Faded, streaky or missing colours: read the nozzle check first one test page tells you which part is failing
Pale text, pink skies, a band across every photo, or a colour that has quietly vanished. Degraded output is more annoying to diagnose than a page that comes out empty, because everything still looks like it is working. The printer has a test page that answers the question directly, and reading it properly stops you spending money on a cartridge that was never the problem.
Get the test page, and use plain white paper
Every one of these machines can print a diagnostic page without a computer in the loop, and it is the only evidence worth acting on. Guessing from a photo or a document adds two more variables, the file and the driver, to a problem that already has enough.
- Epson: nozzle check, from Maintenance on the panel, or the Nozzle Check utility in the driver. Epson's instruction is to compare your page against the sample pattern in the manual and look for gaps or missing segments in the test lines.
- Canon: nozzle check pattern from Maintenance, or from the printer software. Canon's threshold for cleaning is specific: clean the head if lines are missing or horizontal white streaks are present in the pattern.
- HP: the Print Quality Diagnostic Report, from the front panel under Tools or Reports, or from the printer's built-in web page. HP says it takes about two minutes to print, and that the patterns are easiest to judge on plain white paper with the paper type setting matching what is actually loaded.
- Brother lasers: the Print Settings page. On many models that is the Go button pressed three times; on touchscreen models it is a Test Print under the printer menu.
Print it on plain white office paper, not the recycled sheet that was already in the tray and not photo paper. Paper changes how ink and toner sit on the page, and a damp or textured sheet can produce exactly the pale, patchy look you are trying to diagnose.
What the pattern actually tells you
An inkjet nozzle check prints a block or a ladder of fine lines for each colour. The failure mode is written in which lines are missing and where.
| What you see | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| One colour block blank or nearly blank | That colour is not reaching the paper: clogged nozzles, an empty or unseated cartridge, or a failed channel | Check the level and reseat first, then clean |
| Gaps and broken segments in one block | Partial clog in that colour | One cleaning cycle, then check again |
| Broken segments across every block | The head has dried out, usually after weeks idle | Cleaning cycles with a rest between them |
| Pattern complete but the ruled lines look doubled or stepped | Head alignment, not a clog | Run print head alignment; cleaning will not help |
| Pattern is perfect, documents still look wrong | Print settings, paper, or driver | Turn off draft mode, fix the paper type, print from a different application |
The alignment row is the one people skip. Canon documents these as separate procedures for a reason: cleaning unclogs nozzles, alignment corrects ruled lines that print misaligned or results that are otherwise unsatisfactory. If your text has a soft double edge and your straight lines look stepped, but the nozzle pattern is complete, cleaning cycles just spend ink on a problem they cannot touch.
Colour casts follow the same logic. A photo that has gone pink usually means cyan has dropped out, and a green cast usually means magenta has. Look at the block for that colour before you conclude the printer has a colour management problem.
How many cleaning cycles are worth running
Head cleaning works by pushing ink through the nozzles, so every cycle spends ink you have already paid for. That makes it a tool with a limit, not something to run on repeat while you hope.
- Run one standard clean, print a fresh nozzle check, and compare. A pattern that is filling back in means it is working and another cycle is justified.
- A pattern that is identical after a cycle means the block is not shifting, and repeating the same cycle is unlikely to change that. HP's own steps stop at three cleaning cycles before pointing at the cartridge.
- Epson's heavier Power Cleaning uses much more ink than a standard clean, and Epson requires a 12 hour interval between runs so people do not burn ink chasing a clog. Its guidance after a failed Power Cleaning is to leave the printer alone for at least 12 hours and then print another nozzle check, because time alone softens dried ink.
- Epson also warns that Power Cleaning brings the ink pads closer to their capacity. When a pad reaches the end of its service life the printer stops printing and needs Epson support, so this is a cost that lands later rather than never.
- Canon's deep cleaning carries the same caution: use it when the standard clean has failed, not as a first move, and check the nozzle pattern between attempts.
If the pattern has not moved after a few honest attempts with rest in between, the clog is beyond what a pump cycle will shift, and the fix is a new cartridge on a machine with cartridge-mounted heads, or a printhead job on a machine with a fixed head. Our guide to preventing clogs covers the wipe-and-soak methods and how to stop it recurring.
What one dead colour costs, and why the answer depends on your machine
The machine you own decides how expensive this gets. Of the 179 ink printers in our catalogue, 56 take a single tri-colour cartridge holding cyan, magenta and yellow in one shell, 31 of them HP and 25 Canon. On those, a clogged cyan channel that will not clear means binning the magenta and yellow you paid for along with it.
| Colour supply | Printers | Median rated yield | Median price | Median colour page |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| One tri-colour cartridge | 56 | 180 pages | 23 dollars | 10.0c |
| Separate colour cartridges | 123 | 1,100 pages | 22 dollars | 2.4c |
The prices are close. The yields are not. A tri-colour cartridge costs about what a single colour cartridge costs, and is rated for a median 180 pages against 1,100 for the separate ones, which is why the median colour page works out around 4 times dearer on the tri-colour machines. The HP ENVY 6055e is a fair example: its HP 67 tri-colour is rated 100 pages at 21.99 dollars, or 22.0c a page.
