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.

[faithful]

You wouldn't have returned your printer until you received a replacement. I would contact her, unfortunately, your cartridges may not work in the replacement...I know mine didn't.

[stuffed1printer]

Well Stephen [Canon moderator]. A solution soon? If my printer was a motor car and had killed someone due to a fault,

action would be much quicker I'm sure. Do we send our faulty printer to landfill or will a solution be posted. I have fixed various products by following YouTube videos with much success. There are many of us who are capable of repairing

products if the instructions are given in good faith [Canon fails there, imploring us to buy a new printerhead etc] I suspect that the fault is in the basic software/pcb and the company policy of forcing customers to replace their printers earlier than necessary. Perhaps standardising the ink cartridges would meet the customers halfway as we all know the sale price of printers are close to cost or less. When a PC hard drive fails, we do not have to trash the whole unit; we install another, usually larger as the price has fallen. We are not fools as you seem to suggest by the lack of information. Design a printer whose print head component [that includes waste ink bath]is as easily changed as a hard drive and you will retain your customers and reputation.

[Hexadecimus]

"Stephen", Canon moderator:
>"Canon is listening, and we appreciate your comments."
They have someone monitoring this thread and immediately deleting any links or anything against their policies. Okay, we know that.

>"We are investigating and expect to have a resolution soon."
Really? What exactly are you investigating and how? And if you expect a resolution soon, what have you learned so far? What form is this resolution going to take?

"Updates will be shared as information becomes available."
No, there have been no updates whatsoever, and I would not really expect to see any in the future.

"Thanks for your feedback and participation in our forum."

"Stephen", please give us something besides the usual corporate placating line of BS. Thanks.

Edit: I see that you are active daily, including today.  Please respond to my questions. Otherwise, we will have no choice but to assume that Canon and its moderators are intentionally ignoring important questions regarding the printers we have purchased.

I have messaged Stephen asking for a reply to our questions about his claims.

[comgoddess]

Stephen, what is the status with this?

There are plenty of unhappy customers and I am one of them.

[comgoddess]

Evidently, my posts in this forum thread are being deleted. Canon does not want to deal with this so there's no point in trying to get any further response. You've lost a loyal customer.

[mitchs72]

Add another MX892 user that has been added to the list of "Screwed Canon Customers".....

Sounds very familiar, everything was working fine then this error message came up...

[bdoster]

Yep, posts are disappearing... here's one I posted yesterday that is no longer here:

Re: Call to Arms for the dreaded U052 Wrong Printhead Error

‎06-11-2014 09:25 AM

cfed - it's not the cartidges. I used nothing but the Canon genuine cartridges and my MP530 got the error.  I phoned Canon, they offered a 25% loyalty discount on a "comparable" model, which I could purchase on Amazon for less.  I now have a brand new shiny Epson.

I don't know what the purpose of deleting the above would be.  If I had any good will toward Canon left, that action has pretty much consumed it.  

[bdoster]

cfed - it's not the cartidges. I used nothing but the Canon genuine cartridges and my MP530 got the error.  I phoned Canon, they offered a 25% loyalty discount on a "comparable" model, which I could purchase on Amazon for less.  I now have a brand new shiny Epson.

[realfoneguy]

Ok for those of you with a MP560 and have a B200 error, here is a procedure to at least get you to communicate with your printer. No BS, this actually works. I did find out though that standing on my head and wearing a big red nose was not necessary. So here goes, believe it or not, this works:

Turn printer off

21 open lid as in you were to change ink.

2 Turn printer on

 place big red ball on your nose (Kidding kidding)

3 watch the carriage and as it moves to the left just past half way, close the lid.

4 Stand on head.

Ok if you did it right, you may or may not see the LCD printer mode screen. we are not done yet!

5. Place a paper with writing or typing on it on the scanner bed

6. hit both the stop and B&W print buttons on the printer.

7. it should scan

8 turn printer off then back on. You should see the screen now.

Stand back on your feet.

Your results may vary and even though I did a vain attempt at humor, yes it does or did work for me.

My issue actually may be a bad print head. I have a new one, but the cyan path seems totally clogged and will not let out any blue ink. Could be a defective new printhead or something worse in the printer. I will know thursday when the new reordered one gets here. The original printhead still tells me I have the wrong printhead. The new one prints everything but the CYAN color. The above procedure was done with my new printhead. Even at first putting it in, I got an error that something was wrong with the printer. Thats when I started looking for more answers. So between the new one and the original, my sysmptoms do change from printhead to printhead.,

[puppylove]

This is for the u052

It's amazing watching Canon reply with things like "our AWARD WINNING CUSTOMER SERVICE TEAM WILL HELP YOU" to anyone with a question on their FB, then having them delete my and any other really negative posts. They are disgusting.

We should ship all our broken machines back COD

[realfoneguy]

I would calm down, no one removes your posts unless they feel they are being harrased. It is simple, if your printer is out of warranty, they will do nothing or little to help you. They have no incentive to do so. Out of the billions of printers made, less than 1% are having an issue, so they will see no reason to help you out as it is too small to worry about and it is considered attrition. Losing 10000 customers will not hurt them because of the billions they have world wide. This is just the consumer end.

So the thing to do is try and figure it out for yourself. Do what I tried, the most you will lose is $30.00 or so. Well worth it for a good printer. I purchased a printhead online for $30.00 a OEM Canon printhead. It should arrive today. I purchased one out of china, but that one seemed defective due to the CYAN color not working. I did get my printer to react and come back to life except for the cyan with the new head. Now if the new head produces the same issue, then I know the reason is the circuitry that handles the cyan color. I have no reason to believe that the circuitry is bad simply because I did get the new printhead I bought to work on all other colors and the printer is working other than that color. So the thing to do is to stop contacting Canon and follow some simple steps that are posted here and see if it works for you.

The reason I say all this is because what the error is actually saying is that the printhead is no longer talking to the printer as a MP560. It is seeing it as another head due to maybe the contactors to the printhead or the head itself. So at this point, till I get the new head in the printer, i feel mine is worth salvaging as the cost to do so is low. I will keep my fingers crossed and hope this new head will work in my printer for a few more years. Hope this helps you out.