I have to press a button on the printer every time I print
The print job waits until you press a button on the printer. Two common causes on an Epson EcoTank, and the fix for each.
You send a document to print, nothing happens, and it only comes out after you walk over and press a button on the printer. It is a small thing that gets old fast, and it is fixable.
There are two different causes and they need different fixes. The steps below use an Epson EcoTank ET-3950. Other Epson models word the menus slightly differently, and other brands keep the same settings under different names.
Do this first: work out which one you have
- Send something to print.
- Go and look at the printer before you touch it.
- The screen is lit and showing a message, usually about paper: you have the paper mismatch problem. Go to Fix 1.
- The screen is dark or dim, and pressing a button wakes it up and then it prints: you have the sleep problem. Go to Fix 2.
This step is worth doing properly. The two fixes are unrelated and doing the wrong one changes nothing.
Fix 1: the printer is asking about paper
The printer has been told to double-check the paper every time, so it waits for someone to agree before it prints.
- On the printer, press the home button.
- Go to Settings, then General Settings, then Printer Settings, then Paper Source Settings.
- Choose Paper Setting, then the tray you use.
- Set Paper Size to Letter and Paper Type to Plain Paper, assuming that is what is loaded. If it is something else, set it to match what is really there.
- Back in Paper Source Settings, find Paper Setup Auto Display and turn it Off.
- On the computer, open Settings, then Bluetooth & devices, then Printers & scanners.
- Click the Epson, then Printing preferences.
- Set the paper size to Letter and the type to Plain Paper, so it matches the printer, and click OK.
Print something. It should go straight through with no trip to the printer.
Fix 2: the printer is asleep and not waking up
The printer drops into a deep sleep to save power, and on Wi-Fi it can go quiet enough that your print job just sits and waits until a button press wakes it.
- On the printer, press home, then Settings, then General Settings, then Basic Settings.
- Open Sleep Timer and set it to a longer time. Thirty minutes suits most offices.
- If there is a Power Off Timer or Power Off If Inactive, set it to Off. A printer that switches itself off cannot be woken by a print job at all.
Sleep problems on Wi-Fi are usually made worse by the printer's address changing. If it keeps coming back after the settings above, the printer needs a fixed address on the network. That is a change on the router rather than the printer, so tell us and we will set it up. A printer connected by cable rather than Wi-Fi does not usually have this problem at all.
Two other things worth checking
More than one printer icon. Open Printers & scanners and look for two or three copies of the same Epson, sometimes with "Copy 1" in the name. Jobs sent to the wrong copy sit and wait forever. Right-click the one that works, choose Set as default, and remove the extras.
Low ink. If a tank is low, the printer may hold the job and ask you to confirm before it carries on. Check the ink levels while you are standing there.
Did this not sort it out?
If it is still happening after the fix that matched your symptom, tell us. This is a quick one to sort out remotely, and there is no need to keep walking over to the printer in the meantime.
Tell Michael which step you got to and what the screen says. A photo of the screen from your phone is perfect.