Hello @Maya_Vaude ,
Welcome to our forum , and thank you for the contribution.
I have the same issue with a Brother inkjet multifunction printer. It will not even photocopy if one ink is empty.
Regards,
Neville
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@nevj Yeah, that seems to be a common limitation with many inkjet printers. Even for multifunction printers, most won’t allow printing or copying if one cartridge is empty.
A trick that sometimes works is printing a color-heavy test page first or checking printer settings for “composite black” or “color-only” options. Doesn’t always work, but can help in some cases.
Hope that helps
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Doesn’t happen on my Brother Laser MFC… Can print anyway with an empty toner cart…
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I can see them but they are in red and I can reply quote them
Monochrome or color model?
I have a HP printer with just the black cartridge installed and have to problem printing. I keep the color slot empty because 1-color cartridge are expensive and 2, I don’t need anything printed in color.
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With my Epson they will do nothing if the slots are empty or there is no ink or the ink is dry solid.
Just repairing a brother printer and that keeps saying no ink but the cartridges are full. Trying to workout if I can fool the ink level sensor but not having any luck. No idea where or how they measure.
Put a Epson in to replace for the client on loan but he wants his brother not the Epson. No pleasing some folk
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Colour… 10 years old… MFC-9335CDW… Can continue printing even with one empty cartridge…
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Put it in maintenance mode and do a factory reset.
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Will try looking that option up.
Normally for the cost of a printer they are not worth repairing after a certain life span so I turn them down
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I have this info
1. Put into maintenence mode
Remove power cable
Hold Menu button (or Start button) down and re-insert power cable while
button held down.
I got 'Machine Error 46' after this
2. Reset the purge counter
Enter 80 on keys - gets into menu
Use 'down' button to step down until shows 'Purge xxxxx'
where xxxxx is a number
3. Zero the purge message
Enter 2783 on keys - xxxxx will go to zero
4. Hit 'stop' button - returns to 1st stage of maintenance menu
5. Enter 99 on keys - exits maintenance mode
The printer should now start up without the 'Cannot clean' message.
It may only apply to my MFC640CW
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That is something I have never tried on a printer no matter what make. The printer in question went back to the owner repaired this morning before I read your suggestion, so will guard till next time it comes in for repair.
The owner is getting on in age and gets frustrated when paper jams, this last time I was not around to fix it and he got help from a #expert# who unjammed the paper in bits, but also managed to unplug the scanner câble inside hence nothing worked. Stripped and reconnected now functions (except cartridge replacement message). These câbles inside get smaller so had to get my wife to reconnect them she has better fine motor skills than me now.
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Never heard of this option; I assume it’s highly printer/manufactures depentent. I’ll chck it as soon as I’m back at my printer.
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Depending on the printer model and make
Epson
Brother
Hp
https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c04496539
No doubt there are others for each make and model
Thanks Neville never looked for any of these before great idea.
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When my brother had a constant page feed issue and reporting something stuck (nothing stuck) around 2021 - decided to get it looked at and a quote to repair…
Was only about $200 to repair including a new “sensor” board in the guts of it…
Printer cost about $700 I think in 2016… Replacing with a similar model would have been around $500-600… So it made sense to get it repaired… and I hate e-waste…
Still going well 5 years later…
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Here I can buy a printer for around 50 or 60 euros new. Then the cartridge is around 40 euros as the ones supplied only really chargé the tanks. Most printers I come across over 2 years old if in use just wear out the cheap component Its rare its the processor board. Plus with paper jamais users tend to be forceful in paper removal. Now I am not capable of small connection replacement too small.
I dont even try the more expensive ones over the hundreds of euros, send the client to a shop for a quote but usually they scrap and sell them new
Yes I hate waste But very difficult to get replacement parts.
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- I did 3 years of French in high school - also travelled through France as a small child…
Never got my head around conjugation of verbs (we never stop to think about how bizarrely convoluted conjugation is in English - its probably the worst language ever) - but I remember coaching myself to answer my French teacher if she ever busted me smoking on the school grounds (she was actually pretty “hot”) - "je ne fumais pas… but I remember trying to figure out how to figure “jamais” into same conversation - “je ne jamais fumais pas” or something… The bizarre thing about French - you have to utter a negative twice… e.g. “ne” - then end with “pas”…
As a child - I could hold “conversational” Greek with Greeks, in Greece - but its all gone… Learning at least one other language - should be compulsory in primary school - while our minds are still “neuroplastic”…
I’ve nearly always spent extra pennies to go for Laser - they ALWAYS work out cheaper to run in the long run… and they’re simpler mechanisms than ink printers - i.e. less moving parts…
The more moving parts - the higher chance of failure…
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LED printers ( eg OKI) are a laser equivalent and have the same advantages
Agree.
Learning German in high school improved my English grammar and gave me an insight into another culture.
Languages reflect the way we think… different cultures think diffently
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