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Canon imageRUNNER Error Codes List: Every Code Explained

Canon Printer display showing GUIDE — FixCode Guide error code graphic

imageRUNNER error codes are a technician's language: E codes with subcodes, defined in Canon's service manuals, organised by the machine system that failed — E0xx fixing, E1xx laser, E6xx storage, E7xx controller communication, E8xx fans. This guide groups the verified codes by system, exactly as Canon's manuals organise them, and is honest about the audience: an office user can read these codes, report them accurately, and know which ones must never be 'cleared and retried'. Almost everything past reading and reporting is service work on a mains-powered machine whose fixing unit works at fuser temperatures, and Canon's documentation assumes a trained technician with the service manual open. Read your code's system first — it decides whether you are looking at a heat protection trip, a worn consumable, or a dead board.

Safety first. Work unplugged. Canon's procedures consistently put 'turn off and unplug' ahead of any internal inspection, and covers should only be opened as far as the model's consumer documentation describes (carriage and tank access); everything deeper is service work, on machines connected to mains electricity. Inside a PIXMA, observe Canon MX922's labelled warning: do not touch the clear encoder film, the white carriage belt or the ink tubes during jam clearing and cleaning — the film is both fragile and a diagnostic component. Treat ink as a chemical consumable: wash skin contact, keep cartridges and MegaTank ink away from eyes, and never defeat the ink-out protection (holding Stop for 5 seconds to disable remaining-ink detection) as a routine — Canon warns that printing under ink-out conditions may damage the machine and accepts no liability for that damage. On imageRUNNER machines add heat and scale: the fixing unit runs at fuser temperatures (the E001 thresholds in Canon's manuals are in the hundreds of degrees), internal parts are service-only, and a copier that has tripped a fixing protection code should be left to a technician rather than repeatedly reset and retried.

How imageRUNNER codes are built: E number, subcode, service mode

An imageRUNNER error is displayed as a main code with a subcode — E000, E001-0001, E805-0002 — and the two halves do different jobs. The main code names the system and the fault family (E000-E005 are the fixing unit; E100 begins the laser scanner family); the subcode names the specific detection inside the family (E805-0001 is one fan, E805-0002 another). Canon's service manuals carry the full tables: each entry gives the detection description, the conditions that trigger it, and the remedy in parts order. The codes are also working documents — the machine's error history is reviewed in service mode, and after a repair the technician clears the stored error there: Canon's manuals specify COPIER > FUNCTION > CLEAR > ERR for the fixing family and many others. Two consequences follow for anyone who is not the technician. First, the subcode matters: 'E805' alone is half a diagnosis, and quoting the full string is the single most useful thing an office can do for its service provider. Second, clearing is part of repairing, not an alternative to it — the manuals pair every ERR clear with a corrected fault, and the fixing codes in particular are protection trips whose whole purpose is to stop the machine until the cause is gone.

E000: the fixing unit did not heat at startup

E000 is the fixing (fuser) unit's startup failure, defined in the iR ADVANCE 4551i Service Manual's protection table as a fixing temperature abnormal rise in which the main thermistor's reading does not rise to the specified value during startup control. In plain terms: at power-on the machine commands the fixing unit to heat, watches the thermistor for the expected climb, and does not see it — so it stops rather than run a copier with an uncontrolled or dead heater. The suspects live in one chain: the fixing unit itself, its heater, the thermistor that reports its temperature, and the circuits that drive them. Nothing in that chain is a user part; the fixing assembly is a hot, mains-connected service assembly. E000's behaviour after repair is also documented: the fault is corrected and the error is then reset in service mode (the COPIER > FUNCTION > CLEAR > ERR path Canon's manuals attach to this family). For the office, E000 means the machine is down until service attends — and the report to give them is the code, the subcode if shown, and whether it appeared at first power-on of the day or mid-shift, because a fixing unit that heats when warm but fails cold tells a different story than one that never heats.

