C Troubleshooting and routine maintenance

Usually this is caused by a poor telephone connection. If your copy looks good, you probably had a bad connection, with static or interference on the telephone line. Ask the other party to send the fax again.

Poor print quality

See Improving the print quality.

Vertical black lines when receiving

The corona wires for printing may be dirty. Clean the corona wires on the four drum units. (See Cleaning the corona wires.)

The sender’s scanner may be dirty. Ask the sender to make a copy to see if the problem is with the sending machine. Try receiving from another fax machine.

If the problem continues, call your dealer for service.

Received faxes appear as split or blank pages.

If the received faxes are divided and printed on two pages or if you get an extra blank page, your paper size setting may not be correct for the paper you are using. (See Paper Size.)

Turn on Auto Reduction. (See Printing a reduced incoming fax.)

Dialling does not work.

Check for a dial tone.

Change Tone/Pulse setting. (See the Quick Setup Guide.)

Check all line cord connections.

Check that the machine is plugged in and switched on.

If an external phone is connected to the machine, send a manual fax by pressing Hook or by lifting the handset of the external telephone and dialling the number. Wait to hear the fax receiving tones before pressing Mono Start or Color Start.

The machine does not answer when called.

Make sure the machine is in the correct receive mode for your setup. (See Receive Mode settings.) Check for a dial tone. If possible, call your machine to hear it answer. If there is still no answer, check the telephone line cord connection. If you do not hear ringing when you call your machine, ask your telephone company to check the line.

Cannot receive a fax.

Check all line cord connections. Make sure the telephone line cord is plugged into the telephone wall socket and the LINE socket of the machine. If you subscribe to DSL or VoIP services, please contact your service provider for connection instructions.

Make sure the machine is in the correct Receive Mode. This is determined by the external devices and telephone subscriber services you have on the same line as the Brother machine. (See Receive Mode settings.)

If you have a dedicated fax line and want your Brother machine to automatically answer all incoming faxes, you should select Fax Only mode.

If your Brother machine shares a line with an external answering machine, you should select the External TAD mode. In External TAD mode, your Brother machine will automatically receive incoming faxes and voice callers will be able to leave a message on your answering machine.

If your Brother machine shares a line with other telephones and you want it to automatically answer all incoming faxes, you should select the Fax/Tel mode. In Fax/Tel mode, your Brother machine will automatically receive faxes and produce a fast double-ring to alert you to answer voice calls.

If you do not want your Brother machine to automatically answer any incoming faxes, you should select the Manual mode. In Manual mode, you must answer every incoming call and activate the machine to receive faxes.

Another device or service at your location may be answering the call before your Brother machine answers. To test this, lower the ring delay setting:

Have someone send you a test fax:

If you are using a telephone answering machine (External TAD mode) on the same line as the Brother machine, make sure your answering machine is set up correctly. (See Connecting an external TAD .)

Make sure your Brother machine's Fax Detect feature is turned On. Fax Detect is a feature that allows you to receive a fax even if you have answered the call on an external or extension telephone. (See Fax Detect.)

If you often get transmission errors due to possible interference on the telephone line, try changing the Compatibility setting to Basic(for VoIP). (See Telephone line interference.)

(For MFC-9320CW only) Contact your administrator to check your Secure Function Lock Settings.

Poor sending quality.

Try changing your resolution to Fine or S.Fine. Make a copy to check your machine’s scanner operation. If the copy quality is not good, clean the scanner. (See Cleaning the scanner glass.)

Transmission Verification Report says ‘RESULT:ERROR’.

There is probably temporary noise or static on the line. Try sending the fax again. If you are sending a PC Fax message and get ‘RESULT:ERROR’ on the Transmission Verification Report, your machine may be out of memory. To free up extra memory, you can turn off fax storage (see Turning off Remote Fax Options), print fax messages in memory (see Printing a fax from the memory) or cancel a delayed fax or polling job (see Checking and cancelling waiting jobs). If the problem continues, ask the telephone company to check your telephone line.

If you often get transmission errors due to possible interference on the telephone line, try changing the Compatibility setting to Basic(for VoIP). (See Telephone line interference.)

Sent faxes are blank.

Make sure you are loading the document properly. (See Loading documents)

Vertical black lines when sending.

Black vertical lines on faxes you send are typically caused by dirt or correction fluid on the glass strip. (See Cleaning the scanner glass.)

Cannot send a fax.

(For MFC-9320CW only) Contact your administrator to check your Secure Function Lock Settings.

The machine ‘Hears’ a voice as a CNG Tone.

