Strange Printer Issue

[Freakbro]

I've got a Brother MFC_J5320 printer that I've had for a few years now with no trouble at all.

It's run low on black ink, print started fading, so I replaced with a genuine brother black cartridge as usual. The print was still faded, so ran the print check program and then the print head cleaning under maintenance, again this is nothing unusual.

I ran the print head cleaning once under normal, then once as strong and all of a sudden the black ink showed as empty again in the status monitor! I was like, wtf, checked the cartridge and yes, the little window was now devoid of any ink...Weird, that's never happened before but I put it down to maybe a faulty cartridge.

Replaced it with another, ran the print head cleaning 3 times on normal and it did it again, the status monitor just emptied of black ink and the low ink warning came up again! Checked the cartridge and the little window is empty again.

So what's going on? This has never happened before and if the ink was actually leaking out you'd think there'd be a mess everywhere? And the printing is fine for now, apart from it's telling me the black needs changing again.

It's not like these genuine inks are cheap either!

 

[jpaul]

Replaced it with another, ran the print head cleaning 3 times on normal and it did it again, the status monitor just emptied of black ink and the low ink warning came up again! Checked the cartridge and the little window is empty again.

doesn't the visible fluid/sloshing ink get sucked into the sponge chamber fairly rapidly which may be deceiving ? but that doesn't explain your warning.
I bought some canon ones last month @£££ printer unused for several years.
(Have wondered if you could put a bag on the print head to control atsmospehere and prevent drying out)