E001: fixing overheat — the protection trip you never argue with

E001 is the fixing unit's overheat detection, and it is the most safety-loaded code in this guide. The 4551i manual's thresholds give its seriousness numbers: the main thermistor reading 250 degrees C or more continuously, the hardware overheating detection circuit operating, or the sub thermistor reading 295 degrees C or more (values are model-specific; the structure is not). This is the machine detecting that its hottest assembly is running away or believes it is — and its response, stopping with an error that requires service-mode clearing after repair, is the correct one. Do not treat E001 as a nuisance code to clear and retry: a genuine overheat that is reset and re-run risks the fixing unit and everything near it. Canon's field literature underlines the point from the other side — a service bulletin for the imagePRESS line traces some E000/E004 occurrences to a fixing heater cable connector with poor contact, which is to say these codes arise from real electrical faults in real heater circuits. The office procedure for E001 is short: switch off, leave off, call service, quote the full code and subcode. The technician's procedure — thermistors, protection circuit, heater drive, then ERR clear — is in the manual precisely because the fault is theirs.

E002 and E003: too cold — the fixing unit cannot reach or hold temperature

E002 and E003 are E000's mirror image: not too hot, but not hot enough. E002 is insufficient rise during warm-up — the 4551i manual's checkpoints are precise (the main thermistor reading still below 115 degrees after it indicated 100, still below 150 after it indicated 140). E003 is low temperature after standby: the machine warmed up, then could not hold working temperature, with the main thermistor staying below the manual's threshold (140 degrees on the 4551i) continuously. Between them they describe a fixing unit losing its thermal battle: a weakening heater, a drifting thermistor that under-reports, a control fault that stops driving heat at the right moments. The operational signatures differ — E002 arrives at warm-up, typically first thing; E003 arrives after the machine has been sitting in standby or during long runs — and reporting which pattern you saw helps the technician. Both are service codes for the same reason E000 is: the parts in question are the fixing unit, thermistor and drive circuits. And both carry the same warning as E001 in milder form: a machine that cannot control fixing temperature in one direction has a fault in the same assembly that controls it in the other, so repeated resets to 'get through the day' are not a strategy Canon's documentation supports.

E004 and E005: the protection circuit, and the cleaning web that ran out

E004 is the fixing family's protection-and-sensing fault, and Canon defines it slightly differently across generations — the 4551i manual calls it thermistor disconnection detection (watching even its connector, J214), while the older iR105 document defines its E004 as the heater-drive SSR short-circuiting while the main heater is on. Read honestly, both describe the same neighbourhood: the circuits that sense and drive fixing heat have detected an electrical fault in themselves, and the manual remedies run through the thermistor and connector to the AC driver and DC controller boards, closing with the service-mode error reset. E005, by contrast, is the family's one consumable: the iR105 document defines it as the fixing web having run out — the cleaning web that wipes the fixing roller is a finite roll, and its absence is detected for five seconds or more before the code sets. Its remedy is a proper little service procedure in itself: check the web detecting lever, replace the fixing web, check the web length sensor, and — the step that completes it — reset the FIX-WEB counters in service mode, because the machine tracks web consumption by counter exactly as a PIXMA tracks its absorber. An E005 ignored is a fixing roller being damaged by the dirt the web existed to remove.

E010 and E014: motor rotation faults

The E01x block is where the fixing family hands over to motion. E010, from the iR105 document, is the main motor rotation fault: after the main motor is switched on, its FG (rotation feedback) signal is not detected for two seconds or more. Canon's remedy is a model of service order — work the connectors first (the document names J611 and J612 at the motor, J514 at the DC controller, J1720) and only then convict parts, because a motor that is fine but unheard by its controller produces exactly this code. E014, from the 4551i manual, is the same pattern one motor over: unstable rotation of the Fixing Motor (M2), its drive detection signal absent. The shared lesson is that 'motor error' on an imageRUNNER usually means 'rotation not proven' — the motor, its drive circuit, its feedback signal and the connectors between them are one suspect list, and Canon's documents troubleshoot them in that order. Neither code is an office fix: motors and controller boards are internal service parts. But the report can be sharpened before the call — a code that appears at power-on (motor never starts) versus mid-run (rotation lost under load) is a distinction the technician will use, and it costs nothing to note.

