Canon Printer Error Codes List: Every Code Explained

Every Canon printer error code we could verify against Canon's own documentation — what it means, what usually causes it, and the first fix to try — in one table. Codes differ between model series, so treat your model's tech sheet as the final word.

How to read and retrieve error codes on Canon printers

How a Canon code reaches you depends on the platform's display, and the display tells you which code language you are in. LCD PIXMA and MAXIFY models show the full support code (four digits, or alphanumeric like 5B00, B200, C000) on the printer's screen and in the computer's status monitor, together with a plain-language message on many models. LED-display PIXMA models cannot show four characters, so they render the same faults as alternating E or P letters with digits (E, 0, 4) and flash the Alarm lamp in counted patterns — Canon's manuals publish the translation tables (support code 1688 is E16 and 16 flashes on the families that use flash counts; P02 is support code 5100). imageRUNNER copiers show E codes with a subcode (for example E805-0001) on the control panel, with full detail held in service mode and error logs; the send function on imageRUNNER and imageCLASS machines reports its own #-prefixed codes (#751, #802...) on the Status Monitor/Cancel screen's job details and printed in the Results column of the Communication Management Report. First diagnostic act on any Canon: read the code in the language the machine is speaking, then use that language's table — never another platform's.

The complete Canon printer error code list

How to reset / clear error codes on Canon printers

Canon documents one general power reset for its printers, in the form given in Canon USA's B203 article and repeated across its support-code procedures: turn the printer off, unplug the power cord, wait at least two minutes, plug the cord back in, and turn the printer on. The LED-display manuals give the same motion in shorter form for undocumented errors (turn off, unplug, plug back in, turn on; if the error remains, contact the service centre). This reset clears transient internal states only — Canon's guidance is explicit for code families like B200-B207 that a code which reappears after the reset has given its verdict (there, likely print head hardware failure and service). Two standing cautions attach to the unplug step on Canon machines: on fax models (the MX line), unplugging deletes faxes stored in the printer's memory, so retrieve them first; and for imageRUNNER copiers, user power cycling is not an error clear at all — iR errors are cleared in service mode (COPIER > FUNCTION > CLEAR > ERR) by a technician after the fault is repaired, and repeated clearing of protection codes like E001 without repair defeats a safety function.

How to diagnose any Canon printer code

Work the problem in this order: (1) write the code down exactly as displayed — photograph it, because opening a cover or pressing a button can clear it, and note whether it appeared at power-on, mid-page, or when a job was sent, because printers report in families (paper path, ink or toner delivery, printhead or laser, firmware) and the moment of failure names the family; (2) decide which side of the cable the fault is on — a code shown on the printer's own display is the machine reporting on itself, while a message that exists only on the computer (a driver or "not activated" message) is the operating system reporting, and no printer part will fix it; (3) run the external checks for the family first: paper path codes get the full path inspected and cleared by the manufacturer's own route, ink codes get the cartridges reseated and their contacts cleaned, network codes get the connection the printer itself reports checked before the router is blamed; (4) clear the code the way the brand documents (usually a power reset) and print the shortest job that exercises the same function — one plain test page — while you watch; a code that returns at the same point is an active fault, not a glitch; (5) only then follow the brand's documented route for the component the code monitors. Counters are not faults to defeat: ink-absorber and maintenance counters exist because the parts genuinely fill and wear, and the manufacturer's remedy — a replaceable maintenance box where the model has one, service where it does not — is the fix, not a workaround.

One brand, three code languages (plus a fourth for sending)

Canon printers speak three unrelated code languages, and most confusion about Canon errors is really language confusion. PIXMA and MAXIFY LCD models use support codes — four-digit numbers and alphanumeric forms (1688, 5B00, B200) shown in full on the screen. PIXMA LED-display models use E and P letters (E04, P07, P10), which are not a separate fault system but a translation: Canon's LED page maps each letter code to the support code it renders (E16 is 1688, P02 is 5100, P10 is B200). imageRUNNER copiers use their own E codes (E000, E020, E805) from Canon's service literature — a system that shares nothing with the PIXMA E letters except the alphabet, aimed at technicians, read with subcodes in service mode. And the send function on imageRUNNER/imageCLASS machines reports #-prefixed transmission codes (#751-#899) that belong to scanning and faxing, not printing. Same brand, four tables: always decode a code in the language of the machine displaying it.

