Call to Arms for the dreaded U052 Wrong Printhead Error

[macnicol]

This is a "call to arms" for all of you Canon customers who have had this problem and have had their printers disabled because of it.  Please respond with the model of your printer and if you were able to fix it, what you did to fix it. 

We need to put pressure on Canon to respond this product defect.  It appears to be bad firmware that does not allow the user to override the problem and to continue to use the printer even in a degraded mode.  From my investigations the problem is NOT a printhead issue - no way one can be printing fine and then have this error alert without having changed the printhead or ink cartridges!

Canon, PLEASE take this issue seriously and provide a solution across the affected models.  If nothing else there should be a trade-in allowance for those printers that have been affected by this product defect.

I have had many Canon printers because they have superior functional specifications. I want to be able to continue using Canon products but only if I can have confidence that this product defect will not destroy my investment.

If Canon is unresponsive our next step should be to aggressively publisize this product defect on social media and on major product vendor outlet sites as negatives reviews.

Forum Users, please reply with your affected model number(s) and with details of any succdessful fix procedure.

[mpinchbeck]

So I've contacted Canon Customer Service to express my concern along with everyone else posting in this (currently 125 page) Blog about our U052 print head is incorrectly installed error.  I knew when I called I wasn't going to get any genuine concern for our plight.  Cannon is still using the same base print head technology currently in 2016 with the MG7520 and others still getting this error as well.

Pages upon pages on a Google search for “Canon U052”, wow!

Canon simply doesn’t care.

The conclusion I've come to is that the only way Canon will listen, is for everyone reading this to vote with their dollars.  Don't buy Canon!  There are other better printers on the market that hold up a lot better.

Only when Canon's Home Consumer Printers' sales fall will Canon take the concerns of their past customers who trusted the name on the product they were buying, to heart.

If 125 pages of registered Canon consumers posting their grievances can't get the attention of the Canon Executives, then maybe a drop in sales will.

So, the next time you find yourself discussing with family, friends and the occasional stranger at Best Buy which printer to get, steer them away from Canon inkjet printers.

[redslider]

I doubt Canon cares. They've already written us off as a 'cost of doing business' and I'm sure have tacked on anything lost in the class action suit or lost business into the prices of their new machines.  To them, it's a loss/profit calculation. Ethical or social responsibility have nothing to do with it. So yes, we should make sure people know about this swindle before they buy a new printer, rather than after it breaks down. But don't expect it to change much. It won't.

[JohnWPB]

"So, the next time you find yourself discussing with family, friends and the occasional stranger at Best Buy which printer to get, steer them away from Canon inkjet printers."

I do this all the time!  Just this past weekend I convinced 2 people looking at Canon printers at Best Buy to purchase another brand,  after explaining the problem to them.  One thought I was crazy, till I told him to simply Google search U052 on his phone.  Vengence was instant!  This forum, and TONS of other links and videos convinced him on the spot.  He was looking at the Epson printers when I left 🙂 🙂 🙂

[petethepen]

For those of you who don't want to go down the rabbit hole of ultra-paranoia, I bought a new printhead for my MG8150 some 4 months ago after getting the same U052 Wrong Printhead Error message, and the new printhead has worked perfectly ever since.  My only point here is that positive action is better than simply moaning.

[JohnWPB]

"My only point here is that positive action is better than simply moaning."

I took "positive action" before ever posting here.  After the terrible customer service from Canon, (if you can even call it that) I purchased a new Epson printer.  The follow up has been to never purchase another Canon product in the future, and to do my best to let others know before every purchasing anything from Canon.

You see, I am a self employed computer tech.  I do word of mouth computer repair / upgrades. I have seen this problem with 3 other customers, besides myself.  This is out of just a couple hundred people.  I now try to steer people away from Canon when making a printer decision.  I just tell them to Google U052 and let the search results do the rest.

[hskillman]

I think that is very smart. Looks liek I will now have to get rid of my cannon and go with an epson. I am disappointed- as a photographer whpo sells photos, I was hoping to still be able to print form home- but not with these types of issues. thanks for sharing what you did on the forum.

