A few months back, I reviewed Epson’s Artisan 800 printer, and I loved it. Tonight, I hate its shiny plastic guts. In fact, I may never touch another Epson product again because of this…
I have a crucial fax I need to send early tomorrow morning. Crucial. I need to print 15 pages of black-and-white legal contract, sign every single page, and then fax the shit. All of this is within the capabilities of the Artisan 800. But tonight, the thing printed 9 pages, then told me it had run out of Magenta. Yes, as in, a colour I don’t need at all to print 15 black-and-white pages.
OK, so I have a spare Magenta cartridge—whoo hoo! I pop it in there, and all is well, until page 11, when it says it needs me to replace… Light Cyan.
I have Light Cyan, too, so I put it in, and it says I need to replace Cyan. Well, there’s already a new Cyan in there, so I pop it out because maybe it’s just in there wrong. Turns out, someone in my household put it in without removing the safety sticker, and the printer waited like three weeks to tell me this. So I pull off the safety sticker, place it back in the printer, but no go. Artisan says it can’t recognise Cyan. Nor can it recognise Light Cyan. Or Yellow.
Yellow? I hadn’t even touched Yellow. Suddenly, it can’t recognise half my ink cartridges, all of which happen to be completely full. I pop them out, put them back in again. Nothing.
I restart the printer twice, yanking plug and all. Same error.
I pull out all the ink cartridges, put them back in, restart the thing, and get the same beeping error for the same three miscreants.
Have you ever seen your wit’s end? Cuz mine is hanging out all over the place at this point. I go to Epson.com to troubleshoot, and I get the following frightening message:
What they’re not telling you is that pretty much any expensive-arse ink cartridge you remove for any reason may be rejected by the thing at any time forever more, so don’t even think about popping the shit out once you’ve put it in there, most especially if the machine is categorically refusing to recognise it in the first place.
So I can’t print another page, even though every indicator shows I’m full up to the damn gills on black ink. At the end of the troubleshooter, after I click “No, this did not solve my problem” three or four times, I read this obnoxious statement:
I’m not sure if you can see my middle finger from where you’re sitting, Epson, but rest assured, it is extended and pointing in your direction.
Tomorrow, when I go to print and fax my documents at Kinko’s, I’ll be thinking of you, and I will be seething. But when I go to get a new printer, I’ll be thinking of HP or Canon. Probably Canon.
hybzik
Sunday, March 1, 2009 at 4:34 PMHow about a Printer-Scanner not letting you SCAN something because there’s no INK? It happened. along with it bringing up a warning everytime I didn’t use one of their stupidly priced cartridges.
Benny Ling
Sunday, March 1, 2009 at 6:29 PMIt’s a commonly known fact that printers will use all the colours to give “black”, even when you’re printing a black and white document.
Printing in black-and-white only mode will only use the black cartridge, and could have circumvented your problem – had you not removed all the cartridges.
KiNGPiN
Sunday, March 1, 2009 at 7:25 PMROTFL …
thx 4 the headsup man ;)
Sausage
Sunday, March 1, 2009 at 8:37 PMI bought a Canon, middle of my second uni semester last year. Best all in one I’ve ever owned. And it’ll even let you keep printing right up until the ink cartridge is dry as a bone (sometimes beyond…). HP is shit and so is Epson. I’m trying to think of a creative way to destroy my old Epson all in one (the shittest printer I’ve ever owned). Maybe run it over with my car (no that’s too good for it!), maybe I’ll just dismantle it…
Grant Philipps
Sunday, March 1, 2009 at 9:00 PMThe best post i have ever read!!!! I hate Epson x 10!!!!!!!!
Christiaan Hunter
Sunday, March 1, 2009 at 11:03 PMGood to know about epson printing problem. They used to be the best inkjet printers.
Willem
Tuesday, March 3, 2009 at 7:38 PMI used to work for Officeworks selling printers and would steer people right away from the Epson’s (and a lot of HP’s) for this exact reason. Putting a microchip in a cartridge to cripple your printer due to calculations it has made up. Then forcing the user to buy colour ink which is PURPOSEFULLY wasted in cleaning cycles. This is not cool.
Canons were always good and relatively cheap option, and the quality is there too.
As an example I turned on my ‘lil canon i350 after a year or so without use (I have gone 99% paperless)and after 2 deep cleanings it was good as new. I was surprised as anyone!
John
Wednesday, March 11, 2009 at 9:48 AMI feel you. I liked Epson until the day I ran out of Cyan and Magenta.
No biggie, I told myself… I just need to scan these papers real quick.
*clicks the Back button* … Invalid operation, please replace ink cartridges. Huh, that’s odd. *presses any other button only to get the same message*
At this point, I’m thinking, it must be bugged. I’ll just restart it and it will bring me to the menu. No. As soon as it boots back up, it brings me back to the error message to replace my ink.
