Can you make the brother mfc-490cw print in black only? I bought a new black and it wont print because it says that the other colors are too low is there any way to bypass this?

Greyscale is color not black only.
You can print in black and it will look grayscale only darker, printers are a pain to work with after a year has gone by, I can expect almost a half hour to print something with my $400 epson because one of the colors is out even though I never printed in the last year a colored page. I take the color cartirges out and they are empty, but I only print a page 2-3 times a year. I use the scanner all the time. Brother and epson have their print heads in the printer not the cartridge so make sure your inks are always have something in it or it will be miricle for the printer to last more than a year. Check colors every other week. One Epson printer only lasted 3 months because I never used it(print head dried up). Never use the set up with tubes running outside printer to small tanks of ink if you only use it occationally.

Well, either your print settings have it set to print in a color model that is not the native one (I can get this from CUPS drivers by picking KMCY instead of CMYK, among others) or it is confused enough to need Brother's initializing tool (program, I mean) to get it sorted out. Try de-weirding your settings first, then double-check the print dialog's settings when you retry. Nobody loves magenta-on-white for print.

You need to have the print head replaced. Brother is covering the cost to repair this problem if you call 1-877-276-8437 and tell them you are missing 2 colors on print outs.

Try to clean the print head 2-3 times,if not work you need to replace 100% the print head.If a have been usefut please give me a vote :)

Hi

You need to clean your printhead
becouse it is clogged
try cleanning it from printers menu

ps vote us to keep us alive

Drivers, utilities and software updates for your Brother Product

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make sure the plastic is peeled off the cartridge that covers the tiny hole on the cartridge

Try remove all cartridges then put back it one by one.Make sure the color cartridges are not empty too.The printer need all cartridges not empty to initialized and working.

Take it back to Staples and get a new one.