The quickest fix is a plain power-cycle: switch the printer off, pull the plug for about a minute, then reconnect it. That clears a stuck print job or a confused Wi-Fi handshake more often than people expect, because it forces the printer to re-initialise its network and print-queue processes from scratch.
If that doesn't touch the problem, you probably need a proper factory reset from the printer's own menu (Setup > Device settings > Reset settings > Reset all on most touchscreen PIXMA and MAXIFY models), which wipes saved Wi-Fi credentials, admin passwords and print presets back to how the unit left the factory.
But if what's actually happening is a blinking orange light or an on-screen code like 5B00 or 1700, neither of the above will help. On cartridge-based models that's the waste ink absorber counter, and it needs its own fix; on MegaTank models it's usually a physical cartridge that just needs swapping, covered further down.
Three problems, three different resets
Most people typing "reset Canon printer" into a search box are actually dealing with one of three unrelated situations, and treating them as the same thing wastes time:
| Symptom | What's actually wrong | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Printer's slow, frozen, or won't reconnect to Wi-Fi after a router change | Stale network/session state | Power-cycle, or a network-only reset |
| You're selling, donating, or handing the printer to someone else | Old admin password, saved Wi-Fi, stored fax numbers still on it | Full factory reset ("Reset all") |
| Alternating green/orange light, or Support Code 5B00 / 1700 on screen | Waste ink absorber reported as full (sealed pad on cartridge-based models; a swappable cartridge on MegaTank models) | Service-mode counter reset, or a cartridge swap on G-series/GX MegaTank models |
The power-cycle: try this before anything else
- Turn the printer off using its own power button, not the wall socket switch (this lets the printer park the print head properly before it loses power).
- Unplug the power cable at the wall and leave it out for a full 60 seconds. A shorter gap sometimes isn't enough for the capacitors to discharge and the settings to actually clear from short-term memory.
- Plug it back in and switch it on, then give it 20 to 30 seconds before sending a print job.
This resolves a surprising share of "printer's not responding" and "can't find printer on network" complaints, because it's the printer equivalent of restarting a laptop that's misbehaving without a clear cause. It won't touch anything you'd actually miss: no settings, presets or Wi-Fi details are lost.
Full factory reset via the printer's screen
On any PIXMA or MAXIFY model with a touchscreen or LCD, the path is:
- Press the Setup (spanner icon) or Home button.
- Go to Device settings.
- Select Reset settings.
- Choose Reset all.
- Confirm with Yes, then OK.
The printer will reboot into its out-of-the-box state. Two things this doesn't do, which trips people up: it doesn't recalibrate the print head alignment, and it doesn't touch the internal waste-ink counter. Both live in a separate service area of the firmware, not the user settings the "Reset all" menu is built to clear, so a factory reset alone won't fix banding, misaligned lines, or a blinking-light error.
If you only want the network side wiped (say, you're moving house and the printer still remembers your old router), pick Reset LAN settings instead of Reset all from the same menu. It leaves your paper size defaults, print quality presets and admin password untouched, and only clears the SSID, password and IP configuration.
Button-only reset: no screen, no menu
Entry-level models with just an LED and a couple of buttons (many of the older MP and MG-series units) don't have a menu to navigate, so the reset has to be done blind, by button-hold pattern. The general shape, which several teardown and repair sites document for these older lines, is:
- Switch the printer off completely.
- Hold down Stop/Reset, then press and hold Power at the same time.
- Keep both held for roughly 10 seconds.
- Release Stop/Reset while still holding Power.
- Tap Stop/Reset a set number of times, then release everything.
Treat that last step with real caution. The number and order of Stop/Reset presses is what determines which function you're entering, and the same basic hold-and-tap pattern can land you in different parts of the printer's service mode depending on the exact count, model, and firmware revision, some of which go well beyond a simple counter reset. There's no single "correct" number that applies across models, and getting it wrong isn't guaranteed to be harmless. Don't follow a generic number you've found for a different model; look up the sequence documented for your exact model number, and if you can't find one you trust, use the on-screen menu route above instead or have it looked at professionally. This blind, button-only method exists because older models genuinely have no other way in, not because it's the recommended path when a screen is available.
Resetting Wi-Fi without wiping everything else
Beyond the on-printer "Reset LAN settings" option, Canon's IJ Network Device Setup Utility does the same job from a connected computer: open the utility, select the printer from the list, and use its Wi-Fi Setup or Advanced Settings screen to reset or reconfigure the network profile without going near the printer's own buttons. On current models, the Canon PRINT app does the equivalent from a phone, which is the easier route if the printer's screen is hard to reach or the buttons have started sticking.
Either way, once the network settings are cleared you'll need to run through the wireless setup wizard again: Wireless LAN Setup > Search for Access Points > select your SSID > enter the password. Printers with a weak antenna placement (anything tucked into a cupboard or behind a monitor) sometimes fail this search step on the first attempt; moving it within a couple of metres of the router for the initial pairing, then relocating it once it's connected, avoids a lot of wasted retries.
When the light won't stop blinking: waste ink, absorbers, and MegaTank cartridges
Every Canon inkjet has to deal with the ink discharged during head-cleaning cycles somewhere, but the hardware behind that differs sharply by range, and that difference changes what you should actually do.
