HP Printer

Most of the newest ones from any mfr (at least the cheap ones) are junk, basically throw-away items. Besides that, the ink cartridges are so small you pay a fortune for the ink to print any appreciable number of pages.

I have stuck with some of the older models like the Deskjet 940c that I find on eBay. They use huge cartridges (compared to today's models) that cost less than double for 3x-4x the ink, print almost as sharp (I've done 8 x 10 photos on good quality paper that look great), and are much more reliable. I just threw out my wife's old one with somewhere near 20,000 pages printed when it became balky, but found a used one with only 1800 pages in its print history for about $45. Most of these used ones come from resellers that buy out a business's whole installation when they upgrade (or eliminate) their IT equipment.

If the ink is blocked that should not cause it to report missing cartridge. You might already have tried cleaning the electrical contacts on the print head and where it connects inside printer. Maybe one or more of the little heaters that "fire" the ink are faulty then the printer might report missing cart.