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kmoorevs wrote: all the test pages I hadn't cancelled came streaming out
I had to fix a printer for a friends mother a few weeks ago - simple fix, just press "OK" on the printer - but first I had to cancel the 83 copies of the same document in the print queue ... 
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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tl;dr
A bad cable on a parallel dot matrix printer caused a still unexplained error that cost two days of frustration to disagnose and correct.
Years ago I spent a weekend helping a client install new accounting software and uploading their financial data from the old system. On Sunday we printed all their financial statements and compared them to the reports they had printed on Friday. Everything was good.
Two weeks later they gave me a call. The balance on one of their monthly reports was out by 10 cents. The balance was supposed to be $15,260.00 and it appeared that way on screen. The printed balance showed $15,260.10,
I could not find anything wrong with the software or the data. We hooked the printer up to another computer that ran the same software and it still produced the wrong printed total.
We printed several other documents with no problem. We printed other statements (where the balance was not .00) and they worked fine. That led to another couple of hours down a dead-end rabbit hole.
Okay. So computers are good, software is good, data is good, printer is good (except for the extra dime). What is the problem? After two days of head scratching I finally decided to swap out the printer cable. The discrepant dime disappeared.
I have no idea how a bad parallel cable between the PC and the dot matrix printer could cause such and issue.
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I once had a VCR where I did something like that. In my case I didn't want to spend the ammo, so I used a sledge hammer. Very satisfying, even though I had to sweep the entire garage.
Software Zen: delete this;
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I've had good results with Brother colour laser printers. The previous one lasted about 8-10 years (can't remember exactly), and this one has lasted 2 years, and is still going strong.
(I hope I haven't jinxed it, now  )
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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Agreed. I have a B&W Brother laser printer, and it just keeps working. And no fussing with ink cartridges, for the amount that I print a single toner cartridge can last a few years without having to worry that the ink will dry up...
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Just an aside - I’m an old-ish fart (~60 y/o) and have been making a conscious effort to reduce or eliminate printing whenever possible. Never really been the tree hugger type but I am fairly frugal and prefer a clean desk. At first, every time I thought about printing something I’d gave it some serious thought… 80% of the time I’d end up not printing and going a different route. Now its a much lower percentage because I almost never think about printing. 
I’m not trying to talk anyone out of printing or implying that you don’t need to. Certainly not virtue signaling. Just waxing nostalgic I guess. Again “old fart”…
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An anecdote about printer. In a big company, having offices all over the world.
A young woman had newly joined this company and was having trouble with printing a document 📄. Seated next to her cube was a young guy who was one year old in this company. This guy wanted to impress her. Though this was the job of the IT folks, this guy spent more half of a working day in configuring her system to get the printout properly. Not sure what both of them filled for their timesheets, though.
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How long have you been together? 
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I was in a different department, and this story was on the rounds in our office, as a case study of non-productive time.
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A lot of paper handling problems come from the paper characteristics, many times based on how much moisture the paper absorbs from the environment before it's used. Try changing to a higher (or lower) paper weight. If you're being conscientious and using paper that's from recycled sources, you might try non-recycled. The more expensive (naturally) inkjet-specific papers are coated to enhance ink adhesion and control dot gain (drops expand on impact).
Most of the inexpensive home printers don't adapt well to a wide variety of substrates. Their paper handling mechanisms are also fragile and wear quickly, which means you replace the printer when a ¢25 rubber wheel wears down.
If you only print rarely, laser is a better option.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Back in my day, we had to use a hammer and chisel.
Nothing succeeds like a budgie without teeth.
To err is human, to arr is pirate.
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I needed a printer for general home stuff and the bit of occasional work, went through a load, HP (burnt out!), Xerox just plain died after I printed out my Uni-project (over use?), Cannon didn't like A4 (?) & currently on a laser from Samsung still going but complains about the imaging sensor being life expired bit a Googling turns out its a known issue and shorting two contacts with a 470K resistor resets it. No problem other than that. I think all issues are from converting the digital media to physical.
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I second using more expensive paper.
Many, like 30 years ago I had a nice Epson ink-jet (~$500!). After some years of light use, the feeding started to fail. I bought a cleaning kit which included a solvent-like liquid that put back some tackiness/removed glaze from the roller. Things were much improved. However, I doubt your printer is old enough to need this treatment.
I literally put the thing in the trash because the cartridges failed so often when I was travelling a lot and there were long periods of non-use.
Now I have an HP laser CP1525nw, which is ok except when you have to reestablish a WiFi connection.
I recently started using the manual duplex feature and was having many failures. I switched from low-tier paper to Hammermill 20 and 24 # paper, which claims almost 0% jams and it has not had a single failure. With the 24#, when you print a 15 sheet document, you do feel like you're holding an entire tree in your hand. The 20# has worked just as well.