Two practical consequences. On a tri-colour machine, cleaning cycles are worth rationing, because they draw from a small cartridge that takes all three colours down with it. And when the clog will not clear, price the replacement before you assume it is the sensible option, because on the cheapest machines a full set of genuine cartridges can approach the price of the printer. Our cost per page ranking shows where your model sits.
Faded and streaky on a laser is a different list
A laser has no nozzles to clog, so ignore everything above and start with whether the whole page is light or one colour is weak. That single distinction sorts most cases.
- Whole page pale. Check for a toner-save setting before anything else. HP's instruction for a page that prints too light is to clear the EconoMode checkbox and increase print density, and HP advises against running EconoMode full time anyway, on the grounds that the toner supply may outlast the mechanical parts of the cartridge.
- Fading unevenly across the page. Toner has settled or is running out. Take the cartridge out and rock it gently front to back, which is the same motion HP specifies when fitting a new one to distribute the toner evenly. It buys pages, and it tells you a replacement is due.
- White vertical lines or streaks. Brother attributes these to a dirty or clouded laser glass, dust or glue on the drum surface, or non-genuine toner. Brother's own fix is to remove the drum and toner assembly and clean the laser glass with a dry cloth, never alcohol or any liquid, then inspect the drum. Print the settings page afterwards to test, and if the white lines survive that, the toner cartridge is the part to replace.
- A solid coloured line down the page. Brother's separate answer for black, cyan, magenta or yellow lines points at the corona wire, the toner cartridge, or the drum. Clean the corona wire by sliding the tab from side to side, and return the tab to its home position, because leaving it parked off-centre prints a vertical stripe of its own.
- Toner that rubs off with a finger. That is the fusing stage, not the cartridge. The first thing to check is that the paper type set in the driver matches what is loaded, since heavy or coated stock needs different fusing to plain paper.
- Grey background or fuzzy patches. HP notes the environment does this: very dry air increases background shading, and very humid air can fog the laser scanner optics and produce uneven, light or fuzzy print. A fresh ream from a sealed pack is a cheap test.
Before you order a replacement, note that on 45 of the lasers we track, the drum is a separate consumable from the toner, and it lasts far longer. The drum units in our catalogue are rated at a median 18,000 pages against 2,600 for the Brother toner cartridges, and the longest-lived drum we list claims 30,000. So a marked or worn drum showing up as a streak is a different part with a different part number, and buying another toner will not fix it. The Brother chart pairs the TN and DR numbers by model.
Marks that repeat down the page
A defect that appears at the same interval on every page comes from something that rotates. Each roller and drum in a laser has its own circumference, so the gap between repeats identifies which part is marking the paper, and it stays the same whatever you print.
Print a page of solid grey or black fill, lay a ruler down it, and measure centre to centre between two identical marks. Then check that distance against the repeating defect table in your model's service documentation, which lists the interval for the drum, the fuser and the transfer roller on that specific engine. The numbers vary by printer, so the table for your model is worth more than a general rule of thumb.
Rubbing the mark is worth doing too. Toner that smears or lifts off never fused properly, which points at the fuser or a paper type mismatch rather than at anything upstream.
On a colour laser you can often confirm the culprit by which colour the defect is. A repeating mark in a single colour follows that colour's cartridge or imaging unit, and swapping two units around tells you whether the fault moves with the part.
Faded output is not a firmware block
People sometimes land here after a firmware update and assume the printer is quietly degrading third-party ink to push them back to genuine cartridges. That is not how the lockouts work. A firmware block refuses the cartridge outright with a cartridge error and stops printing, which is a different symptom with a different fix, covered in why your printer stopped accepting compatible ink and tracked model by model in our firmware DRM tracker.
What compatible cartridges can do is print lighter or clog sooner if the ink is poor or the cartridge has sat on a shelf too long. That shows up in the nozzle check like any other clog, and it is a supplier question rather than a printer fault. Our notes on picking a third-party cartridge cover what separates the decent sellers from the rest.
Brother is direct about the connection and lists non-genuine toner among the causes of white vertical lines on its lasers. Read that as a reason to buy carefully rather than a reason to pay full OEM price for everything, and keep the packaging until a few hundred pages have gone through cleanly.
What not to do
- Do not change several things at once. New paper, a new driver and a full set of cartridges together will probably fix it, and you will never know which one mattered or what to do when it comes back.
- Do not put alcohol on a drum or on laser glass. Brother is explicit that the laser glass gets a dry cloth only. Distilled water on a lint-free cloth is the safe option for an inkjet nozzle plate.
- Do not run deep cleaning repeatedly. It is the most ink-hungry routine on the machine, and on Epson models it also pushes the maintenance pads toward their end of life.
