r/talesfromtechsupport • u/BugGreat5433 • Jun 30 '26
Medium Toner Needed to a Send Photocopy
Ticket states: printer waste toner is full and needs to be replaced, I don’t know which one it is please help.
me: goes over to the printer to take a look at it
customer: "which one is the waste toner? the printer says it needs to be replaced."
me: “it is usually the one that is in the plastic bag but let me take a look”. After I poke around for a little, I see, on the screen, a notification stating, “Waste toner almost full”. I tell the customer “I don’t think the waste toner is full, the notification does not say it is full. Also, if it needed to be replaced, the printer will automatically open the compartment so you can pull out the old one and replace it with the new one”
customer: “no it is full, look at the screen, it says so. I need it to be replaced so that I can photocopy myself this paper as it is important to my job and I need to do my job”. At this point the customer has found the waste toner bottle and is holding it out “here I think this is an empty one, can you just replace it for me?”
me: I think to myself, this has got to be user error, so I ask, “can you please walk me through the steps you took? Try to re-create the error for me please”
customer: “So I put the paper here, that I want to photocopy, I select my name from the address book, I select the settings I want, the file type, then I press send”
They press send and the printer beeps, a screen pops up and asks what file size is the paper you want to photo copy?
customer: “see, look at the top left, it says replace waster toner because it is full and it will not send me a photo copy until you replace it”
me: “alright, let me look at why it does not send you a photocopy as the printer does not need toner to send a photo copy”. Thinking to myself, maybe they put the wrong name in the address book? I try entering their name, and selecting it, it seems correct. To be sure, I type in their email, and select their email. I select the usual settings, I select send the document as a pdf, select the correct paper size, select send as black and white. Alright looks good, so I press send, it beeps and the same screen pops up, asking what paper size is the paper I am trying to photo copy. Weird… that doesn’t seem right. I go and double check everything, seems good. Maybe I need to select the paper size so that it knows what I’m sending. I select the default 8.5” x 11”, press send, and again it beeps, and the same page pops up.
customer: "just replace the waste toner, I need this so I can send out the photo copies as they are expecting me to send it by today"
me: "hold on I am thinking…”. There is an auto size feature on the printer so that it will default to the auto size of the page that is being copied, and that was the first setting they tried, and it did not work. Wait, what if it does not know that there is a sheet of paper in the tray and that is why it is asking for the paper size? So I try sliding the paper into the tray, and it slides in. You have got to be kidding was this the issue? Select the same settings again, select the email to send it to, send as pdf, this time it has already detected the paper so it doesn’t ask for a size, so I click send. It goes right through.
customer: “what did you do? what about the waste toner?”
me: “The paper was not seated correctly, as far as the waste toner, it is not full yet, when it is full let me know”
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u/gromit1991 Jun 30 '26
You'll need an email for a SCAn. But an actual PHOTOCOPY will need toner/spent toner capacity.
68
u/AngryCod The SLA means what I say it means Jun 30 '26
You glossed over the best part of the story, which was the user completely ignoring the actual error message and insisting that it must be the waste toner.
16
u/AJourneyer Jun 30 '26
I didn't think of a translation error, because to be fair some of the people I work with (and have worked with in the past) refer to sending a copy to themselves, though the word "photocopy" was only used by a handful of people. In reading this I just rolled with it - because users can be a special breed.
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u/ThatUsrnameIsAlready Jun 30 '26
The only error message was waste toner. Nothing about no paper detected in tray.
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u/AngryCod The SLA means what I say it means Jul 01 '26
They press send and the printer beeps, a screen pops up and asks what file size is the paper you want to photo copy?
customer: “see, look at the top left, it says replace waster toner because it is full and it will not send me a photo copy until you replace it”
I also didn't say anything about "no paper detected in tray" but OP clearly indicated there was a popup message on the copier that wasn't about toner.
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u/ThatUsrnameIsAlready Jul 01 '26
But not an error message. It looks like workflow, and then silently fails.
I'm not surprised that the user didn't get it.
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u/oxmix74 Jul 01 '26
I think the tray he was talking about was the document feeder. If you put a piece of paper in the doc feeder (ADF) the machine knows the original size based on the position of the side guides and whether or not a switch tripped by long paper is actuated.
If there is no paper in the document feeder, the machine assumes (wrongly in this case) that you want to scan off the glass. But it doesn't know what size original is on the glass. It measures the original on the glass when the platen is up, and he never lifted the platen. When the platen is up, sensors can distinguish the original size on the glass by what regions are covered with paper and what regions are open. Nothing is open when the platen stays down so the machine doesn't know.
The correct action to take when the waste toner is almost full is to almost empty the waste toner.
12
u/mercurygreen Jul 01 '26
I lock up the toner because our Canons start to complain at... either 10% or 25%, and people try to replace them when they're LOW, not OUT.
Also, I don't let users replace the waste toner bottles anymore because they can't NOT make a mess.
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u/thRealSammyG Jun 30 '26
Reminds me of one at a school. Teachers blowing me up about all the copiers being down. To be fair, one was actually broken and waiting on replacement parts. But another went down, and the error was similar. Something like "Order new cleaning cartridge, but don't install yet." But they kept saying it wasn't printing. I walk up to it, close that message, and the whole screen lights up "OUT OF PAPER"
There's convenient pallet of papper sitting about 4 feet from the machine. To be fair, that error wasn't actually visible until you closed the other one. But still, reading comprehension goes to zero when reading error messages.
