That these printers are 2 year designs. While a new print head can fix it, it can cost as must as the printer.
....preface: ditto everything already said, REVISITED.....
Resentfully stuck salvaging my bigger investment in ink, I?ve never had any printers but Epsons, so I was ?familiar? with the usual woes ... till my latest (CX5000) produced a new combo-platter problem:
Natch, 9 of 10 times it?s the black--whether it first registers on the page (gapping/gone) or at boot up (flashing/solid ink light) it takes the same cul de sac to disaster (disaster: buying another Epson);
1)If on the PRINT (my CX5000 image error began as horizontal lines [caught early, could turn off--cool down? reboot & print clear before re-banding], only now I?ve also got bizarre splotches of psychedelic like color negatives I can neither a)connect with missing ink--though it surfaced simultaneously? nor b)repair): first I clean the heads till all but a dash or 2 of the black test bar is back, 1 more cycle should do the job but instead it prints out half the black bar & another cycle results in no black bar at all? This outcome, shared by eventually all latter-day Epson users, is what makes me suspect air in the system; for solvent can dissolve dry ink but can only push a pocket of air forward which'll be pulled (vacuumed) back the next time the printer sucks in more ink supply?
2)If the ink LIGHT is on (usually after I cleaned heads till I lost all black): I find cart not even near empty, reinstall it, squat, refill it anyway, no fix, switch to brand new ARC cart only to find nothing corrects the now fragile, false chip-reading and I?m left utterly outta business .... is this:
A)INK?
B)AIR?
C)HARDWARE?
How do you tell the difference & how do you clear/bleed out air?

Chowhound
Comic Vine
GameFAQs
GameSpot
Giant Bomb
TechRepublic