E020: toner and density detection — the soiled-optics code

E020 is the developing system's detection fault, and Canon's own Symptoms & Solutions document for the imageRUNNER C2000 series is unusually specific about its neighbourhood: the E020 subcodes work around the toner level detection area — staining or dust on the dustproof glass the sensor reads through, the drum unit's coupling, and the developing bias contact spring. In other words, the machine measures toner density optically and electrically, and E020 says the measurement can no longer be trusted: the window it reads through is dirty, the drum/developing unit is not coupling as designed, or the bias contact that the developing process depends on is not being made. This is the closest the imageRUNNER code set comes to a maintenance code — its causes are contamination and seating, not exotic electronics — but on a production copier the units involved are still service-handled assemblies, and opening the developing path in an office usually spreads toner further than it fixes anything. The practical office response is to report the full subcode (E020's subcodes separate the causes Canon lists, and the technician will ask), note whether the code followed a toner or drum unit change — a coupling or contact cause announces itself exactly then — and let service clean and check the detection path properly.

E100 and the laser scanner family: when the beam cannot be proven

E100 opens the laser exposure family, and the iR105 document's definition is a small masterpiece of precision: the BD (beam detect) signal does not arrive within one second after the laser drive signal is generated, or is lost for one second or more while the laser remains on. The BD signal is the laser scanner's heartbeat — proof, every sweep, that the beam is crossing its detector. Without it the machine cannot know where its own laser is, so it stops. Canon's remedy order is the family's diagnostic: check the connections between the BD PCB, the laser driver PCB and the DC controller, then replace the convicted part among those boards and the laser scanner unit itself. The same Canon document carries the family's siblings, which put E100 in context: E110 is the laser scanner motor's rotation (its ready signal not arriving), and E111/E121 are the laser cooling fans' rotation faults. Together they describe one assembly — laser, polygon motor, beam detection, cooling — whose failures share a service route. For the office, any E1xx code is a hard stop with no user procedure; the full code and subcode, and whether copies fail while printing still works (or the reverse), is the report that speeds the visit.

E602: hard disk error — the machine's memory has faulted

E602 appears in Canon's service-manual code lists as the hard disk error, and on an imageRUNNER the hard disk is not a peripheral: it holds the system software the machine boots from, spooled jobs, stored documents, address books and settings. A disk fault therefore presents bigger than a print failure — machines may fail to boot fully, lose stored data features, or stop with E602 at start-up. There is no office procedure for it in Canon's documentation, and the remedy is what the code implies: service diagnosis of the disk and its controller path, typically disk replacement and a system software reinstall, which is why data matters before the visit. If the machine still runs in any mode, back up the address book and any stored documents the moment E602 first appears and before it worsens — after a disk replacement, what was not exported is gone. Report to service: the code, whether the machine boots at all, whether it followed a power cut or an office move (disk shocks and power events are the classic antecedents), and what data the machine holds that the business cannot lose. E602 is also the code that most justifies a service contract on its own: it is unfixable at user level and its cost is mostly in the data, not the disk.

E732, E733 and E744: when the machine's boards stop agreeing

The E7xx block is the controller-communication family. E732 is the reader communication error: Canon's service bulletin for the iR4570 series describes the DDI-S communication between the Reader (the scanner unit) and the main controller failing — the copier's top half and its brain have lost contact, so scanning and copying die together while the fault lasts. The C3500 III manual notes some E732 states are recoverable with a restart and log collection for Canon — worth one restart, no more; a returning E732 is cabling or board service. E733 is the printer-side twin, defined in the same manual as a communication error between the DC Controller PCB and the Main Controller PCB detected at startup: the two boards that run the print engine cannot talk, so the engine will not start. E744, from Canon's code lists, is the language error — the machine's language/system data does not match what its controller expects, classically after an interrupted software update or a controller/disk change without the matched data reload. All three are service codes, and all three reward accurate reporting: which functions died (copy/scan vs print), whether the code is constant from power-on or intermittent, and whether any software update or board/disk work preceded it — E744's story in particular is usually written in the machine's recent service history.

