Can you manually get any ink from the cartridge?? I don't have any lexmarks, so I don't know what the cartridges look like, but on my HP's if you hold a wet paper towel in one hand and tap the ink cartridge on it with the other, you should get ink. For a while HP made a bunch of cartridges using the tape stuff to cover the vitals of the cartridge. They used an adhesive on the tape that would melt when hot. Well summer came and while being moved around in trucks, the glue was getting hot, melting, then plugging the vent hole, preventing any ink from coming out. They have since fixed the problem, thought you might be experiencing the same thing.