Why won't my printer print black ink even though my ink levels are fine?

The printer is an HP Photosmart Plus B210 Series. My black ink is half full and it worked find a couple of days ago. Today I went to print an essay and it looked like the ink was running out. Then, on the next page, it completely stopped printing it…not even remnants or faded ink as it would if I was actually out of ink.

I’ve checked the levels, they’re fine. It’s not dried out. I know that my colored inks are on their last leg and when I tried to print something in color, it got that faded look I was expecting – so it’s not all the cartridges that aren’t working.

I’ve tried the “blank ink only” option to no avail. I’ve turned off and unplugged the printer – no luck. I tried printing from a different program and even copying a page – nothing. No ink is printing whatsoever. I’m not getting any error messages.

I tried to troubleshoot it on the HP website and it didn’t help at all. This paper is due tomorrow and I have nowhere else I can print it on time. Anyone have any ideas of what the problem might be?