Support code, letter code, or lamp flashes: the same fault in different renderings

On models without a full display, Canon renders a fault in whatever the hardware can show: an alternating E/P letter-and-digit sequence on a segment display, or a counted pattern of Alarm lamp flashes on the simplest models. Canon's own manuals publish the equivalence tables, and they are exact — support code 1688 (ink has run out) is E16 on the LED page and a 16-flash pattern in the MG2525-class flash table; 5100 (carriage error) is P02 on LED models; the absorber states read 1700/E08 at warning and 5B00/P07 at full. Practical consequence: when a guide, a forum post or a support agent gives you a code in a different rendering than your machine shows, translate it through your own model's manual table before acting — and when you report a fault, report both your model's rendering and the support code it maps to, so the person helping you is working in the right language.

The ink absorber counter: 1700 warns, 5B00 stops

Canon's waste ink system is a counter, not a gauge, and its two-stage behaviour confuses owners who expect a sensor. Waste ink from head cleanings and borderless overspray collects in absorber pads in the printer's base; the printer estimates the collected amount from its own activity and reports it in two steps. First, 1700 (1701 on some models, E08 on LED models): 'ink absorber almost full' — press OK and keep printing, but Canon's text already says to contact the service centre, because the second step is fixed. Then 5B00 (P07 on LED models): the counter's limit reached, printing stops entirely, and Canon's documented outcomes are absorber service (pads replaced, counter reset by the technician) or printer replacement. There is no Canon owner reset for the counter, by design — the counter exists to stop the machine before saturated pads leak, and resetting the estimate without replacing the pads would remove exactly that protection.

The most searched Canon printer codes, in detail

5100 — Printer error: the print head holder (carriage) cannot move or cannot be tracked correctly. Canon's service name is 'carriage error'; its consumer procedure checks packing material, jammed paper and obstructions first, and on MX922-class machines adds cleaning the timing (encoder) strip. LED-display models show the same fault as P02.

The carriage is the moving assembly that carries the print head (or FINE cartridges) back and forth across the page, and 5100 is the printer reporting that this motion has failed or can no longer be measured. Canon's documentation covers the code at two depths that fit together. The service-manual name, from the PIXMA iP5200 generation, is blunt: 'Carriage error [5100]'. The consumer procedure, repeated across Canon USA's model articles (GX6020, G2260/G3260, TR8620 and others), opens with 'a printer error has occurred' and walks the physical causes in order: the print head holder's movement is impeded by packing material or tape left inside; jammed paper is blocking it; something is obstructing the paper feed path. Canon's MX922 article (ART140353) goes one level deeper and names the positioning system explicitly: remove any packing material, clear the paper path, clean the timing strip, and power cycle — and it warns you, with a labelled diagram, not to touch the clear film (A), the white belt (B) or the tubes (C) inside, because the clear film is the encoder strip the printer reads to know where the carriage is. Canon's LED page, defining the same fault as P02, states the encoder's role in one sentence: 'The printer detects the position of the FINE cartridge holder by the encoder film. If the film is smeared, the holder position cannot be detected properly.' So 5100 has two halves that a good diagnosis keeps separate: the carriage cannot move (something physical is in its way), or the carriage moves but the printer cannot see where it is (a smeared encoder film). The first half is the common one and the cheap one; the second half is why Canon's procedure includes the timing-strip cleaning that lesser guides skip.

