I have a Canon BJC-4310SP bubble jet printer which currently has a BC-20 black ink cartridge in it. It used to have a colour cartridge to print colour but whenever we now print, the message comes up “monochrome cartridge detected, select change as current job requires colour BJ cartridge”. We usually press the “Ignore” button and it prints. However, we recently bought a BCI-21 double cartridge (with a black and colour cartridge) and tried to change the settings/printer to print colour but nothing prints at all with these cartridges. Could you please advise what to do to allow the BCI-21 cartridges to print?

I have a BJC-4200 printer and I also get the same message. The reason the message occurs is because when you try and print something which has colour, and there is a monochrome cartridge in the printer, this is detected by the computer which then asks for directions. However, I can print fine with my BCI-21 cartridge so it is a mystery why you can’t. I had a look at the specifications for the BCI-21 cartridges and the box confirms that the cartridges do suit BJC-4000 series printers. Therefore, the problem shouldn’t be with compatibility. To attempt to fix this problem, try each of the following solutions. Lets start with the obvious things. Look at the BCI-21 cartridge and make sure that the cap and tape have been removed. Secondly, download the latest drivers for your printer from the Canon Australia website www.canon.com.au/software_download_cispo.html. Thirdly, perform a nozzle check on the cartridge to ensure that the inkjets are firing correctly. Please consult your printer’s manual to find out how to do this, as the procedure differs from printer to printer. If the pattern still does not print, then perform a print head clean (refer to your manual once again) and repeat the nozzle check. If it still does not print, the problem is probably either cartridge related or printer hardware related. In this case, I suggest that you contact Canon technical support. You can find their details at www.canon.com.au/support/index.html. However, if the pattern (mostly) prints correctly we can assume that the problem is software related. In this case, as a last resort, I suggest that you totally remove your printer drivers and reinstall them. If you are still having this problem, I suggest that you either take your cartridge back to the place of purchase and get a refund (as it doesn’t work!) and/or contact Canon technical support, at the URL mentioned above, to get to the bottom of the problem.