So, one of the printers we use in our office is good old Canon MG5550. It’s an “all-in-one” type of printer (fax, copier, etc.) which we’ve had for a couple of years now and it’s been very reliable so far. But the other day, suddenly, it stopped working and the following error was displayed:
Also, on the computer connected to the printer, the following message popped up:
The problem didn’t occur after a paper jam, cartridge replacement or some other common printer issue, it simply came up out of the blue which, combined with the rather serious error message, made me somewhat confused.
As switching off and unplugging the power lead didn’t help, I’ve done what every person would do in such situation: used Google. Turns out it is a pretty frequent problem (although it had never happened to us before!) and there is quite a lot of sites and videos about it but it took me a little while to get anywhere with it. First of all, it’s an error code shared with multiple different Canon printers and relating to the printhead problem. Secondly, the proposed solutions were either not working (like re-installing cartridges) or often not applicable to my Canon MG5550. I finally found a YouTube video which pointed me in the right direction:
Again, it’s not the same printer but I tried the procedure from the beginning of the video and after tweaking it a bit my printer started to work again!
What did I do?
- Switched off the printer and lifted the front panel to have access to the cartridges and printhead.
- Moved the printhead manually to the middle: it can be a bit tricky as the carriage would normally be hidden under the bit of plastic on the left. I had to pull it out slowly by the white cable attached to it. Be extra careful!
- While the cover is lifted, turn the printer on using the power button.
- As soon as the printhead starts moving during the start-up shut the cover down. It will try to position the head to the nominal position (you’ll hear the regular “noises” made by the printer).
- Once it’s finished adjusting the printhead the error message should have hopefully gone!
IMPORTANT! Be very careful performing the steps above as you may damage your printer permanently!
I then went into the printer’s diagnostic tools (from the printer’s menu, not computer’s) and printed a test page, did some head cleaning, etc. Everything looked good and my printer has been doing its job ever since without any issues. Hooray!
And what is the best place to buy some high quality replacement inks for Canon MG5550? Yes, of course it’s inkZONE!
Had this problem is morning. Tried the other suggestions and nothing worked. Tried this om my MG5550 and it worked. Hopefully it will continue to work will give is a work out later.
Thank You
I had a very similar problem with my Canon MG5550 and looked through google for hours to no avail and I can’t across your page tried it for the first time and it worked thank you loads and loads saved a lot of money excellent
Thank you for the guidance.. It does work.
This is really helpful infomation..
Thank you for the information
The above works a treat. Thanks. My observations are that the Printer Head with cartridges should be on the right hand side of the machine as it powers up but the error occurs when it is on the left hand side of the machine? Must be something to do with the way it shuts down.
This was really helpful. It worked. Thank you so much.