That is just a bit of ink.
A placed some ink on the sponges to see if the suction was working, the printer suctioned the ink away just fine.
When the printer first turns on the sponge is in the lower position and moves up and down just fine.
Canon will replace the printer under their year warranty, but it takes an hour of sitting on the phone with customer support (for what ever reason they no longer do chat support), them sending a new unit, getting it setup, sending the old one back. I would rather understand why this is happening but it seems like a hardware failure and these printers seems about imposible to repair unfortuntely.
Between the two printers we use daily, we have already had two replacements. Both printers are in a conditioned office space. I have them plug into power conditioners to eliminate any electrical spikes or noise, and powered USB hubs to ensure the printers are getting a good connection. When not in use all the doors on the printers are closed to elimnate any air from flowing through the printers.
When they work, they are great but, I don't think Canon shouldn't be marketing them as a professionl photo printer since the most important part about using them professionally is them actually working reliably.