WTF? I email EPSON 3 times, no response. At this point I’m pissed of. I have to go somewhere else to scan my stuff.
I ordered new compatible cartridges for 1/4 the OEM price. With a smile to my face, I load these babies in and press “OK” to replace. YES! It’s loading. OH BUT WAIT… now the printer says I need to replace the yellow ink. WHAT THE F*CK?!?!?! Why???
Once the scanner is operational, I’m taking a shit in the scanner and sending a picture to EPSON.
F*ck you EPSON, you made awful scam products.
Jun
Tuesday, March 17, 2009 at 4:40 AMI’m an owner of Arisan 800 too and apparently, I experienced the same trouble with yours. But when I called the epson tech support, they explained that is the way the printer works. It could not continue printing once a single cartridge is out of ink. I could not buy the explanation at first but when I got to realize that ink cartridges protect the print head, I understood the product’s design. I thought of switching over the canon or hp but the the latter just gives horrible prints. I stick with epson instead.
Sallind
Thursday, May 17, 2012 at 11:41 AMI have owned and used extensivly an RX 630 Epson for over 7 years, am just about to purchase a New Epson Artisan 837… BUT after reading these stories.. wow what do i do.. i don’t like HP or Cannon are too expensive to run, and I need the Best Photo printer to sell my products..
Sal
mpks
Thursday, March 19, 2009 at 7:12 PMI feel your pain, I have just thrown my epson R230 onto the floor. What a piece of crap, I have replaced every cartridge at great cost and have got yet another error message. The nozzle check has one colour all but blocked and after 10 head cleans it is still blocked. I need to print a work contract for a new job monday and cant. There is stacks of ink in there and this is the 4th epson I have bought with the same result, it is used nearly every day. I will never ever buy another epson again.
EZ
Saturday, March 28, 2009 at 8:35 AMYes, Epson does suck. I had the same problem (amoung many other things). I wanted to fax a couple of important documents in b/w and it said I was out of cyan. It would not allow me to fax without replacing the color cartridge first. What the hell is that???? And to Jun’s comment above, “I could not buy the explanation at first but when I got to realize that ink cartridges protect the print head, I understood the product’s design.” What a load of shit someone is selling you. Don’t be fool enough to buy it.
nate
Friday, April 3, 2009 at 2:36 PMI wholeheartedly agree with the assessment that Epson printers are the worst pieces of filthy fucking cum guzzling shit known to civilized humanity.
Tiffany
Thursday, April 9, 2009 at 9:01 AMi for years read how great epsons were in print quality, blah, blah, blah. for years i got by on an hp printer/scanner/copier…and I WISH I HAD IT STILL…for the same reasons the original poster states-THE INK RUNNING OUT CONSTANTLY AND SHUTS IT ALL DOWN. I HATE EPSON AND WILL NEVER BUY ONE AGAIN.
Donal Summers
Saturday, April 18, 2009 at 1:20 AMGREAT POST !yes .. EPSON, and Brother – this straight out of the BrotherMFC235 manual – it’s Multifunction which includes faxes- mind you incomming faxes are either colour or MONOCHROME only – despite this it wont print your black/white incomming faxes if ANY colour is out !: The indicated ink cartridge is
empty. The machine will stop all
print operations. While memory is
available, black and white faxes will
be stored in the memory.
Paul
Friday, February 24, 2012 at 6:00 AMBought a new printer (SX425W) two months ago, black ran out so I replaced with a genuine Epsom cartridge – result ” Ink cartridges not recognised”. Not just replacement but all indicated as being non-Epsom. wtf.
Randor
Saturday, April 25, 2009 at 10:17 AMSHIT! Looks like my fucking Epson R220 is doing the same fucking thing as everyone elses. I was out buying printer paper and decided to buy a full set of ink cartridges. I get home and the POS printer tells me I am out of black. I look at the box of ink cartridges and realize that it contains every colour EXCEPT black. What kind of bullshit is this? Of course I should have looked at the pretty colours on the box and realized that it contained everything BUT black.
What a waste of an afternoon. Fuck Epson.
bill
Friday, July 31, 2009 at 5:01 AMYou said it all SX200 SHIT. Cartridge empty cartridge empty that’s all I get.
printercartridgesupplies
Friday, August 21, 2009 at 2:31 AMOh my! I’m lucky I didn’t use any Epson printers. If this is the case what a bad printer it is, you just bought it & then that happens. Bring it back were you bought it. It’s no good!
Donna
Friday, October 16, 2009 at 2:34 PMI have the Epson RX430. It is also shit. I hardly ever print anything but when I do I always have to clean the heads which seems to use more ink then printing a photo picture. This week I’m actually doing alot of printing so I thought it would work better because it is being used more so it won’t dry out as much….wrong! It is worse I try to print anything and I have to clean the heads every time I’m about to chuck it out the window. I think it would be cheaper as the ink costs about $70au every time ( it only has 4 cartridges), because you all know you always have to change all of them at the same time they never run out one at a time. By the way I don’t print pictures on it because after trying a few times the colour isn’t ever right even though it is called epson stylus PHOTO RX430. I’m glad I never got the one with the fax in it, it is bad enough now! I will never buy another epson product.