Most likely cause: Packing material or tape left inside the printer — Canon's first check on every platform that documents 5100, and the classic cause on a new or recently moved printer: the orange tape and protective pieces that immobilise the carriage for shipping are designed to stop exactly the movement the printer now needs. A piece left behind — or one that worked loose and migrated into the carriage path — lets the holder move a short distance and then stop against it, which is why a 5100 on a just-unboxed or just-moved printer should be read as a packing story until the inside of the machine has been proven empty. Canon's MX922 article puts 'remove the packing material' ahead of everything else for this reason.

First check: Safety first, in Canon's order: turn the printer off and unplug it before opening it up. Never reach into a powered PIXMA, and never force the carriage by hand against resistance.

If it keeps coming back: A 5100 that returns days after a successful clear is usually the fragment pattern: a torn paper corner or a piece of label backing missed in the first inspection, migrating under the carriage until it jams the travel again — the second inspection, slower and with a torch, is the cure. The slower return, over weeks, is the film pattern: ink mist is a by-product of printing itself, and a high-volume or borderless-heavy printer re-coats its encoder film steadily, so a film cleaned once will eventually need cleaning again — Canon's procedure existing as a procedure, not a one-off trick, reflects exactly that. Returns that arrive with grinding or a carriage that slams its end stop are different: the positioning system is failing mechanically, and repeated returns there are a service case, not a cleaning schedule.

5200 — Print head temperature rise error

Support code 5200 is the PIXMA print head's thermal protection trip, and Canon documents it at two depths that agree with each other. In Canon's service literature its name is literal: 'Print head temperature rise error [5200]'. The MP800 manual explains the behaviour behind the name — the head's temperature is monitored while printing, and if the temperature does not fall, error 5200 is displayed; it clears automatically once the temperature falls. An inkjet print head heats its nozzles thousands of times per second to fire droplets, and the ink flowing through it is also its coolant, which is why Canon's consumer guidance for 5200 keeps returning to ink supply. Canon USA's MX372 article gives the consumer causes plainly: the remaining ink level is low, or the ink cartridge is defective — replace the cartridge, turn the printer off and back on, and if the code persists the printer needs service. On the G-series MegaTank and MAXIFY models, where the head is fed from refillable tanks through tubes, Canon's 5200 articles add the platform's own version of the same story: turn the printer off, unplug it, wait about ten minutes for the head to cool, plug back in, check the ink levels in the tanks, and if the code returns, run the 'Replace Ink in Print Head' ink-flush procedure that pushes ink through the head — a head starved of ink by air in its lines overheats exactly like a head printing on an empty cartridge. Read together, Canon's two depths describe one mechanism: a head that is firing without enough ink flowing through it gets hot, the printer stops to protect it, and the fix is always to restore ink flow and let the head cool — never to keep printing through the warning.

Most likely cause: Low remaining ink — Canon's MX372 article names this first: the remaining ink level is low. Ink is the print head's coolant as well as its output — every firing heats a nozzle, and ink drawn through the head carries heat away. A cartridge or tank running near empty starves that cooling flow while the head keeps firing at full rate, so head temperature climbs until the protection threshold trips 5200. This is why 5200 so often arrives near the end of a cartridge's life, or at the end of a long print run on a cartridge that was already low, and why Canon's documented first move is to check the level and replace the cartridge rather than to open the machine.

First check: Write down the platform before anything else: cartridge model (MX/TR class) or tube-fed G-series/MAXIFY. Canon's 5200 procedure differs between them, and following the wrong one wastes the cool-down.

If it keeps coming back: 5200 comes back when the head's cooling margin is consumed again: a replacement cartridge that is itself low-flow or non-genuine, a G-series machine whose tanks were refilled but whose lines still hold air because the ink flush was skipped, or a workload of continuous full-coverage printing that holds a marginal head at its limit. The pattern to take seriously is shortening intervals — a head that first tripped after fifty pages, then twenty, then two, is a head in decline, and the returns stop being an ink story. Refilling tanks without ever running Canon's ink flush is the other classic loop on the MegaTank platform: supply restored at the tank, starvation unchanged at the head.

