Your Printer Will Not Accept the New Ink: What "Cartridge Not Recognized" Really Means, and the Update That Causes It

You bought ink. You put it in. The printer will not print. It says the cartridge is not recognized, or that there is a cartridge problem, or one of the more pointed variants: non-genuine cartridge, incompatible supply, non-HP chip detected. The paper is loaded, nothing is jammed, and the box you opened thirty seconds ago is still on the floor.

Two completely different problems hide behind those messages, and they need opposite responses. One is an ordinary fault — a strip of tape, a dirty contact, a cartridge that never quite clicked home — and it is free to fix in about five minutes. The other is not a fault at all: the printer read the cartridge perfectly well and decided not to accept it. Telling those two apart is the entire job, and very little of what you will find online does it, because nearly everyone writing about this sells ink. The cartridge sellers want you to defeat the printer. The printer makers want you to buy their cartridge. We sell neither ink nor printers, so what follows has nothing attached to it.

One thing worth knowing before you read any further: the most standard piece of printer advice there is — update the firmware — is also the most common reason a cartridge that worked last month stops working today. That is not a rumour or a conspiracy theory. It is written down by the manufacturers themselves, in their own published documents, and we quote them below.

First, rule out the boring faults — they look identical

Do these before you assume anything, because they account for most of these calls and they cost nothing. Take the cartridge out and check that every piece of protective tape and every pull-tab is off, including the small vent tab on top that is easy to miss; a sealed vent stops ink flowing and reads to the printer as a dead cartridge. Look at the metal contacts on the cartridge and the matching ones inside the carriage, and wipe them with a dry lint-free cloth if there is ink or dust on them. Then push the cartridge back in firmly until it clicks — a cartridge that is seated almost all the way behaves exactly like one the printer cannot read.

Check the number, too. Printer cartridge numbering is deliberately confusing, and a 63 is not a 63XL, a 902 is not a 902XL, and cartridges sold for other regions are often refused outright by a printer bought here. Compare the number moulded on the cartridge with the number the printer or its manual asks for, not with the number on the retailer listing.

If all that looks right, power the printer down properly rather than just tapping the button: turn it off, unplug it at the wall for a full minute, plug it directly into the wall socket rather than a power strip, and switch it back on. A surprising number of cartridge errors are latched — the printer decided something was wrong once and is still showing you that decision. A real power cycle clears the latch; a soft restart often does not.

One more that catches people on day one: many printers insist on the starter cartridges that came in the box for the very first start-up and will refuse anything else until initialisation has finished. If a brand-new printer is rejecting perfectly good ink, put the supplied cartridges in, let it complete setup, then swap.

If one of those fixes it, you are done and none of the rest of this article applies to you. But if the message specifically calls the cartridge non-genuine, counterfeit, used, refilled, or names a non-HP chip, stop cleaning contacts. That is the second problem, and no amount of cleaning will touch it.

The second problem: the printer read the chip and refused it

A modern cartridge is not just a tank of ink. It carries a small chip that the printer talks to, and the printer decides on the strength of that conversation whether to proceed. HP says its office cartridges introduced since 2015 use smart-card technology of the kind found on chip-based credit and debit cards. The chip is how the printer knows what is installed, how full it is, and — the part that matters here — who made it.

HP publishes a document describing exactly what it does with that conversation, and it is admirably direct. "In certain HP printers, this authentication process includes measures referred to as dynamic security. It relies on the printer's ability to communicate with the security chips or electronic circuitry on the cartridges." And then, plainly: "In these dynamic security equipped printers, cartridges using a non-HP chip or modified or non-HP circuitry may not function."

In plain English: when this is what is happening, the printer is not broken and there is nothing to repair. It is doing what it was built to do. Whether you think that is a reasonable thing to build is a fair question, but it is a separate question from what you do at eight in the morning with a document to print.

The sentence that explains why the same ink worked last month

The important half of that HP document is the next sentence, and it is the reason so many people arrive at this problem completely baffled. Because the ink they are holding is the brand they have been buying for two years, out of the same multipack, and it worked in February.

Here is what HP says about that: "since the dynamic security authentication process can change during the life of the printer (including in response to firmware updates), cartridges using a non-HP chip or modified or non-HP circuitry may function for a period of time, but then cease to function."