If Fax Detect is set to On, your machine is more sensitive to sounds. It may mistakenly interpret certain voices or music on the line as a fax machine calling and respond with fax receiving tones. Deactivate the machine by pressing Stop/Exit. Try avoiding this problem by turning Fax Detect to Off. (See Fax Detect.)

Sending a Fax Call to the machine.

If you answered on an external or extension telephone, press your Remote Activation code (default setting is 51). When your machine answers, hang up.

Custom features on a single line.

If you have Call Waiting, Call Waiting/Caller ID, Caller ID, Voice Mail, an answering machine, an alarm system or other custom feature on a single telephone line with your machine, it may create a problem sending or receiving faxes.

For Example: If you subscribe to Call Waiting or some other custom service and its signal comes through the line while your machine is sending or receiving a fax, the signal can temporarily interrupt or disrupt the faxes. Brother’s ECM feature should help overcome this problem. This condition is related to the telephone system industry and is common to all devices that send and receive information on a single, shared line with custom features. If avoiding a slight interruption is crucial to your business, a separate line with no custom features is recommended.

The machine beeps when you try to access the Setup Receive and Setup Send menus.

Cannot make a copy.

Vertical black line appears in copies.

Black vertical lines on copies are typically caused by dirt or correction fluid on the glass strip, or one or more corona wires are dirty. (See Cleaning the scanner glass and Cleaning the corona wires.)

Copies are blank.

Make sure you are loading the document correctly. (See Using the automatic document feeder (ADF) or Using the scanner glass.)

No printout.

The machine prints unexpectedly or it prints garbage.

The machine prints the first couple of pages correctly, then some pages have text missing.

The headers or footers appear when the document displays on the screen but they do not show up when it is printed.

There is an unprintable area on the top and bottom of the page. Adjust the top and bottom margins in your document to allow for this. (See Unprintable area.)

The machine is not printing or has stopped printing.

Press Job Cancel.

As the machine cancels the job and clears it from the memory it may produce an incomplete printout.

TWAIN errors appear while scanning.

Make sure that the Brother TWAIN driver is chosen as the primary source. In Presto! PageManager with OCR, click File, Scan or Get Photo and choose the Brother TWAIN driver.

OCR does not work.

Try increasing the scanning resolution.

Network scanning does not work.

See Network difficulties.

Cannot scan.

(For MFC-9320CW only) Contact your administrator to check your Secure Function Lock Settings.

Cannot install software or print.

Run the Repair MFL-Pro Suite program on the CD-ROM. This program will repair and reinstall the software.

Cannot perform ‘2 in 1’ or ‘4 in 1’ printing.

Check that the paper size setting in the application and in the printer driver are the same.

Try to reduce the print resolution. (See Advanced tab in the Software User’s Guide on the CD-ROM.)

The machine does not load paper.

The LCD shows No Paper or a Paper Jam message.

The machine does not feed paper from the manual feed slot.

How do I print on envelopes?

You can load envelopes from the manual feed slot. Your application must be set up to print the envelope size you are using. This is usually done in the Page Setup or Document Setup menu of your application. (See your application’s manual for more information.)

What paper can I use?

You can use thin paper, plain paper, thick paper, bond paper, recycled paper, envelopes and labels that are made for laser machines. (For details, see Acceptable paper and other print media.)

There is a paper jam.

Clear the jammed paper. (See Paper jams.)

Printed pages are curled.

Printed pages are smeared.

The Paper Type setting may be incorrect for the type of print media you are using, or the print media may be too thick or have a rough surface. (See Acceptable paper and other print media and Basic tab in the Software User’s Guide on the CD-ROM.)

Printouts are too light.

Cannot print over a wired Network.

If you are having Network problems see the Network User’s Guide on the CD-ROM for more information.

Make sure your machine is powered on and is on-line and in the Ready mode. Print the Network Configuration list to see your current Network settings. (See How to print a report.) Reconnect the LAN cable to the hub to verify that the cable and network connections are good. If possible, try connecting the machine to a different port on your hub using a different cable. If the connections are good, the lower LED of the back panel of the machine will be green.

The network scanning feature does not work.

The network PC Fax Receive feature does not work.

The network printing feature does not work.

Your computer cannot find your machine.

(Macintosh) Re-select your machine in the Device Selector application located in Macintosh HD/Library/Printers/Brother/Utilities/DeviceSelector or from the Model pop-up menu of ControlCenter2.

The machine will not turn on.

Adverse conditions on the power connection (such as lightning or a power surge) may have triggered the machine’s internal safety mechanisms. Turn the machine off and unplug the power cord. Wait for ten minutes, then plug in the power cord and turn the machine on.

If the problem is not solved, turn off the machine. Plug the power cord into a different known working outlet and turn on the machine.