5B00 — The waste ink absorber is full. The printer's internal waste-ink counter has reached its limit and Canon stops the printer until the absorber is serviced

Every PIXMA inkjet throws away ink on purpose. Print head cleaning pushes ink through the nozzles to clear them, borderless printing oversprays the page edges, and startup and shutdown cycles purge small amounts to keep the head primed. None of that ink reaches paper — it is collected inside the printer in the waste ink absorber: a set of absorbent pads in the base of the machine. Canon tracks the absorber's life with a counter that estimates how much waste ink the printer has produced, and the system has two documented stages. The warning stage is support code 1700 (1701 on some models): 'the ink absorber is almost full' — you press OK and keep printing, and Canon tells you in the same breath to contact the service centre. The full stage is 5B00 and its sibling numbers (5B01, 5B12-5B15 in Canon USA's TS4320 article): the counter has reached its limit, the printer will not print, and Canon's handling changes from 'press OK' to 'service required'. On LED-display models the same end-state never shows as 5B00 at all — Canon's LED page maps it to P07 (support codes 5B02/5B04/5B12/5B14), with E08 as the almost-full warning. Canon USA's dedicated article 'What to Do When Your Printer's Waste Ink Absorber Is Full' (ART177612) is honest about the economics: the absorber is an internal service part, replacing it means opening the machine and resetting the counter, and Canon presents the owner's real options as servicing the printer or replacing it — on an older, inexpensive model, replacement is frequently the rational choice Canon itself puts on the table. What 5B00 is not is a sensor glitch to clear: the counter is doing exactly the job it exists for, which is stopping the printer before saturated pads leak waste ink inside (and eventually outside) the machine.

Most likely cause: The absorber pads are genuinely saturated — The straightforward reading, and the one Canon's design assumes: years of head cleanings, purge cycles and borderless overspray have filled the pads with the volume of waste ink they were rated to hold. Heavy cleaning users reach it fastest — every deep cleaning is paid for in absorber capacity, which is why a printer that needed frequent cleanings (itself often a symptom of infrequent use and dried nozzles) can arrive at 5B00 younger than a lightly used machine. When the counter and the pads agree, the only cure in Canon's documentation is absorber replacement by a service centre, with the counter reset as part of that job.

First check: Confirm which stage you are actually at: 1700/1701 is the warning (press OK, keep printing, book service), 5B00 is the stop. On an LED-display model the same two stages read E08 (warning) and P07 (full). Do not let anyone sell you a 5B00 repair for a 1700 warning — or vice versa.

If it keeps coming back: After genuine absorber service, 5B00 does not 'come back' — it starts a new life cycle and returns only after another absorber's worth of waste ink, normally years. The returns that give 5B00 a reputation are counter-only resets: the code is cleared, the pads are still saturated, and the machine either re-trips quickly (when the counter re-accumulates) or, worse, starts leaking waste ink from its base while reporting nothing at all. The other return path is a printer serviced for the absorber whose usage never changed — weekly deep cleanings will fill a fresh absorber on the same schedule as the old one, so the pattern, not just the pads, is worth fixing.

6000 — Canon's service-manual name is 'Line feed error [6000]'

Support code 6000 sits at the seam between Canon's two documentation depths, and reading both is what makes it make sense. In Canon's service literature (the PIXMA iP5200 Service Manual's error list) its name is technical: 'Line feed error [6000]' — the line feed, or LF, mechanism is what advances paper through the printer one line at a time, in step with the carriage's passes. In Canon's consumer articles for current models (TS4320, G3270, G2260, TS3520) the same code is introduced simply as 'a printer error has occurred', and the procedure that follows is entirely about the feed path: check for jammed paper in the rear tray and inside the printer, remove any foreign material or debris, then turn the printer off, unplug it, plug it back in and turn it on; if the error is not resolved, the printer requires servicing. The older manuals add one more check in the same spirit: make sure there is no object in front of the machine and that the paper output tray can open. So Canon's consumer depth and service depth describe one event from two sides — mechanically, something has stopped the paper feed from moving paper as commanded; physically, in the overwhelming majority of cases, that something is a jam or an object in the path, and the printer cannot tell the difference between 'feed blocked by a paper clip' and 'feed mechanism failed' until the path has been proven clear. That is why 6000's procedure is an inspection, not a setting: the diagnosis is complete only when the whole feed path has been seen to be empty, at which point a surviving 6000 finally means the mechanism itself.

