I Have to Press a Button on the Printer Every Time I Print

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.

First, work out which one you have

Send something to print, then go and look at the printer before you touch
it.

• The screen is lit and showing a message, usually something 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.

Tell it what is actually in the tray

1. On the printer, press the home button.
2. Go to Settings, then General Settings, then Printer Settings,
   then Paper Source Settings.
3. Choose Paper Setting, then the tray you use.
4. 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.

Then stop it asking every time

5. Back in Paper Source Settings, find Paper Setup Auto Display and
   turn it Off.

Make the computer agree

6. On the computer, open Settings, then Bluetooth & devices, then
   Printers & scanners.
7. Click the Epson, then Printing preferences.
8. Set the paper size to Letter and the type to Plain Paper, so it
   matches the printer.
9. 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.

Give it a longer fuse

1. On the printer, press home, then Settings, then
   General Settings, then Basic Settings.
2. Open Sleep Timer and set it to a longer time. Thirty minutes suits most
   offices.
3. 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.

Then keep it steady on the network

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 give us a call and we will set it up.

A printer connected by cable rather than Wi-Fi does not usually have this
problem at all. If it sits near the computer or the router, a USB or network
cable is the most reliable fix there is.

A couple of 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.

If it is still happening

Call us at 701.306.0188. This is a quick one to sort out remotely, and there
is no need to keep walking over to the printer in the meantime.