And how does that change reach a printer sitting on a desk? The same document answers it in the next paragraph: "Changes to dynamic security can occur through firmware updates delivered over the Internet."

Epson states the same mechanism on its own website, just as openly: "Epson periodically provides firmware updates to address issues of security, performance, minor bug fixes and ensure your printer functions as designed. Your printer was designed to work only with genuine Epson ink cartridges, therefore some updates may affect the functionality of third party ink."

So here is the practical shape of it, and it is the thing to carry away from this article. Every generic printer-troubleshooting checklist in existence puts "update the printer's firmware" somewhere near the top, and for most printer problems that is genuinely good advice. On a printer running third-party ink it is not neutral advice. It is the specific documented mechanism by which working ink becomes rejected ink — and firmware does not conveniently roll itself back afterwards.

Brother sits differently and we will be straight about it: owners have reported third-party toner behaving differently after firmware updates, and Brother has publicly denied that its updates block third-party cartridges. We are not in a position to settle that disagreement and we are not going to pretend otherwise. What we can say is that if a Brother suddenly stopped accepting a cartridge it used to accept, the date of the last firmware update is still the first thing worth checking — exactly as it is on the brands that describe the mechanism openly.

So should you take the firmware update or not?

Not the answer you may be expecting: firmware updates are not the enemy, and we do not tell people to freeze their printers forever. A modern printer is a small computer sitting permanently on your home or office network with a scanner attached. Its updates fix real things — Wi-Fi that drops off, scan-to-computer that stops working, genuine security holes. A printer that has not been updated in four years is its own kind of problem, and it is one we get called about too.

What we actually recommend is to move the printer from silent-and-automatic to ask-me-first. That single change converts an update from something that happens to you overnight into a decision you make with the facts in front of you. If you run genuine cartridges, keep taking the updates; you have nothing at stake. If you run third-party ink, read what the update claims to fix, and if your printer is working fine and the update is not addressing a problem you actually have, you are allowed to wait.

Where that setting lives varies more than it should. On most models it is somewhere under Settings or Tools, then Printer Maintenance or Printer Update, with options along the lines of "do not check", "notify before installing" or "install automatically" — and on a network printer the same setting is usually available in the printer's own built-in web page, which you reach by typing its IP address into a browser on the same network. HP's own document simply tells you to "consult the user guide or manual included with the printer" for this, which tells you something about how consistent it is between models. On some printers the option is not offered at all.

If you are on an ink subscription, that choice is not yours to make

Here is where two separate documents, read side by side, say something that neither of them says on its own — and it is the part almost nobody joins up.

HP's dynamic security document closes with this: "Please note that enrolling a printer in HP's Instant Ink program or using services such as HP ePrint requires configuring the printer to accept automatic online firmware updates."

And the Instant Ink terms of service put the same requirement from the other side, as a thing you agree to: "You agree to maintain connectivity of Your Printer to the Internet and to not remove or disable any remote monitoring software or functionality on Your Printer."

Now put them together. Firmware updates are the channel through which what your printer will accept can change. Enrolling in the ink subscription is what obliges you to leave that channel open and automatic. Neither document states that consequence out loud — they are written by different departments for different purposes — but placed next to each other it is unavoidable: on a subscription, you are not running a printer whose behaviour you can freeze.

That is not an argument against ink subscriptions. For a household that prints a lot, or prints a lot of colour, they can be genuinely good value and we say so to customers. It is an argument for knowing which kind of arrangement you are in, because the two are usually explained as though the only difference is how you pay.

The subscription ink is not yours either — and cancelling switches it off

This one produces more upset phone calls than anything else in this article, and it is entirely avoidable if you know it in advance. The cartridges that arrive in the post as part of an ink subscription are not sold to you. HP's Instant Ink terms are explicit: "As between You and HP, HP retains all ownership rights and interests in the Subscription Cartridges."

They are also tied to one machine. The same terms state that "the Subscription Cartridges will work only with the corresponding printer designated in Your Service Account" — so they cannot be moved to a second printer, including another printer you have enrolled yourself.

