I have a HP Photosmart Plus B209 a printer. The black ink won't print. The colors print just fine. All the ink is brand new.

You are one of many B209 owners with this problem. The B209 has a defectively-designed printhead. The HP site is clogged with complaints about it. The HP customer support chat people will ask you to disassemble your printer in order for you to read them several dates and code numbers. They will then tell you that your warranty has expired and they won't do anything to help you.
If you take your print head out of the printer you'll find a thick, gummy residue of black ink on it. I don't even want to think what that residue cost me with HP ink costing more than most precious metals. You can try cleaning it but the only solution is the purchase of a new print head. Or, you can try my alternative solution:
1. Open window 2. Throw HP B209 out window 3. Order non-HP printer on Amazon 4. Never buy HP again
If HP is going to sell a faulty product then they should stand behind it and make it right. It's clear from my 2 hours chatting with the HP man overseas that HP will not be doing this.

This is from the HP site from another ripped off customer...
Any lawyers out there looking for a case?

Hi PC Wizard

Yes I have certainly tried everything that HP has advised. I have wasted hours of valuable time and a fortune in buying genuine ink cartridges. I have tried a new printhead. I really don't think you can expect your customers to do any more to get a printer to print on a piece of paper, it's hardly rocket science.

If you look on your own forums, there is a thread "HP Photosmart Plus B209a-m Black Ink won't print" it has been viewed 17,443 times. Another thread "Photosmart Plus B209 Printhead Problems" has been viewed 3,646 times. I would think the fact over 20,000 people are looking at your site for answers to this problem ought to flash a warning bell somewhere that you have a faulty product. So far no one has offered a permanent solution. I can spend thirty minutes rinsing my printhead with warm water and then waste a pile of ink doing some cleaning cycles and then print off what I need, but the next day it is clogged again and does not print properly.

HP should do the decent thing and redesign the printhead and send them out free to people who have spent a lot of money on this printer which is not fit for purpose. Please do not insult our intelligence by suggesting various short term fixes. We need a long term fix that will eliminate this problem !

For severe print quality or missing color issues (...printers which use HP564 ink cartridges) there could be an air bubble/gap between the ink cartridge and PRINTHEAD, or a portion of the PRINTHEAD is dry, so you should first perform a CLEAN PRINTHEAD procedure from your printers control panel (i.e. select TOOLS - CLEAN PRINTHEAD).
NOTE: If one or more the colors were previously dry fired during printing (i.e. if you continued printing using only a few colors to one, air may have been accidently ingested into the ink lines between the cartridge(s) and PRINTHEAD. To recover from this more severe condition, you may have to run the CLEAN PRINTHEAD procedure 2 or 3 times. Print the SELF TEST REPORT or PRINT QUALITY REPORT to see if there is any visible improvement in colors and/or print quality.
If a problem persists then it is suggested to review the steps outlined on the following Inkjet411 HP564 support page, including printhead removal/printer electrical contact cleaning and service station cleaning. A dirty service station can cause poor image quality and/or ink cross-contamination between different colors:
http://inkjet411.com/?page_id=1451
If the problem still cannot be corrected, then the PRINTHEAD may be dry and may need to be flushed (i.e. with warm water as it could have dried out, but this is a function of how much you print). Remove and thoroughly flush all ink ports for 2-3 minutes...thoroughly dry printhead prior to re-installing. Retest. For complete instructions refer to video here: http://inkjet411.com/?page_id=2412
Worst case scenario the PRINTHEAD may simply be electrically damaged or at end-of-life (while rated for 10-12,000 pages, the average consumer may only see an average of 5,000 printed page throughput) and may require replacement. A severe failure of the PRINTHEAD is typically accompanied by error messages such as INCOMPATIBLE PRINTHEAD, REPLACE PRINTHEAD or INK SYSTEM FAILURE. NOTE: The PRINTHEAD will eventually fail in time. For more information on the how the PRINTHEAD works, watch the video here: http://inkjet411.retailinkjet.com/?page_id=1983
To verify Printhead electrical performance, activate the Tap 41 diagnostic test, (i.e. Pen Status: Pen OK).....for printer model instructions please visit: http://inkjet411.com/?page_id=1813
To solve other HP564 ink-series printer/printing related issues please visit http://www.inkjet411.com

I too am one of you now....Many wasted hours on this useless printer. I have cleaned the printheads, thought my husband was techno-wortless and spent $ on a computer guy to come to my house to help me get setup to print on this machine. Lesson? Never buy HP again!! It's hardly been used and we have spent a fortune on ink. RIDICULOUS!

Don't buy HP printers. What ever kind of printer they have been putting out the last 5 years stink. I've had 3 of the top of the line ones. Each and everyone has had a print head failure. Prior to that HP had the best printers out there...NO MORE! Even worse, they don't care.

The black ink cartridge is probably clogged. Remove it from the printer and clean the heads with a "Q" tip and alcohol. Also, HP recommends you use the genuine HP cartridges - if it's an off brand name they sometimes don't work.