Troubleshooter

In the context of Canon printers this error is most commonly encountered when using remanufactured cartridges. 

This is due to the technology that is utilised in order to establish how much ink is left remaining in the cartridge.  Because the printer doesn't have any way of physically looking inside the cartridge in order to check the ink levels many Canon cartridges work on a basis of recording the amount of ink that has been dispensed in order to work out whether they are full or empty. 

A remanufactured cartridge is a Canon original cartridge that has been recycled.  For functionality and legal reasons one of the components that needs to be reused without interference is the chip that records the level of ink that the cartridge has used.  As a result when you install a remanufactured Canon cartridge the printer will often look at the amount of ink that has been used in the entire lifetime of the cartridge and will then use this information to report back an incorrect ink reading.

This shouldn't affect the actual page yield of the cartridge that you have received and in many instances a remanufactured cartridge will actually include more ink and last longer than an original despite the warnings.  You may however be required to indicate to the printer that you realise the ink level is inaccurate and want to continue printing regardless.  The printer driver will usually guide you though how to accomplish this however if it simply displays the error message 'ink cartridge empty' and refuses to print then simply hold down the stop / resume button for five seconds while the error message is being displayed and the printer should allow you to continue.  You should only have to perform this override once.

For more information on this error we have produced a video on the subject which can be found at the following address:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoGKbr5Y5yI

If your printer continues to display 'Cartridge empty' and will not print despite following the instructions above then please do contact us for further assistance as you may have a faulty unit.