And then the sentence with the clock on it: "When Your Service is cancelled for any reason, HP will remotely disable the Subscription Cartridges and You will no longer be able to print with the Subscription Cartridges."

Read that in terms of what you are about to do. The ink physically sitting inside your printer — including a cartridge that arrived last week and is nearly full — stops working when you cancel. Not when it runs out. When you cancel. So the order of operations matters: buy an ordinary off-the-shelf cartridge first, have it in the house, and cancel once it has arrived. Cancelling on a Sunday evening and discovering on Monday morning that the printer is a paperweight is the most preventable version of this problem, and it is the one we get called out for.

The reassuring half comes from the same paragraph, and it is worth quoting because it is HP itself saying it: after cancellation "you will need to purchase a HP original cartridge and for non-HP+ printers, you can use HP original cartridges or third party cartridges that are compatible with your printer, in order to continue printing." Third-party ink is a normal, acknowledged option on an ordinary printer. Which brings us to the printers that are not ordinary.

HP+ and the "e" models: a permanent decision made in the first ten minutes

Some printers are sold with a programme called HP+, and HP's own FAQ describes what accepting it means in one sentence: "HP+ requires an HP account, Internet connection, and use of Original HP Ink for the lifetime of the printer." Once it is switched on, HP describes HP+ as embedded in the device, and its guidance for people who do not want it is to skip HP+ activation during printer setup — that is, before, not after.

Think about when that decision is actually taken. It is offered on a setup screen, often alongside an offer of free months of ink, to somebody who has just unboxed a printer because they need to print a boarding pass in the next ten minutes. It does not present itself as a permanent commitment covering every cartridge that machine will ever take, but that is what it is.

Two practical consequences. If you are setting up a new printer, slow down on that screen and read it — the free ink offer and the lifetime cartridge commitment are the same decision. And if you are shopping, note that HP models sold with an "e" on the end of the model number are generally the HP+ versions, and there are usually near-identical models without it. If you have already accepted HP+, that is not a disaster — but budget for genuine cartridges for the life of that printer, because that is now the arrangement.

No, third-party ink does not void your warranty — and the maker says so itself

This fear stops a lot of people buying cheaper ink, and it is largely unfounded. HP's own document addresses it directly: "while the use of a non-HP cartridge does not void the HP Limited Warranty or any HP support contract for the printer, any printer or print head failure or damage that is attributable to the use of a non-HP cartridge will not be covered by the Limited Warranty or any such support contract."

That is a fair position, and it is also the law. The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, which the Federal Trade Commission enforces, "prohibits manufacturers from conditioning warranty coverage on the use of particular products or services," in the FTC's own words. In April 2018 FTC staff sent warning letters to six companies over precisely this kind of wording, and among the provisions it flagged as questionable was the classic formulation: "This warranty shall not apply if this product . . . is used with products not sold or licensed by [company name]."

Now the limit, because this is exactly where forum advice goes wrong and costs people an afternoon. That law is about warranty terms. It is not about product design. Nothing in it requires a printer to accept a cartridge, and quoting it at your printer will not produce a printed page. You can be completely right about your warranty rights and still be standing in front of a machine that will not print. Know the rule for what it is genuinely worth — it protects you if a repair claim is refused because you used another brand of ink — and then go and deal with the actual problem in front of you.

This has been to court, and what came out of it is narrower than the headlines

Cartridge blocking has been litigated in the United States more than once, and it is worth knowing roughly what came of it, because the headlines oversell it.

An earlier round of firmware updates led to a settlement in the Northern District of California in 2019, which produced a cash fund for owners of the affected printers and a commitment not to reactivate the feature in those specific machines. A second case, over a later update, was settled in 2024 and approved in March 2025 — this time with no payment to ordinary owners at all, and no admission of wrongdoing. What HP agreed to there was to continue making certain disclosures about its use of dynamic security, and "to continue to provide printer users with the option to either install or decline to install firmware updates that include Dynamic Security", for the printer models covered by that case.

Two things follow from that, and both are practical rather than legal. First, the ability to decline an update is a real thing you should expect to find on your printer and should use deliberately. Second, do not plan your printing around a lawsuit: the relief in these cases attaches to particular models and particular updates, not to every printer on the shelf. Plan around the setting on the machine you actually own.

