Chosen Solution
I got this error message when I turned my printer on: “A printer error has occured. Turn off the printer, then press On button to turn On. See your documentation”. I did take a look and they say to verify there is no paper jam, which is the case here and then to call the Epson support centre, what I did. The answer I got from the guy I spoke to is to send it to an authorized repair centre as there is nothing he could do over the phone. It seems it is a mechanical problem, but I wondered how much the repair will cost (probably more than what I paid for the printer…), so the technician offered me a big $30 discount to buy a new printer on their website… Did someone get the same problem and fixed it? If yes could you please tell me what you did? Many thanks in advance
Unfortunately, the above error locks you out of any of the all-in-one features, even ones that don’t involve the actual printer. However, this little trick appears to have given new life to the Workforce. Open printer such that the cartridge housing is accessible (flip the scanner housing up). Turn printer off. While printer is off, gently slide cartridge housing to the left about halfway. Turn printer on. After cartridge housing moves all the way to the right (which it will do on startup), gently push up and back on the housing and continue pressing/gently jiggling as the housing tries to free itself. Eventually, the housing will snap back to the left which will stop tripping the error message, and free you to use the scanner, copy, fax, etc. This may even allow you to keep using the actual printer, although I haven’t tested! This took me a few tries, but eventually fiddling around with the cartridge housing while it was over on the right edge of the printer freed it enough for it to become “functional” again. No clue how long it will last, but prevents me from having a useless paperweight sitting on my home office shelf!
1- Turn off the printer 2-Press and Hold “Stop / Clear Settings” 3- While holding “Stop / Clear Settings” Press the power button to turn the printer on. That should resolve this issue.
I just wanted to help anyone that might be having trouble and none of the other tries have worked. Then you might try what I did. As a last resort….I have a All-In-One Epson printer. Turn printer off and while it’s off…Hold down the “black and white” print button, the “color” print button and the “Stop/Reset” button all at the same time, while holding all 3 buttons down, turn on the power button to turn the printer on. As I turned the power button on…I quickly released all 4 buttons at the same time! The printer started sounding normal again at start up. I then did the head and nozzle and alignment and it seems to be working great agin! Kinda like a soft reset. Hope this helps anyone! :-)
Paper jam. Open the scanner unit and remove the paper. Press the Start button to eject the paper inside. Paper is jammed in the printer. Turn off the printer, open the scanner unit, remove paper. Check the solutions below if you’re having trouble using your Epson printer. I had the same thing happen to me not to long ago removing all the paper and jams and unpluging it helped
hi! I did what Dennis Brown recommended …and it worked! on my EPSON SX515W. The key part was “After cartridge housing moves all the way to the right (which it will do on startup), gently push up and back on the housing and continue pressing/gently jiggling as the housing tries to free itself.” It also happened after a cleaning operation I tried….now I hope to see the results….so I probably touched something I shouldnt have, or the cleaning fluid made some mechanical operation stiffer. hope this helps, Frank
I’ve been getting that error message for a month while trying to solve the problem by re-connecting the cables to the computer, downloading printer software updates and trying different options like “print using system dialog” and “print using pdf preview”. My printer is only a couple of years old (at the most 3). I thought it might be because I downloaded a new version “MacOS High Sierra”. Nothing I do fixes the problem. There are no paper jams but when it starts to print, half-way through, it stops, ejects the partially printed document and starts wildly beeping. Seems wrong for a printer not to last.
I have a rather old printer. Epson Stylus Photo R380. After trying a lot of different options, when nothing else worked including calling Epson. I turned everything off & unplugged it. I opened up the top of the printer and gently pushed the color cartridge away to the other side and back again. Plugged everything back in, etc & when I turned it on, I suppose it reset the mechanics of it. PHEWWW!!
Hi I did all of the above and yes now fixed. Thanks everyone
My problem came after running out of ink in the middle of a print job that had already been cleared from the computer’s print queue. Our fix, on an Epson Stylus NX515, required forcing the ink cartridge carrier into position so I could replace the empty cartridge (since the printer wouldn’t accept any command other than being turned off), then forcing it back into the starting position. Thanks for having this page. Epson’s support page was completely unhelpful.
