B Troubleshooting and Routine Maintenance

No printout.

Check the interface cable or wireless connection on both the machine and your computer. (See the Quick Setup Guide.)

Check that the machine is plugged in and that the On/Off key is on.

One or more ink cartridges have reached the end of their life. (See Replacing the ink cartridges.)

If the LCD says Cannot Print and Replace Ink, see Replacing the ink cartridges.

Check to see if the LCD is showing an error message. (See Error and Maintenance messages.)

Check that the correct printer driver has been installed and chosen.

Make sure that the machine is online. Click Start and then Printers and Faxes. Right-click and choose Brother MFC-XXXX (where XXXX is your model name), and make sure that Use Printer Offline is unchecked.

When you choose the Print Odd Pages and Print Even Pages settings, you may see a printing error message on your computer, as the machine pauses during the printing process. The error message will disappear after the machine re-starts printing.

Poor print quality.

Check the print quality. (See Checking the print quality.)

Make sure that your ink cartridges are fresh. The following may cause ink to clog:

Try using the recommended types of paper. (See Acceptable paper and other print media.)

The recommended environment for your machine is between 20 °C to 33 °C.

White horizontal lines appear in text or graphics.

Clean the print head. (See Cleaning the print head.)

Make sure you are using Brother Original Innobella™ Ink.

Try using the recommended types of paper. (See Acceptable paper and other print media.)

The machine prints blank pages.

Clean the print head. (See Cleaning the print head.)

Make sure you are using Brother Original Innobella™ Ink.

Characters and lines are stacked.

Check the printing alignment. (See Checking the print alignment.)

Printed text or images are skewed.

Make sure the paper is loaded correctly in the paper tray and the paper side guides are adjusted correctly. (See Loading paper and other print media.)

Make sure the Jam Clear Cover is closed correctly.

Smudged stain at the top centre of the printed page.

Make sure the paper is not too thick or curled. (See Acceptable paper and other print media.)

Smudged stain at the right or left corner of the printed page.

Make sure the paper is not curled when you print on the back side of the paper with the Print Odd Pages and Print Even Pages settings.

Printing appears dirty or ink seems to run.

Make sure you are using the recommended types of paper. (See Acceptable paper and other print media.) Don't handle the paper until the ink is dry.

Make sure you are using Brother Original Innobella™ Ink.

If you are using photo paper, make sure that you have set the correct paper type. If you are printing a photo from your PC, set the Media Type in the Basic tab of the printer driver.

Stains appear on the reverse side or at the bottom of the page.

Make sure the printer platen is not dirty with ink. (See Cleaning the machine’s printer platen.)

Make sure you are using the paper support flap. (See Loading paper and other print media.)

Make sure you are using Brother Original Innobella™ Ink.

The machine prints dense lines on the page.

Check Reverse Order in the Basic tab of the printer driver.

The printouts are wrinkled.

Make sure you are using Brother Original Innobella™ Ink.

Cannot perform ‘Page Layout’ printing.

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

Print speed is too slow.

Try changing the printer driver setting. The highest resolution needs longer data processing, sending and printing time. Try the other quality settings in the printer driver Basic tab. Also, click Colour Settings, and make sure you uncheck Colour Enhancement.

Colour Enhancement is not working correctly.

If the image data is not full colour in your application (such as 256 colour), Colour Enhancement will not work. Use at least 24 bit colour data with the Colour Enhancement feature.

Photo paper does not feed properly.

When you print on Brother photo paper, make sure you always load one additional sheet of photo paper first before loading the paper you want to print on.

Clean the paper pick-up roller. (See Cleaning the paper pick-up rollers.)

Photo paper does not feed properly.

When you print on Brother Photo paper, load one extra sheet of the same photo paper in the paper tray. An extra sheet has been included in the paper package for this purpose.

Clean the paper pick-up roller.
(See Cleaning the paper pick-up rollers.)

Machine feeds multiple pages.

Make sure the paper is loaded correctly in the paper tray. (See Loading paper and other print media.)

Check that more than two types of paper are not loaded in the paper tray at any one time.

There is a paper jam.

Make sure the paper length guide is set to the paper size. Do not extend the paper tray when you load A5 or smaller size paper. (See Printer jam or paper jam.)

Printed pages are not stacked neatly.

Make sure you are using the paper support flap. (See Loading paper and other print media.)

Condensed print and white streaks across the page or the top and bottom of sentences are cut off.

You probably had a bad connection, with static or interference on the telephone line. Ask the other party to send the fax again.

Vertical black lines when receiving.

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.

Received colour fax prints only in black and white.

Replace the colour ink cartridges that have reached the end of their life, and then ask the other person to send the colour fax again. (See Replacing the ink cartridges.)

Left and right margins are cut off or a single page is printed on two pages.

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

Dialling does not work.
(No dial tone)

Make sure the machine is plugged in and turned on.

Check the line cord connections.

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

Lift the external telephone's handset (or the machine's handset) and listen for a dial tone. If there is no dial tone, ask your telephone company to check the line and/or socket.