Most likely cause: Jammed paper in the feed path — Canon's first consumer check for 6000, and the feed system's most common enemy: a sheet that buckled on entry from the rear tray, a page that tore during a previous jam and left its lower half wrapped around a roller, or a multi-feed that wedged two sheets into a path built for one. The feed rollers keep driving against the blockage until the printer's sensing gives up and reports the line feed fault. The jam that matters is often not visible from the tray — it sits inside, past the rollers — which is why Canon's procedure says to check in the rear tray AND inside the printer, not just where paper is loaded.

First check: Turn the printer off before inspecting, per Canon's procedure — the feed check that follows involves hands in the paper path, and the power cycle is the end of the job, not the start.

If it keeps coming back: The returning 6000 is almost always the unfinished first clear: a paper fragment left wrapped low around a roller feeds fine for a page or two, then shifts and stalls the path again; debris shaken loose during the first inspection resettles into the gear side of the path; or the true cause was the paper stock — curled or damp sheets that buckle only under the feed rollers' pressure on some pages. The return that matters is the one with a spotless path and good paper: that is the line feed mechanism wearing or failing, and its returns shorten as the drive degrades. Log which pattern you have before the second call to service; it changes what they open first.

7700 — A platform-split support code. On TS-series models Canon groups 7500/7600/7700/7800 as 'an error related to the ink cartridges has occurred' (fix: replace the ink cartridges). On G-series MegaTank models the same group is 'a print head error has occurred'

7700 is the batch's clearest lesson in why Canon codes cannot be read without the model name, because Canon itself documents two different faults under this one number. On the TS-series, Canon USA's support article for the group 7500/7600/7700/7800 states the cause as 'an error related to the ink cartridges has occurred', and its procedure is a cartridge procedure: the carriage moves to the replacement position, the cartridges are replaced, and if the error is not resolved the printer requires servicing. On the G-series MegaTank machines (Canon's articles cover the G1230 and G1220), the identical number group — 7500, 7600, 7700, 7800, joined there by B20B — is documented with a different cause: 'a print head error has occurred', and the remedy is print head replacement, again with servicing as the endpoint if the code survives. A third Canon voice, the ij.manual page for the TR160, commits to neither: 7700 there is 'an error requiring a repair has occurred' — turn to the Canon service centre. These are not contradictions to average out; they are platform facts. A TS printer's 7700 is about its cartridges because on that platform the replaceable ink component is the cartridge; a MegaTank's 7700 is about its print heads because on that platform the heads are the replaceable ink-path component and the tanks are just reservoirs. The number is the same because Canon's code space is shared; the hardware being reported on is whatever sits at the end of that model's ink path. So the first diagnostic act for 7700 is not opening the printer — it is naming the platform, because the platform chooses the procedure, the part and the price.

Most likely cause: A failed or unrecognised ink cartridge (TS-series) — Canon's TS documentation for the 7500-7800 group assigns the cause to the ink cartridges, and its fix — replace the cartridges — tells you the failure mode it has in mind: a cartridge the printer can no longer work with, whether electrically failed, damaged, or exhausted in a way the printer treats as a fault rather than as the ordinary ink-out reports (1688). The group structure matters here: Canon gives 7500, 7600, 7700 and 7800 one shared cause and one shared procedure, so Canon does not distinguish which of the four numbers means which cartridge or which precise failure — the procedure (replace the cartridges via the carriage procedure) is the diagnosis, isolating the bad cartridge by substitution.