Jackie
Friday, November 6, 2009 at 10:37 AMI agree, the govts of nations/ commecial sectors need to legislate against this rubbish, false advertising , scam. Canon & Epson do it and I REUSE to support their brand anymore.
Ted P
Friday, January 1, 2010 at 3:41 PMThnks to all for stuff on Epson Printers. I thought I was loosing my mental functions because of my many failures and expensive purchases of ink refills. I always purchased “genuine Epson” in the (wrong) belief that I would get better operation. I am a retired Elect Engr and not yet senile. So why was I having all this drama with Epson. Thamks to this web page I now see it is Epson. Not me.The restrictions on remove to inspect/clean cartridges and the need to replace them is bullshit. No decently designed machine is like this.
On the good side. The first Epson Office TW40 I purchase died within the 12 month warranty. I took it back to supplier, OFFICEWORKS. The staff were great. No bullshit at all. Simply swapped my dud printer for an in carton newie!. But after reinstalling this second TW40 onto my new Windows 7 (64 bit)computer, it is playing up.
I emailed (1st Jan 10) Epson Australia asking for tech support. I hope they reply responsibly. I will report results.
John Esrever
Monday, January 4, 2010 at 2:16 AMDONT BUY EPSON FULL STOP. JUST BROUGHT THE SX200 RAN OUT OF CYAN WONT PRINT IN BLACK AND WHITE, WHAT THE FUK IS THAT ABOUT, I HAVE OWNED PRINTERS FOR YEARS (MAINLY HP) AND NEVER HAVE I ONCE HAD THIS ISSUE, USED TO BE IF YOU WERE OUT OF COLOUR IT WOULD PRINT THE PAGE LACKING THAT COLOUR NOT REFUSE TO USE ANY OTHER COLOURS AS WELL, CON ARTIST BASTARDS – I ALSO BELIVE THAT WHEN YOU BUY A CARTRIDGE SET THAT 1 IS ONLY HALF FULL SO IT FORCES YOU TO BUY A WHOLE NEW SET – WITH A NEW SET OF CARTRIDGES AND PRINTING OFF BLK/WHITE TXT DOCUMENTS ONLY CYAN DIED WITHIN 20 PAGES AND BLK STILL ALMOST FULL, LINE THE FUKERS UP AGAINST A WALL AND SHOOT THEM IN THE HEAD – DO NOT BUY-
Jeff T
Friday, February 19, 2010 at 4:12 PMThe fine folks at Espon can die a miserable death and rot in hell. I had a bad black cartridge tonight so I had to do several cleaning cycles to get the print head clean. Turns out that doing three cleaning cycles took the supposed level of my C, Y, and M ink from 50% to 0%. I pull them out and put in new ones just so i can print something in B&W. Every one of the three color cartridges that I take out is 90% full. I guess I have to buy the chip resetter to get around this. Great way to treat your customers Epson. Lie, cheat, and steal.
Barbara Richards
Tuesday, March 16, 2010 at 6:24 AMI ABSOLUTLY HATE my Epsom SX200. I feel like using the crappy thing as a football and kicking the crap out of it.
The thing is, ALL the printers seem to be the biggest rip off technology known to humanity. Why can’t someone invent one where you can just feed the sodding things different coloured inks rather than fiddling around with all those sodding expensive cartridges?
Lee
Tuesday, April 27, 2010 at 7:42 PMWell – I wanna join the club. Had (tell ya about the had in a bit) stylus7000 mtf piece of s. Same – everytime I go to print, outta every freaken colour. I actually thought I was smart & stocked up on all. Replaced cyan & blue etc…. a gazillion times without much hatred towards the machine. Crucial moment today (as were many but stores open) – outta yellow!! Well, I went linear (not even pms’ing) – the piece of chit is now in the garbage after I tore it apart. I rarely print in colour. Amazing the mtfkr will to a nozzle check etc. This is how they make their money. 9am – have to buy a new one. (take note – black ink for the epson more expensive than colour yet virtually impossible to print black on a continual basis) grrrrrrrrrrrr. thks for listening
greg
Sunday, May 16, 2010 at 8:35 AMThe Epsom artisan 50 is the biggest piece of junk I have ever owned. It eats ink like a thirsty turd and has a mind of it’s own. Never prints when I need it and the software that came with it does nothing but pop up constantly….wanting to sell you more ink for a starving turd…IMHO I will buy a new printer rather than give them 50 cent for another bunch of ink… most of the time it doesn’t even recognize its own brand of cartridge.