So what we wind up with is devices that are prone to errors, and that also aren’t good at telling us what’s wrong when a problem happens.īut for this specific issue, where the printer is reporting a paper jam even though no paper seems to be jammed, I’ve found that 90% of the time there’s one thing to blame: the guides on the paper tray.Įven a paper guide that’s 1/4-inch off can be a problemĪny time your printer halts because of a paper jam, check the tray that holds the paper. On top of that, most printers have a very simple display, if they have any display at all, so they’re limited in how much diagnostic information they can show. The printer market is based on selling toner and ink cartridges, so the printers themselves are often cheaply made. Now, in the grand scheme of things, the real problem is that printers are terrible. But in my years working in IT, I’ve found that this issue usually has a simple cause, and an easy solution that takes seconds to perform.
In 1999, the movie Office Space immortalized one of the most common frustrations in all of consumer technology with one simple line: “Why does it say there is a paper jam when there is no paper jam?” It’s a moment that resonates because we’ve all been there the printer reports a paper jam, you check it and find no paper jam, and then it reports a paper jam again.
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