- Do not replace the printer over one bad colour until you have checked what the supplies actually cost. On the cheap tri-colour machines the maths is genuinely uncomfortable, which is the honest argument for a refillable tank model next time round, covered in ink tank vs cartridge.
When you do need a cartridge, order by the number your printer reports rather than from memory. Look your model up here and we will show the exact numbers it takes, what they are rated for, and what the page works out at.
Common questions
Why is my printer printing faded pages when the ink is full?
On an inkjet, a full cartridge that prints faint usually means the nozzles are partly clogged, so ink is not reaching the paper even though it is in the cartridge. Print a nozzle check: gaps or missing segments confirm it, and a standard head clean is the fix. If the nozzle check is perfect, the fault is in your print settings or the paper, most often draft mode or a paper type that does not match what is loaded. On a laser, check for EconoMode or a toner-save setting first.
How do I read a nozzle check pattern?
Each colour prints its own block of fine lines. A complete block means those nozzles are firing. Gaps or broken segments in one block mean that colour is partly clogged. A block that is blank means the colour is not printing at all. Broken segments across every block point at a head that has dried out. If every block is complete but ruled lines look doubled or stepped, the head needs aligning rather than cleaning.
How many times should I clean the print head?
Clean once, print a fresh nozzle check, and compare the two. If the pattern is improving, another cycle is worth it. If it looks identical, more cycles of the same routine rarely help and each one spends ink. HP's steps stop at three cleaning cycles before pointing at the cartridge, and Epson requires a 12 hour gap between Power Cleanings, with the advice to leave the printer resting for at least 12 hours if the pattern has not improved.
Why is one colour missing from my prints?
Either that cartridge is empty or badly seated, or its nozzles are clogged. Check the level, reseat the cartridge, then print a nozzle check to see whether that colour's block prints at all. A pink cast usually means cyan has dropped out and a green cast usually means magenta. On a printer that uses one tri-colour cartridge, a colour that will not come back means replacing the whole cartridge, including the two colours that were still working.
What causes white lines or streaks on a laser printer?
Brother lists a dirty or clouded laser glass, dust or glue on the drum surface, and non-genuine toner as the causes of white vertical lines. The fix is to remove the drum and toner assembly, clean the laser glass with a dry cloth and no liquid, inspect the drum, then print a settings page to test. If the lines survive that, the toner cartridge needs replacing. A coloured line rather than a white one points instead at the corona wire, the toner or the drum.
Why does the same mark repeat down every page?
Something that rotates is transferring it. The drum, the fuser and the transfer roller each have their own circumference, so the distance between repeats identifies the part. Print a solid fill page, measure centre to centre between two identical marks, and match that distance against the repeating defect table for your model. If the toner smears when you rub it, the fuser is the suspect.
Does head cleaning use a lot of ink?
Enough that it matters. Cleaning works by pushing ink through the nozzles, so every cycle draws from the cartridge. Epson's Power Cleaning uses considerably more than a standard clean, which is why Epson enforces a 12 hour interval between runs and warns that it brings the maintenance pads closer to their capacity. On a printer with one small tri-colour cartridge, a run of cleaning cycles can account for a real share of a cartridge rated in the low hundreds of pages.
Keep reading
- Printer printing blank pages the sibling case: nothing on the page at all rather than a degraded one.
- Preventing a clogged printhead how to stop the clog coming back, and the soak methods when cleaning cycles fail.
- Printer says ink low but the cartridge is not empty what the gauge is actually measuring, and when to believe it.
- Which printers are cheapest to run where your model sits, including the tri-colour penalty.
- Brother toner and drum chart TN and DR numbers by model, for when the streak turns out to be the drum.
- Is the print head in your cartridge or your printer which part the streak is coming from, and whether you can replace it.
- Waste ink pads and maintenance boxes why repeated cleaning cycles are the fastest way to end a working printer.
Sources
- Epson, Checking the Print Head Nozzles, on gaps and missing segments in the test lines. epson.com
- Epson, Running Power Cleaning, on the 12 hour interval and waiting before retrying. epson.biz
- Epson, Power Cleaning, on ink pads reaching capacity sooner. epson.com
- Canon, Cleaning the Print Head and Printing the Nozzle Check Pattern. canon.com
- Canon, Print Head Cleaning, on faint printing or a specific colour failing to print. canon.com
- HP, Print Quality Diagnostic Report, on paper type and the time it takes to print. hp.com
- HP, Fixing Poor Print Quality, on EconoMode, print density and humidity effects. hp.com
- HP LaserJet Pro, Economy settings, on why HP does not recommend full-time EconoMode. hp.com
- Brother, White vertical lines or streaks on printed pages. brother-usa.com
- Brother, Black or coloured vertical lines or streaks on printed pages. brother-usa.com
- Yields, prices and cost per page computed from this site's own catalogue of printers and genuine supplies. mycartridgefinder.com
Last updated . This guide is general information, not a repair warranty. Printer menus and HP's model lists change, so confirm the exact steps for your model on the manufacturer's support site before you make changes.