Major Practical Project - A spanner in the works...

After a bout of uncharacteristic organisation I had booked out the colour darkroom for several 5/6 hour sessions to make my final prints for this project. The first of which was 2 weeks ago, where the prints were coming out near-perfectly, apart from a series of brown specks across the images caused by the processing machine's rollers not being clean. I then went in 2 days ago, with the colour processor having been thoroughly cleaned and with fresh chemicals. However when I was doing my test strips, I noticed that something was off with the colours - even the final strip which was exposed for 12 seconds didn't seem to be nearly dark enough for what it should be.

f8, Magenta = 50, Yellow = 50, Cyan = 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 seconds.

Nevertheless, I ploughed on, thinking that it was just the colour balance. I then made a series of test strips with different combinations of settings in order to try and rectify the problem.

f8, M=50, Y= 50, C=0, 8 secs.

f8, M=80, Y=80, C=0, 10 secs.

f8, M=80, Y=80, C=0, 20 secs.

f8, M=90, Y=90, C=0, 15 secs.

f8, M=100, Y=100, C=0, 15 secs.

After trying all these different settings, it became obvious that it wasn't the exposing of the paper that was making the images look muddy, it was the processing machine. Even after 20 seconds of exposure the blacks in the image were not coming out black, more a reddy brown. Essentially the chemicals in the machine had somehow been contaminated, meaning that the print developer was not functioning as it should.
Given that I won't have access to the darkroom for probably another week, I may not have enough time to print my images by hand, despite my best efforts. I really wanted to be able to make hand prints, so that I can control every aspect of how the print looks. However, I have now sent my negatives off to be printed in a combination method, which uses photographic paper and a laser which exposes the images to make the print. It is very much a second choice, but something that I had to do in order to guarantee that I could at least hand in some images, even if not printed in the way I would have liked them to be.
When I receive my negatives back, I will be getting in the darkroom as soon as possible to try and make some of my own prints, even if I don't have time to do all of them, I then at least have a contingency.