The buying rule the ink websites will not state plainly

There is one distinction that largely decides whether cheaper ink will work, and it is not the distinction the product listings are built around. It sits in HP's own document, in a sentence that is very easy to skim past: "Non-HP cartridges that reuse an original HP security chip or have unmodified HP electronic circuitry are unaffected by dynamic security."

So "third-party ink" is really two different products sharing one phrase. A remanufactured cartridge is an original empty that has been collected, cleaned, refilled and resold with its original chip still on it. A compatible — also sold as generic, or loosely as a clone — is a newly manufactured shell carrying a third-party chip. Only the second kind is what cartridge authentication is aimed at. That is why two people can buy "cheap ink" for the same printer and have completely different experiences, and neither of them ever finds out why.

What to do with that. Read the listing for what it actually is: language about remanufactured, reclaimed or recycled empties is the tell for the first kind, and if a seller cannot tell you whether the chip is an original, treat that as an answer. Then apply the rule that costs nothing at all — buy one, not a year's supply, and print with it for a couple of weeks before you commit. A drawer full of cheap cartridges that a future update decides to reject is money you will not get back, and bulk-buying is precisely how people end up with that drawer.

Keep the receipt and the packaging as well. A reputable ink seller will replace or refund a cartridge your printer refuses, and that is an ordinary return rather than a favour you have to argue for.

The structural escape: printers that do not have this argument

If you print enough that ink is a real line in the household or business budget, the honest answer is often not a better cartridge but a different kind of printer. Refillable-tank inkjets — Epson EcoTank, Canon MegaTank, HP Smart Tank — take ink from bottles poured into built-in reservoirs rather than from chipped cartridges. You still buy the ink from the manufacturer, but you buy far less of it, and the whole cartridge-rejection failure mode simply stops being part of your life.

For a household that prints occasionally and mostly in black and white, a plain mono laser is the other quiet answer. Toner does not dry out between jobs the way inkjet ink does, which is the complaint underneath a good share of the other printer problems we write about — the printer that sat unused for six weeks and now prints blank or streaked pages.

We do not sell printers and we are not going to tell you to bin a machine that works. But if you are having your third argument with the same printer this year, at some point the printer is the problem, and the money is better spent on a machine whose economics you are comfortable with than on ink you have to keep negotiating with.

What not to do

Do not take a firmware downgrade from a random blog post or an ink seller's support page. It sometimes works. It can also half-flash a printer into a genuinely dead one, and older firmware versions are frequently withdrawn from the manufacturer's servers, so there may be no clean way back. Weigh that risk honestly against the price of one genuine cartridge.

Do not buy chip resetters or bypass kits on the strength of a listing. They are specific to model and firmware revision, and the revision is exactly the thing that keeps changing.

Do not factory-reset the printer hoping to clear it. A reset returns settings to their defaults; it does not remove firmware. You will lose your Wi-Fi configuration, your scan destinations and your saved contacts, and you will still have the same message on the screen — and then you will have two problems, because now the printer is off the network as well.

Do not simply unplug the printer from the network for good as a way of avoiding updates. A printer is a computer with a scanner and a hard-wired place on your network; one that never receives a security fix again is a poor trade for cheaper ink. Set it to notify instead.

And do not keep printing test pages with a rejected cartridge installed. If the printer has made an authentication decision, more paper will not change its mind.

The short version, and when to call us

If the message is vague — cartridge problem, not recognized, missing — check the tape, the vent, the contacts, the model number and give it a proper unplugged power cycle. That is most of these. If the message names the cartridge as non-genuine or names a non-original chip, stop: that is a decision, not a fault, and the last firmware update is usually the reason it started today. Set the printer to notify rather than auto-install, buy one cartridge at a time, prefer remanufactured cartridges built on original chips over newly built compatibles, and if you are on an ink subscription, have a normal cartridge in the house before you cancel anything.

We set up, network and troubleshoot printers across Southern California and the Coachella Valley, in person or by remote support — including the awkward jobs where the printer, the Wi-Fi, the drivers and the security software are all blaming each other. We do not sell ink or printers, so if the answer is that this particular cartridge is never going to work in this particular printer, that is what we will tell you, along with what will.