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That is a shame. I have had an ET-2750 for several years and have had very little problems with it. I just had to clean the heads a few times as I don't print that often.
I still have half of the original ink.
"Mistakes are prevented by Experience. Experience is gained by making mistakes."
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Hi,
had an HP 2940 that was great for printing but the cartridges were hideously expensive. I then went with a brother multi-function printer/fax/scanner (laser). It lasted through 7 years of cat hair, coffee and the sale bin paper. The network port stopped working. The USB port still worked so I gave it to a neighbor who has 1 pc, not 3. Bought a replacement Brother multi-functional printer/scanner/fax (laser) unit. So far so good.
Cegarman
document code? If it's not intuitive, you're in the wrong field 
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Interesting to see so many negative comments about Epson -- I've generally had good luck with them. Of course, I don't actually print very much.....
Have both an Epson color inkjet (like the individual ink cartridges and ability to print on CDs) and a much older Samsung B/W laserjet. Unfortunately, one of my newer OSs refuses to talk to the Samsung.
Kevin
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"PC Load Letter? WTF does that mean?!"
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Never had an Epson printer.
I have always relied an Canon printers for many years and have had only a single issue once, where I easily had the printer replaced...
Steve Naidamast
Sr. Software Engineer
Black Falcon Software, Inc.
blackfalconsoftware@outlook.com
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I worked for Xerox back in the 80s, and all the paper feed systems are pretty much the same. We learned it's the paper being used, like that cheap paper that Staples sells, the Staples 20 pound bond, that is really a 16 lb bond, but it's super polished and smooth, and will glaze the feed wheels. You have to use a rag or microfiber towel with water and scrub the wheels hard, to remove the glaze. Plus paper has a curve to it, you can pick up say 300 sheets on one end, and watch it try to bend up or down, you usually want to load the paper bend down, or look at the reams label, and sometimes there's an arrow pointing up or down, and use the direction of the arrow, arrow down.
Try a ream of Hammermill 20 lb bond first, after cleaning the feed and registration wheels, and see how that performs before tossing the printer. At least use up your ink, and then judge the printer. Better papers don't glaze up the feed and registration wheels.
If it ain't broke don't fix it
Discover my world at jkirkerx.com
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The "cleaning" options don't have any thing to do with paper handling, so not sure why that's what you tried.
We run a fleet of Epson printers in our office, several of the smaller desktop models (3 Color MFP's, 2 monochrome MFP's and 3 monochrome printers) and even one of the full size Enterprise models that prints 100 PPM in color (that's not a typo, it's really that fast). The printer in our warehouse has printed around 100 pages per day since it was installed nearly two years ago, and the Enterprise series copier prints about 25K pagers per month and hasn't seen a tech since it was installed nearly two years ago. We did have one printer that was jamming constantly when printing card stock. We tried the card stock in a HP LaserJet printer too and it still jammed, turned out it was the stock.
So, you might have gotten a bad one or you might have bad paper, but I can personally attest that Epson printers are usually quite reliable.
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Ink jet printers are a pain in general. I finally gave up on the one HP Ink-Jet I had inherited when it started showing an error message about the print head and their doc says that after 3 years, it is deemed broken and cannot be fixed, requiring buying a new printer.
So, I only do laser printers now, even at home. Multicolor. Never dries out if you don't print enough. Lasts many years. Cheaper in the long run.
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I have a completely different experience.
We have a 25-year-old DFX-9000 that is still printing green bar like crazy. We also have a 14-year-old Stylus Photo R2880 for 13 x 19 for photographic prints and still working but scheduled for replacement. For normal documents, we have a 7-year-old WF-4740 inkjet that actually replaced a Brother Laser we had for 15 years. No issues with any of them except when the Brother finally gave up the ghost.
Sometimes, it's the environment but I learned a long time ago that crappy paper jams easily so we never use anything less than 20 lbs. We normally use 24 lb. for most documents and 48 lb. photo paper for prints.
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It seems these days that unless you get into a pricier printer that most of them are junk. I have a Canon image class that was a steal, since it was a floor model and it is amazing. But it was a $400ish printer that I got for less than 1/2 the price.
One note on printers that I've learned over my 40 years (yikes!) of using them, some are really sensitive to the paper when it comes to feeding. It's not necessarily the cost of the paper either, I've just had combinations that don't work. The other thing is humidity. Really dry or really humid weather can change the paper just enough to cause issues. The rollers and slides can cause issues, but should last longer than what you have. They can be a real dog to get to on small printers to clean them correctly.
Failing that, it's still under warranty; send it back!
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