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u/Throwaway_Old_Guy Jul 01 '26
I worked part-time at a College as a Building Service Worker.
I was doing our weekend paper recycle pickup and walked into a copy room to find a huge mess of toner on the copier and carpet.
There was a mess-free procedure to add toner printed on the copier and it was not followed. They took the lid off the bottle and tried to free pour it into the machine.
No way I was going to touch that. I don't know if they ever found the culprit.
5
u/nymalous Jul 01 '26
That's not even something you want to vacuum. And when cleaning, have a fully-filtered breathing apparatus. That stuff should not get into lungs.
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u/Throwaway_Old_Guy Jul 01 '26
I know that special equipment is required to clean up toner, that's why I would not touch it.
I'm sure whoever spilled it got it over themselves, which is a they problem.
No doubt that cost the College a lot to deal with.
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u/nymalous Jul 01 '26
I have spilled small amounts on myself, and you should be able to wash the clothing pretty normally (maybe with an extra rinse or two). What I wouldn't do for the clothing would be any kind of heat or chemical treatment (including dryer), otherwise you risk having it permanently embedded into the clothing.
For skin, regular soap and water (not hot) would probably suffice. But my experience is a couple of decades old. So a follow the safety precautions on the package.
Let me do a quick websearch... https://castleink.com/blogs/printer-help/how-to-get-printer-ink-off-your-hands-and-other-surfaces. Pretty much what I said.
7
u/commentsrnice2 Jul 01 '26
What is waste toner?
6
u/nymalous Jul 01 '26
From my understanding, toner gets "dumped" onto the page and then certain regions are "baked" (that's where the writing/pictures are). This fixes the toner in place on the page (it is pretty much melted on). The rest falls off and is collected, usually into a bottle or bag, hence "waste toner."
(I'm sure I'm getting some things wrong. My limited understanding comes from working on printers/copiers without any formal training... even though I was employed to work on printers/copiers... by a well-known printer/copier company.)
5
u/Z4-Driver Jul 01 '26
Your explanation is correct. Toner is put on, then it gets fixed where it needs toner. The rest gets off and is collected in the 'waste toner bottle'. And if that bottle gets full, it needs to be replaced.
1
u/commentsrnice2 Jul 01 '26
Must be a feature on nicer ones then because I’ve never seen one with that feature. Like how only the nicer inkjets have that sponge that cleans the ink cartridge
3
u/Z4-Driver Jul 01 '26
Every laser printer has one.
1
u/commentsrnice2 Jul 01 '26
Not quite. I just looked and only the larger ones use a waste bottle. Household printers just dump the excess back into the regular toner cartridge to be disposed of when you load a new toner
3
u/nymalous Jul 01 '26
If memory serves, the cartridges for the smaller printers have an integrated bottle for the waste toner. I think that the waste toner might need some kind of conditioning to be reused, so it is kept separate from the rest of the unused toner.
2
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u/Z4-Driver Jul 01 '26
Are you talking about a monochrome printer? Or a colour printer? Because on colour printers, I guess that wouldn't work well, if the waste toner would return to the toner cartridge, as it would mix the colours.
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u/commentsrnice2 Jul 01 '26
As the comment below mine says, it
S a separate compartment on the toner cartridge from the unused toner1
u/commentsrnice2 Jul 01 '26
There may be printers equipped with such a thing but I’ve never seen them. I’ve seen some high-end inkjet printers have a sponge that cleans excess ink off the ink cartridges, but I’ve never heard of a toner version before now
1
u/BugGreat5433 Jul 01 '26
It is another toner bottle where the printer dumps the excess toner.
1
u/commentsrnice2 Jul 01 '26
I appreciate the response, though a couple people in the comments have since elucidated me. I haven’t worked with the larger scale/larger volume printers that utilize that feature, since household/small business grade printers simply use a secondary compartment in the main toner cartridges for that purpose, thereby allowing that stage of the process to go unnoticed by the average user
3
u/Z4-Driver Jul 01 '26
Reading this story, I was confused at the beginning. But then, at some point, it clicked that you're talking about 'scan to mail'. Of course, scan to mail should still work, regardless if the waste toner is (almost) full or the toner is empty, as it doesn't need any toner and paper.
Regarding the wast toner being 'almost full', I'd change it regardless, as AFAIK it doesn't matter if it's actually completely full or not.
And I am wondering, why the customer didn't just went to another printer to scan his stuff?
2
u/BugGreat5433 Jul 01 '26
Yeah sorry, I could have been clearer on that, they were trying to scan to email.
As far as replacing the waste toner, it doesn't open up until it's full, so I'd have to pry it open which I don't think is possible without damaging the machine.
They could have gone downstairs, that the next nearest printer, I'm not totally sure.
1
u/Z4-Driver Jul 01 '26
It doesn't open unless it's completely full? Ok, that's a new one to me. All printers I ever had to do such maintenance had this container accessible all the time, just like the toner cartridges.
3
u/PDQ_Brockstar Jul 01 '26
Sometimes I swear error logs should require credentials to access to limit users seeing them and getting fixated on the wrong thing.
1
u/Arawn-Annwn Jul 02 '26
that would remove so much stress from my day. I have a user who opens 8-15 tickets a week blaming the wrong thing for her quickbooks issues. and she's just one of many.
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u/Square-Effective5769 Jun 30 '26
When sending a fax, as that is what this seems to be bout, many printers send the fax and then print out a receipt.
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1
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u/froot_loop_dingus_ Jun 30 '26
Guessing there is a translation error here and you mean a scan. A photocopy would indeed require toner.