[johngaudiphx]

Cannot get over how angry and frustrated I am with the Printer world as a whole right now. Ok so I had a collection going of something like 8 different printers  each with one problem or the other and I finally bought this wonderful Canon MG5320 Pixma all in one wi-fi machine. And to be honest I thought it was just great. So I said to the Goodwill with the rest of them I had been holding on to for parts or untill I could take out a second mortgage to be able to afford the one ink tank that i didnt have for one or get another power supply for another. blah blah blah. But I was so happy with this MG5320 I got rid of everything else and proudly strolled into Costco where I had seen the Bundles of Canon ink and wouldnt you know it was the 226's with the 225 x 3 full sets and the price was good considering. But still an investment. So I decide to get while the getting is good and I buy Two bundles each with 3 full sets of ink for this printer and although it was alot of money I was happy because I knew that I would likely never run out of ink again or at the very least not in the forceable future and that felt great. Heck I still had some left in the current tanks. few days later 2 tanks are empty I replace them all anyway because I have so many and it just seems like starting with a nice fresh new set was the way to go . And it was great then later that same day I start getting this wrong print head error U052 and after hours of trying this and that and even talking a guy at a comp store into actually tradeing me out print heads from a working display that he never intended to use because I think he seemed to feel sorry for me after I explained everything to him. It sounds ridiculous but I really was almost in tears because I just could not believe that after all that time and money spent I yet again couldnt print out a freaking word document or even a single word. nothing. I started to picture the scene in Office Space where they take the fax or copy machine out to desert and just take baseball bats to it. Needles to say the brand new print head made no difference. Now even if Canon were to replace it with another from what I hear it will be a slightly different model and the Ink I have will still be worthless. I of course no longer have my costco membership nor did I think I needed to keep the reciept for the ink so basically Im SOL and just very very disheartened to say the least. Sorry so long but i needed to vent somewhere. - John

[dred9000]

I don't think Canon cares, based on their complete non-response to this thread. Stick with other brands until they do care.

[fireryone]

Cannon MX895 doing the same thing U052 error.
Tried restarts, reseating ink carts, reseating the print head, removing and cleaning the "print head"

😞 pleny of catriges about to go to waste waiting to be tossed or resold.

Rediculous that it Locks out all functionality, juat needed to scan to an image program.
And disdsapointlingly looking at this post,
It seems many have reported the experience over multiple years with no clear resolution or care from Canon.

[Schmutz]

I have owned several Canon products, including SLR cameras and printers.  Currently have been waging a war for over a year with Canon model MG5320 printer/copier/scanner.  It took months to finally get the B200 Error resolved, and recently I am losing in my war with the U052 Wrong Printhead Error.  Despite all my research online, including exhausting the videos on social media, my Error message prevails.  I am about to surrender. 

Naturally the error first surfaced when we were facing an important deadline! Running out of time for submitting one of my daughters' home-school assignments.  She had worked her tail off to prepare a beautiful assignment, each page of which needed to be scanned, and then it would all be emailed to her school.  In the end, when we were down to the wire on the submission deadline, i had to take pictures of each page on my phone and submit it that way!  The level of frustration suffered is beyond my ability to describe right now.  I can only imagine the carnage which would have resulted had this Error appeared if I was trying to meet a business deadline, since i also use this printer/scanner/copier to run two businesses from home.

I thought it was strange when the U052 Error first showed up, that the same printhead which has been working just fine for several years, would suddenly be 'incompatible'.  Further research has shown the vast number of possible causes.  As I have tried to eliminate them one by one, I stumbled across the sheer volume of other victims, and the class-action lawsuit. Pity I was too late to benefit from that.

My businesses, and my chidrens home schooling depend on having a DEPENDABLE printer/scanner/copier -NOT one which we regularly want to throw on the driveway and take turns running over with the truck!  Unfortunately this Error message situation, combined with the overwhelming number of other victims, has put me OFF Canon products completely.  Unless I personally receive some sort of fair compensation, then my personal resolve is to NEVER purchase another product from Canon!  Furthermore, my bad experience also means that I cannot in good conscience endorse or recommend the brand to others.  Even if you are attempts to rectify this, it will take time to earn my trust back...

To Canon:

Come on Canon! You make some brilliant products.  I have enjoyed most of the ones I have owned.  But this common and unresolvable flaw is unforgiveable.  For one thing, it is nothing less than sheer incompetence to have a printhead error disable the scanner.  Any scanner should be allowed to function independantly of the printing features.  An empty color cartridge should likewise not be allowed to disable the black and white copying or printing features. But to allow software to disable what is otherwise a  perfectly useable device is just plain wrong.  No one will likely ever be able to prove the conspiracy or intent behind this tactic.  However, I hope it backfires. I can imagine that most disgruntled Canon printer owners who have to prematurely discard their units over this error message will likely switch to another brand.  This is not the way to earn the loyalty of your customers!

Canon, the people have spoken.  You have taken your pound of flesh at our expense.  I hope you take this seriously!