First check: Name the platform first — this code cannot be worked without it: TS-series (cartridge models), G-series MegaTank (tank models with replaceable heads), or another model whose manual gives the repair-required wording. Your procedure, part and cost all follow from that one fact.

If it keeps coming back: A 7700 that returns after the documented replacement means the diagnosis has moved one level deeper, in the direction Canon's procedures already point: on a TS model, a second cartridge in the set failing in sympathy (the group procedure replaces cartridges, and a set of the same age can fail as a set), or the carriage contacts that read them; on a G model, the head's counterpart in the machine — the carriage/board side of the head connection — since a new, correct head has eliminated the head itself. Returns are therefore service information, not reasons to buy a third part: Canon's articles end at servicing after one correct replacement, and a returning 7700 is precisely that endpoint arriving.

B200 — A printer error has occurred

B200 is the most feared code in the PIXMA line, and the first honest thing to say about it is what Canon itself says — which is deliberately little. In Canon's user manuals (the MX870 Advanced Guide is representative) the entry reads, in full substance: 'Error Number: B200 — a printer error has occurred. Turn the printer off and unplug the power cord of the machine from the power supply. Then contact the service center.' No cause, no owner procedure, no parts list: Canon treats B200 as a terminal hardware report, not a troubleshooting invitation. What Canon does add, in its other channels, is the direction of the fault. Canon USA's support article for B203 states for the whole range that if the error code B200-B207 reappears after a power reset, 'the print head hardware has likely failed, and your printer needs service' — and Canon support staff answering B200 questions on Canon's own community describe it the same way, as a print head error and a general internal hardware failure. Two popular claims need separating from that record. The first is the widespread description of B200 as a 'print head voltage error': that phrase does not appear in Canon's documentation checked for this page, and Canon publishes no voltage value, test or threshold for it — it is technician shorthand that hardened into folklore, and this site does not present it as Canon's definition. The second is the collection of button-press 'B200 bypass' rituals: Canon documents exactly one owner action for this family, the manual power reset in the B203 article, and anything beyond it is not a Canon procedure. On LED-display models, B200 never appears as text at all — Canon's LED page renders it as P10, with the same instruction: off, unplug, service centre.

Most likely cause: Print head hardware failure — The cause Canon's own channels name. Canon USA's B203 article states it for the entire B200-B207 range: if the code reappears after the documented power reset, the print head hardware has likely failed. The print head is the hardest-worked component in the printer — thousands of heater elements firing millions of times, in a hot, ink-wet environment — and B200 is characteristically an end-of-life report on a printer that has printed for years, often arriving after a period of degrading output (missing colours, streaks the cleanings stopped fixing) that was the head announcing its decline. On models with a user-replaceable head, Canon's service path replaces the head; on sealed models the same failure is a whole-printer service decision.

First check: Read the exact code before acting: B200 itself, or a sibling (B201-B205 have their own page here; Canon's range guidance covers B200-B207 as one family). On an LED-display model the same fault shows as P10.

If it keeps coming back: A B200 that clears on the power reset and returns within days is following Canon's own decision rule to its conclusion: the reset distinguishes a transient state from a failing head, and a return is the failing head declaring itself — typically failing progressively, so the intervals shorten (clears for a week, then a day, then not at all) as the head's remaining life runs out. Heat and workload accelerate it: long photo runs on a marginal head are the classic trigger for the next return. Once the return pattern is established, further resets are not a management strategy; Canon's guidance has already given the verdict the returns confirm.

Less common and model-specific codes

Search data shows owners also meet these codes on Canon printers: 1250, 300, 306. They are not part of the core code list Canon publishes for most models — several are series-specific, abbreviated display readings, or codes carried over from a sister platform — so we do not publish meanings for them rather than guess. Treat them by symptom: note what the machine was doing when the code appeared (filling, draining, heating, spinning), run one full power cycle (5 minutes off), and if the code returns, match the symptom to the closest documented family in the table above and check the tech sheet stored inside your machine for the model-specific definition.

Deep-dive guides for the most searched codes

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