Sometimes even when an ink cartridge has been refilled to capacity, your printer still registers it as empty. This is because your printer remembers that the cartridge was previously installed and it can only remember it as being empty. Part of this is due to technology put in place by printer manufacturers so that you will always have to buy new cartridges. Part of it is also that printers are just dumb and give us lots of errors for no reason.

Because there is no “official” way to fix this problem, you have to basically clear the printer’s memory to make it recognize that you are installing a full cartridge. If you have tried to install the refilled cartridge and you have done all you can to convince your printer that the cartridge isn’t still empty, then basically you just have to unplug your printer for a minute and then trying reinstalling again. You can read more about this process here, but it should fix this problem and it can potentially fix other annoying things your printer is doing.

Even though this article is from Australia where printer companies might run a little differently, it still applies to this situation. Someone was mad about their refilled cartridge not being recognized so they took Lexmark to court. Some secret agreement went down and the customer was happy, but in reality nothing changed in the grand scheme of things.

Ink stink [Sydney Morning Herald]