finstp
Newbie to Printing
- Joined
- Sep 13, 2025
- Messages
- 6
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 6
- Printer Model
- Canon Pixma Pro-1
You may have seen recent posts from me describing a serious fault with my Pro1 printer. I am happy to report that I have solved it and my story might help others before junking this printer.
I’ll try to keep this short, but the story is pretty long and full of frustrations.
To begin, I tried to use the printer after a long time sitting dormant. Using my Mac, the IJ printer utility reported that one ink, MBK, was very low, so I replaced it with a spare. All seemed well and I tried to do a test print. The utility then said that there wasn’t enough CO to complete. I shut the printer down and ordered a new CO cartridge. When I started it up a few days later, it showed the 8 alternative flashes of resume and power button LEDs. I believed this was the dreaded absorber pad failure but it consistently showed this error in spite of many attempts to restart, and the use of various versions of the service tool. The usual 5 press sequence to put the printer into service mode did seem to work in that it showed as Canon Device under USB and version 5103 of the toll would even recognise the printer and display its serial number, however the printer always continued to boot up and never showed the solid LEDs on the power button as it is supposed to do in service mode. All attempts ended with the display of 8 alternate flashes of the orange/white LEDs. I should say that no commands would work from v5103, but v3400 would allow me to read the EEPROM and nothing else.This long period I’ll gloss over, but it involved many changes of serial cables, trying to revive an old laptop running XP (in case there was a USB communication issue) and many hours searching for solutions plus attempts to get advice from ChatGPT, Gemini and even Grok AI models. Nothing worked. Then I found this group and I got one response from Hat yesterday, really confirming my creeping suspicion that the print head was totally defunct. I went back to the Mac and the IJ utility confirmed that the printer was showing error B500, so the print head was most likely dead. I did remove the print head several times to clean the contacts, but that made no difference. Last night I was ready to bin the printer! Nothing I had done made any difference and the utility was showing printer error B500 still. It then belatedly occurred to me that all my experience of faults with (very) expensive equipment has shown that 99% of the time it was the last thing that was changed that caused the issue. Now, in this state, the ink details can’t be shown and the ink cover release button does not work to open the covers. So, I forced open the left hand ink cover, which was easy and to my surprise that made the printer open the right hand one when I switched it on. I then replaced the new MBK cartridge with the one I had previously removed ——— and the printer fully recovered!! No more errors and it booted up (slowly) and I was able to make a perfect print. This morning the printer is still behaving itself!
I’ll try to keep this short, but the story is pretty long and full of frustrations.
To begin, I tried to use the printer after a long time sitting dormant. Using my Mac, the IJ printer utility reported that one ink, MBK, was very low, so I replaced it with a spare. All seemed well and I tried to do a test print. The utility then said that there wasn’t enough CO to complete. I shut the printer down and ordered a new CO cartridge. When I started it up a few days later, it showed the 8 alternative flashes of resume and power button LEDs. I believed this was the dreaded absorber pad failure but it consistently showed this error in spite of many attempts to restart, and the use of various versions of the service tool. The usual 5 press sequence to put the printer into service mode did seem to work in that it showed as Canon Device under USB and version 5103 of the toll would even recognise the printer and display its serial number, however the printer always continued to boot up and never showed the solid LEDs on the power button as it is supposed to do in service mode. All attempts ended with the display of 8 alternate flashes of the orange/white LEDs. I should say that no commands would work from v5103, but v3400 would allow me to read the EEPROM and nothing else.This long period I’ll gloss over, but it involved many changes of serial cables, trying to revive an old laptop running XP (in case there was a USB communication issue) and many hours searching for solutions plus attempts to get advice from ChatGPT, Gemini and even Grok AI models. Nothing worked. Then I found this group and I got one response from Hat yesterday, really confirming my creeping suspicion that the print head was totally defunct. I went back to the Mac and the IJ utility confirmed that the printer was showing error B500, so the print head was most likely dead. I did remove the print head several times to clean the contacts, but that made no difference. Last night I was ready to bin the printer! Nothing I had done made any difference and the utility was showing printer error B500 still. It then belatedly occurred to me that all my experience of faults with (very) expensive equipment has shown that 99% of the time it was the last thing that was changed that caused the issue. Now, in this state, the ink details can’t be shown and the ink cover release button does not work to open the covers. So, I forced open the left hand ink cover, which was easy and to my surprise that made the printer open the right hand one when I switched it on. I then replaced the new MBK cartridge with the one I had previously removed ——— and the printer fully recovered!! No more errors and it booted up (slowly) and I was able to make a perfect print. This morning the printer is still behaving itself!