E804 and E805: fan errors — small parts, real protection

The E8xx entries verified in Canon's documents are fan faults, and they deserve more respect than 'a fan' suggests, because on a machine this size the fans are thermal protection for the electronics and the fixing area. E804, defined in the C3500 III Service Manual at subcode 0000, is the Power Supply Cooling Fan error: it was detected that the power supply cooling fan was locked. Canon's related parts are the harness between the low-voltage power supply PCB and the fan, the fan itself, and that power supply board — the remedy is to check and replace among them. E805 is the fan family's senior member: the iR105 document splits it by subcode, with E805-0001 the fixing assembly heat discharging fan (its lock signal detected for five seconds or more while the fan is being driven) and E805-0002 the separation heat discharging fan. A copier that cannot move air will cook its power supply or its fixing area, so fan codes stop the machine deliberately. Causes are mechanical and mundane — a seized bearing, debris in the blades, a harness fault — and all are service-access parts. The office contribution is, once again, precision: the full subcode names which fan, and whether the code followed the machine being moved or cleaned around (dislodged debris is a real pattern) is worth one sentence in the report.

Clearing an imageRUNNER error the Canon way: repair first, then ERR

Canon's manuals repeat one liturgy across this whole code family, and it is worth learning because it defines the boundary between use and service: correct the fault, then reset the error — in service mode, at COPIER > FUNCTION > CLEAR > ERR (with counters reset too where the part is a counted consumable, as the fixing web's FIX-WEB counters are for E005). The order is the doctrine. The error is the machine's memory of a protection event, and clearing it is the technician's signature that the cause was found and fixed — not a step an operator performs to see if the code 'sticks'. For the fixing codes this is safety doctrine, not bureaucracy: E001 is an overheat trip, and a machine whose overheat is cleared without its thermistor circuit being proven is a machine returned to service with its protection deliberately silenced. Office staff will sometimes be told a code 'can be cleared' by a power cycle — and transient communication codes (some E732 states) do sometimes clear that way, as Canon's own manual acknowledges. The line to hold is simple: one restart for a communication code is reasonable; repeated clearing, and any clearing at all of a fixing code, is service work being improvised. Canon's documentation never asks the office to improvise it.

Codes in this family we could not verify

In keeping with this site's rule that a code's meaning is published only when two Canon sources document it, the following in-scope imageRUNNER codes are named here without meanings, because their definitions were not captured from Canon service documents in this research pass. E012: named in research as a motor-family code alongside E010/E014, but not defined in the Canon text captured (E010 and E014 were, from the iR105 document and the 4551i manual respectively). E006-E009 and the E011/E013 positions in the fixing/motor block, the E2xx-E5xx blocks beyond the E020 detection family verified from Canon's C2000 Symptoms & Solutions, and the E6xx/E7xx/E8xx members beyond E602, E732, E733, E744, E804 and E805, are likewise not defined on this page: Canon's full service tables run to hundreds of entries and are model-specific, and a meaning quoted without its manual and model is worse than none. If your machine shows one of these, the correct route is Canon's own service documentation for your exact model, or your service provider quoting the full code and subcode — both of which will have the real table in front of them.

Key takeaways

Always quote the full code with its subcode (E805-0001, not 'E805') — the subcode names the specific fan, sensor or detection, and it is the first thing your service provider will ask for.
One restart is a reasonable test for a communication code (E732/E733); never repeatedly clear or retry a fixing code (E000-E005) — those are heat protection trips, and Canon clears them in service mode only after repair.
The moment E602 (hard disk) appears, back up the address book and stored documents if the machine still lets you — after a disk replacement, un-exported data is gone.

Resetting the Canon printer

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.

Frequently asked questions

What do canon imagerunner error codes mean?