Help printer has suddenly gone funny

[Treelover]

Help please!!! My printer was fine, printed 30 something pages of a document with text black and some coloured text. Then the last two pages were black with a hint of red. I have changed every single ink even though they hadn't run out (according to printer). Have cleaned, etc and now this is how my photos ( and text) are printing

[jim1]

Have cleaned, etc

Does the etc. mean you've printed a test page?

[Treelover]

Hi, yes, test page, cleaned and cleaned and cleaned again. Took all cartridges out carefully one by one, gentle shake, checked the film was broken where it goes in nozzle thingy.  Tried it on one page of a typed  word document after I had done all the above, it printed fine!!  Then went straight back to pink or at one point  nothing at all

[trystan]

Wow  - that's not great is it?!

Can you tell us please what make and model your printer is?

How is it connected to your computer, is it an USB lead?

Just a quick idea - have you turned the printer off (unplugged) for a few minutes and tried it again?

Trystan

[Treelover]

It is an Epson SX218.  Tried turning it off and on again, connected to laptop by usb.  Was working fine, printing happily and none of the inks were actually right at the bottom, I changed the black firstly because that was the lowest even though the computer didn't tell me to.  After that I ended up changing every cartridge

[Treelover]

Powering down now and will unplug not just switch off

[Treelover]

OK, plugged back in.  Page of ordinary typing came out fine.  Printed out a photo and this is the result

[Treelover]

Screen dump of cartridge info

[trystan]

Great stuff. If I remember my paint-mixing days of primary school (I knew they'd come in useful one day), am I guessing correctly that it's the Cyan colour that isn't working?

Try removing the Cyan, and cleaning any electrical contacts that you see on the printer in the Cyan poistion (and the Cyan cartridge). Use something like a cotton-bud or a microfibre cloth. Another option would be to take the Cyan cartridge in an out a few times.

Trystan