If you own a PIXMA G-series or MAXIFY GX-series MegaTank printer (the refillable continuous-ink models, not the standard cartridge ones), a waste-ink warning points to the maintenance cartridge, a small user-replaceable plastic unit that catches the discharged ink, which Canon built to be swapped like a consumable rather than reset like a counter. The exact part depends on the model: G-series units typically take an MC-G02 or MC-G04, while MAXIFY GX models use the MC-G01 (Canon part 4628C001). All three are genuine Canon parts, sold openly through Canon's own store and major retailers, for roughly £12 to £20 depending on retailer and region. Open the front cover, unclip the old cartridge, drop in the new one, and the warning clears on its own; no service mode, no counter reset, no third-party software.
If you own a standard cartridge-based PIXMA or MAXIFY (the TS, TR, MG or MX ranges, and most MAXIFY models without "GX" in the name), there's no user-accessible cartridge to swap. The waste ink lands on a sealed foam pad inside the case, and Canon's internal counter, which estimates fullness from cleaning cycles run, is the only thing tracking it. When it hits the threshold, the printer refuses to print and reports it, either as an alternating green/orange flash on button-only models or as a Support Code (5B00 on some model generations, 1700 on others) on screen-equipped ones.
On models without a screen, the number of orange flashes in the repeating sequence tells you which fault it is. According to Cartridge World's decode of Canon's flash codes, the counts most relevant here are:
| Orange flashes | What it means |
|---|---|
| 4 or 7 | Ink tank/cartridge not installed correctly, or empty |
| 6 | Printer cover open or not fully closed |
| 8 | Waste ink absorber or waste ink tank almost full |
| 11 | Automatic print head alignment has failed |
These counts shift slightly between model generations, so check the sequence against your specific model's support page rather than assuming every Canon uses the same numbering. MegaTank models signal the underlying "cartridge needs attention" state differently again, usually via a dedicated maintenance-cartridge icon or light rather than these counts, so check your model's light guide if that's what you're seeing instead.
Canon's own position on the sealed-pad models is that a full absorber needs a service visit, since it's a physical part that genuinely fills up and, in theory, needs cleaning or replacing rather than just having its counter zeroed. In practice, resetting just the counter (via the service-mode button sequence above, with all the caveats already given) is extremely common among home users, as documented on iFixit's own troubleshooting thread for this exact error, usually with a small piece of third-party software known as General Tool, or its later, more actively maintained versions branded Service Tool. Worth knowing before you go looking for either: they're distributed almost entirely through repair forums and download-blog mirrors of wildly inconsistent trustworthiness rather than any official channel, and working keys or model-specific builds are typically sold for somewhere around $7 to $10 per printer model, with free versions circulating too and no guarantee of what else is bundled into them. Treat any download from outside a well-known repair-community source as a risk in its own right, separate from the printer problem you're trying to solve.
It's worth being clear-eyed about what a counter reset actually does: it resets the number, not the pad. If the pad is genuinely saturated, ink can eventually leak inside the case, so this buys time rather than repairing anything, and it's not something Canon supports or warranties. Given that a professional absorber replacement often costs close to what a new entry-level inkjet retails for, most owners of these older, sealed-pad models either reset the counter and keep an eye on things, or treat the error as the printer's natural end of life, whereas MegaTank owners just buy the £15 cartridge and move on.
What to redo once you've reset anything
A factory reset or absorber-counter reset both leave loose ends worth tidying up straight after:
- Re-add the printer to your computer and phone. A reset changes its network identity even if you reconnect it to the same SSID, so most operating systems will want you to re-pair it rather than picking up the old connection automatically.
- Run print head alignment again (Maintenance > Print Head Alignment on the printer, or via the driver's Utility tab on the computer). This is the single most common "why does my print still look off after resetting it" follow-up question, because alignment isn't part of what Reset all touches.
- Reset the estimated ink level indicator if you've refilled a cartridge. This is a separate function from any of the resets above, usually tucked under Maintenance > Ink Level Reset, and it's cosmetic only: it doesn't add ink, it just stops the printer nagging about levels it can no longer track accurately.
- Check the admin password. Recent PIXMA and MAXIFY models ship with the remote UI's administrator password blank rather than a shared default, for security reasons, so a factory reset restores that blank state rather than a memorable password. Check the setup sheet that came with the unit if the remote UI prompts you for one.
If it's a laser printer, most of this doesn't apply
Everything above concerns inkjets (PIXMA, MAXIFY, PIXMA G-series). Canon's laser range, imageCLASS and i-SENSYS, doesn't use liquid ink or a waste-ink absorber pad at all, so there's no equivalent to the 5B00/1700 error, the counter reset, or the MegaTank cartridge swap. Laser models report their own E-series error codes tied to the toner cartridge, drum unit or fuser instead, and the factory-reset menu path (usually under Settings > Device Management > Reset Settings > Initialise All Data/Settings) resets network and admin settings the same way, but has nothing analogous to reset for ink. If a laser printer is showing a persistent error after a reset, it's almost always the drum or toner cartridge reporting genuine wear rather than a counter that can be cleared.
Related guides
How to Connect a Canon Printer to Wi-Fi? - the step-by-step for re-pairing once you've cleared the network settings above.
Canon Printer Showing an Error and Not Responding: What's Actually Wrong and How to Fix It - for support codes and lockups that aren't the waste-ink absorber.
Paper Stuck in a Canon Printer: How to Clear a Jam Without Damaging the Printer - relevant if your blink count pointed to a feed or jam fault rather than ink.
Is Your Printer Lying About Being Low on Ink? How to Fix It - covers the ink-level indicator reset mentioned above in more depth.
Why Your Computer Suddenly Can't Find the Printer - for when a reset leaves the printer connected to Wi-Fi but invisible to your computer.