Printer remains "out of paper"

Question

I have a HP P1005 printer. When it failed to pull in paper for a print job it showed the error "out of paper" (which is fine and expected). However I can't find a way to clear that error. Removing the paper from the tray and putting it back in doesn't return the printer to idle, nor does cancelling the job, or even restarting the CUPS service.

Answer 1

This appears to be a known issue in CUPS. Open the file /etc/cups/printers.conf and remove the line Reason media-empty-error from the config section of your printer:

...
<Printer P1005>
...
Reason media-empty-error               ← remove this line!
...
</Printer>
...

Save and close the file and restart the CUPS service:

service cups restart

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As a side note: HP printers have had issues with paper dust accumulating on roller surfaces over time since forever. The paper dust makes the roller surfaces smoother than they should be, thus causing problems with pulling in paper from the tray(s).

Years ago I learned a neat little trick to fix that: take coarse sandpaper and gently roughen up the roller surfaces. Then get some rubbing alcohol or (better) isopropanol, soak a tissue with it and wash the remaining dust from the rollers with that.