HELP! EBAY CARTRIDGES HAVE BROKEN MY PRINTER!

[Janh]

There was a piece of paper inside which says "if your printer doesn't recognise the cartridge, please return it to the distributor" but nothing to warn that the printer will not now recognise any of the cartridges which were OK before! aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh! What do I do?

(And I am in the middle of colouring my hair and now have magenta ink all over the desk!!!)

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ooh don't know what to suggest but could try a mamufactures cartridge or contact distributor and see if they suggest anything not much help sorry

Is it an Epson printer and have you tried switching it off and on again...

What exactly is the problem?

It is an Epson, li, and I have tried the magic switch off and on again! but it let me down this time.

mp, it just says "error - open the scanner unit - replace the ink cartridges - close the scanner unit". I have taken them out and put them back about 3 times now!

Initially, when I first put the ebay magenta one in, it listed the colours and said they were all empty or missing or something; so I took it out (hence ink all over desk) and replaced the nearly-empty Epson one but now it's not recognising that there are any cartridges in - ohhhhh nooooooo

At the bottom of this page are some links which might helpPrinter troubleshooting

It could be that if you put the old cartridge back in it won't accept it as it decides it is defunct.

I only use Epson branded cartridges for this reason...

You could try reinstalling the printer and new Epson cartridges...

It's not recognising any of them though, li...

Thanks for that, I went to the Epson website and found this:

I have bought one full set of Epson cartridges, but they are so expensive and the kids use so much I thought I'd try cheaper ones - I have already used a Jet-tec black one which was fine, I didn't even get an "alien cartridge" message, and I have also ordered a set from a website recommended by SofiaAmes, but this set arrived first so I thought I'd try one - sigh.

Might re-installing work? Should I take all the cartridges out first?

Oooh - faint hope - I just fiddled with them again and now it's just saying "magenta yellow ink out" and they were the 2 really low ones before.

The ones recommended by Sofia have landed in the meantime so I'll try them...

I'm not technical enough to advise, but you have to make it forget what's happened...if they have a helpline you might get some advice but on the other hand you might not. Sorry I'm being worse than useless here

Epson do this on purpose to make you buy their exceedingly expensive cartridges.

No, it's OK, thank you for being there, li!

It has righted itself now - all I did this time was click all 6 cartridges up and then push them back down, didn't even take them right out, and it has pulled itself together (although strangely when I did the initial ink level check before doing anything else it said black was on 100% and now it's saying 90%).

The thread with Sofia's recommendations is here , I'd forgotten they were Jet-Tec too (I got the black one from a local shop) - maybe you could risk trying them next time as they have worked OK for me and Sofia swears by them?