Lift the external telephone’s handset, (or the machine’s handset), and then dial the number to send a manual fax. Wait to hear fax receiving tones before pressing Mono Start or Colour Start.

The machine does not answer when called.

Make sure the machine is in the correct receiving mode for your setup. (See Choose the Receive Mode.) 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 there is no 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 machine is in the correct receiving mode for your setup. (See Receive mode settings.)

If you often have interference on the telephone line, try changing the menu setting of Compatibility to Basic(for VoIP). (See Telephone line interference.)

Make sure your machine has a dial tone by pressing the Speaker Phone key. If you hear static or interference on your fax line, please contact your local telephone company.

Cannot send a fax.

Check all line cord connections.

Ask the other party to check that the receiving machine has paper.

Print the Transmission Verification Report and check for an error. (See Reports.)

Sent faxes are blank.

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

Transmission Verification Report says ‘RESULT:ERROR’.

There is probably temporary noise or static on the line. Try sending the fax again. If you send a PC FAX message and get ‘RESULT:ERROR’ on the Transmission Verification Report, your machine may be out of memory. To gain extra memory, you can turn off Memory Receive (see Turning off Memory Receive Operations), print fax messages in memory (see Printing a fax from the memory) or cancel a Delayed Fax or Polling Job (see Cancelling a fax in progress or 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 menu setting of Compatibility to Basic(for VoIP). (See Telephone line interference.)

If you connect your machine to PBX or ISDN, set the menu setting of Telephone Line Type to your telephone type. (See Setting the Telephone Line Type.)

Poor fax send 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.)

Vertical black lines when sending.

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

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 (the factory setting is 5 1). When your machine answers, hang up.

Custom features on a single line.

If you have Call Waiting, Call Waiting/Caller ID, 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 (Error Correction Mode) 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 telephone line with no custom features is recommended.

Cannot make a copy.

Copies are blank.

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

Poor copy results when using the ADF.

Try using the scanner glass. (See Using the scanner glass.)

Vertical black lines or streaks appear in copies.

Vertical black lines or streaks on copies are typically caused by dirt or correction fluid on the glass strip. Clean the glass strip. (See Cleaning the scanner glass.)

Fit to Page does not work properly.

Make sure the document is not skewed. Reposition the document and try again.

Paper feeding and copying speed are slower when copying from the ADF.

Paper feeding and copying speed become slower to prevent overheating of the machine when you make many copies using the ADF. Let the machine cool, and then try again later.

TWAIN/WIA errors appear when starting to scan.

Make sure the Brother TWAIN/WIA driver is chosen as the primary source. In PaperPort™ 11SE with OCR, click File, Scan or Get Photo and click Select to choose the Brother TWAIN/WIA driver.

Poor scanning results when using the ADF.

Try using the scanner glass. (See Using the scanner glass.)

OCR does not work.

Try increasing the scanner resolution.

Cannot install software or print.

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

‘Device Busy’

Make sure the machine is not showing an error message on the LCD.

Cannot print images from FaceFilter Studio.

To use FaceFilter Studio, you must install the FaceFilter Studio application from the CD-ROM supplied with your machine. To install FaceFilter Studio see the Quick Setup Guide.

Also, before you start FaceFilter Studio for the first time, you must make sure your Brother machine is turned On, and connected to your computer. This will allow you to access all the functions of FaceFilter Studio.

Removable Disk does not work correctly.

Cannot access Removable Disk from Desktop icon.

Make sure that you have correctly inserted the memory card or USB Flash memory drive.

Part of my photo is missing.

Make sure that Borderless printing and Cropping are turned off. (See Borderless printing and Cropping.)

Cannot print over the network.

Make sure that your machine is powered on and is online and in Ready mode. Print a Network Configuration list (see Reports) and check the current Network settings printed in this list. Reconnect the LAN cable to the hub to verify that the cabling 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 machine shows LAN Active for 2 seconds.

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

The network scanning feature does not work.

Firewall settings on your PC may be rejecting the necessary network connection. Follow the instructions below to configure the Firewall. If you are using personal Firewall software, see the User’s Guide for your software or contact the software manufacturer.

<Macintosh users>

Re-select your machine in the Device Selector application located in Macintosh HD/Library/Printers/Brother/Utilities/DeviceSelector or from the model list in ControlCenter2.

The network PC-Fax Receive feature does not work.

Firewall settings on your PC may be rejecting the necessary network connection. Follow the instructions below to configure the Firewall. If you are using personal Firewall software, see the User’s Guide for your software or contact the software manufacturer.

Your computer cannot find your machine.

Firewall settings on your PC may be rejecting the necessary network connection. For detail, see the instruction above.

<Macintosh users>

Re-select your machine in the Device Selector application located in Macintosh HD/Library/Printers/Brother/Utilities/DeviceSelector or from the model list in ControlCenter2.

The dial pad does not work when entering numbers or characters.

Use the touchscreen buttons to enter information.