through the forums, but never found a clear solution for this issue. I have tried replacing the catridge with a new one and I did deep cleaning several times, with no avail. When I do the nozzle check pattern, I do not see the PGBK printing nor the grids.

Suggestions?

[alan_koo]

Can you share how do to the reset? I spent 2 PGBK cardtridges doing the deep cleaning and alignment without success.

Thx!

[Bef1609]

I am having this same problem and have already tried the same things. Please advise. 

[johnlewisgrant]

 

This worked for me:

 The two round plastic blobs circled in the photo above must be (carefully) skimmed smooth.  I used my finger nail for this.   The BGBK cartridge then worked just fine.    

Reasoning behind my solution? .....

In the cheaper copies of the original cartridge, this plastic supports may protrude beyond the green plastic board.  This prevents the 5 rectangular copper contacts from making full contact with their "mates" inside the printer.  Result.... intermittent, little or no printing commands reach the BGBK cartridge and, therefore, little or no printing is performed by the cartridge!

[pearlonathan]

The thumbnail scratch off the plastic pin thing worked for me! thanks so much! I would never have in a million years guessed to do that.

[markjtobin]

BINGO! Worked for me. Thanks Johnlewisgrant!

[Carol11]

This worked great for us too! Thank you! We scraped off the plastic nubs and it works great.
This is a great fix for the mx922 pgbk cartridge not working!

[gerokost]

Just registered to say a big THANKS to johnlewisgrant for this information.

My black didnt work for my PIXMA MG5751 , same workaround.. and worked like a charm !!

Thanks a lot !

[PwrPak]

MG6320 , always used after market inks past 5 years. One I was getting doubled like 3d text. so many deep cleans, took it washed in hot water sprayed with canned air, put back in , same thing, so I then ordered a print head from good ole' Ebay for 33.xx , put in No PGBK , test print all there except the main big tank PGBK , Well after after reading a lot of the suggestions on here , seen this . File down the plastic nibs bottom of the tank. Now same tank i have use on the old print head past months, and tried on the new head. printed out the first paper i needed. It' was ok , but needed another clean of that one only. Then it worked , some weird combos to get this working again.. so ty for this suggestion.

[miciix]

Just registered this forum to say Thank you. This fix my MG5722 printer and resolve my PGBK not printing issue.

[pbyers · Accepted solution]

Here's the real solution. [Removed 3rd party link per forum guidelines]

You need to just flush out the printhead as it's most likely clogged.   You can tell this by taking a damp paper towel and trying to press against the underside of the printhead along the ports (the lines in the printhead).    You should have about 6 short lines in a group (the color printing ports) and then on longer port (the PGBK port).   I could see colors on the towel but nothing, or very, very little from the PGBK port.   

When you do this, know that you need to spend some time with it.   Make sure the tap water is hot (as hot as you can stand, maybe wear cleaning gloves) and you need to spend a couple minutes on the foam pads and then rotate and spend a couple minutes on the printhead plate and then repeat until you really see ink coming out of the different printhead ports (lines on the plate).   Again, the PGBK outport is the longer line.     The first time I tried this I didn't go long enough with the water and didn't really turn the print head much to keep working the clog.   After seeing that the PGBK port was still not putting out any ink I really went at it and spent maybe 10-15 minutes just flushing with hot water until finally I started seeing small chunks of black ink explode out of the PGBK port and the associated foam input pad.  Then I knew I was on to something and kept going untill it ran almost clear.    

Afterwards, I used some 70% isopropal alcohol from the medicine cabinet to just clean the ports and contacts after drying, thinking this might prevent salts from the tap water from hurting it.   But you're probably fine just shaking the water off and patting it all dry with some paper towels.   

Seriously, I can't say enough about how dejected I was until I really tried this and everything instantly started working again.   We almost just bought a new printer which would have been a waste given all the ink I still have.   

I really hope this helps someone else who finds themselves in a similar position.